Zane – POV
Zane Williamson had built his life to stay in control. He controlled markets, deals and people, even, if not with charm, then with leverage. He was the man in the room no one ignored, and outside of the room everyone assumed was untouchable.
But tonight, he felt watched. Not in the usual ways. Not by the press, or investors, or women with diamond smiles and knives behind their backs.
This felt different. The kind of watching you couldn't trace with a camera or explain away with paranoia. It clung to the back of your neck and didn't ask permission.
It pissed him off, truly.
He stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse, shirt sleeves rolled, tie discarded hours ago. The skyline glowed below, but his focus wasn't on the lights. It was on the black SUV across the street.
Parked, just idling, breaking no laws, but pissing him off. It was the second night in a row. It wasn't the same van Harris had flagged, but that didn't mean much. Smart predators switched vans. Changed skins. Wore new faces.
Zane took a sip of his scotch, jaw tight.
Behind him, he heard footsteps—bare feet, soft. Taryn.
"You're doing that thing again," she said.
"What thing?"
"That brooding billionaire thing. It's very Gotham of you." She came to stand beside him, arms crossed over her chest, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
He didn't look at her yet. He didn't want her to see how tightly he was wound. "They're still watching," he said. "Different vehicle. Same presence."
She glanced at the window, but didn't ask which one. She didn't have to. She knew. "Do you think it's him?" she asked quietly.
Zane nodded. "Yes."
Taryn wrapped her arms around herself. "Then he knows where I am."
"He always knew," Zane said. "He just didn't want you to know he knew. This? This is escalation." He paused. Then added, "It's a message."
She swallowed, her face unreadable.
Zane turned to face her fully. "I want to move you."
"No."
"You'll be safer at—"
"No," she repeated, firmer. "You think I haven't spent my whole life being moved? Every time something got dangerous, I ran. I'm not doing it again."
Zane stared at her. There was something raw in her voice, something fierce. She wasn't afraid. What he heard in her voice was a harness, a grit born of living through one's fair share of nightmares. It was the sound of determination.
He respected that. But it didn't make the feeling in his gut ease.
"Then we do this my way," he said. "You stay. You don't go anywhere alone. You don't take a single step outside without one of my men watching."
She hesitated. "Is this control or protection?"
"Both," he said. "And if you want to live, you won't argue."
She didn't. But she didn't smile either. She turned and walked up the stairs to her room, quietly closing the door behind her.
The next morning, Harris came up with a file under his arm and a look on his face that Zane didn't like. "Someone got into the building," Harris said. "Or at least tried."
Zane set his coffee down. "When?"
"Between 2:00 and 2:45 a.m. last night. Security caught motion near the service elevator. No breach, but we found something tucked under a janitor's cart in the sublevel stairwell."
He handed Zane a sealed evidence bag. Inside was a small, printed photo.
Taryn, on stage. From weeks ago. Before they met.
On the back, in careful block letters:
DOES SHE KNOW WHO YOU REALLY ARE?
Zane's jaw clenched. "Fingerprints?"
"Gloves. He's smart. Professional. He leaves no trace. Like a fucking ghost."
"I don't give a damn about his intelligence or professionalism," Zane snapped. "I care about motive. Is this about me, or her?"
Harris hesitated. "I would, at this point, say both."
"Then I want names. I want surveillance cross-referenced with plate scans. I want every freak who's ever been inside that club watched."
"We're on it," Harris said.
But Zane already knew this wasn't going to be solved with cameras or cash. Whoever was doing this wasn't just looking to kill. He was looking to wound.
That night, Zane didn't sleep. He lay awake in the dark, listening to Taryn's soft breathing beside him. She'd finally started using his bed instead of the guest room, quietly, without asking, like she didn't want to explain it any more than he wanted her to.
But he knew what it meant. She had accepted him, at least for now. It was strange, laying beside her, without doing anything more intimate. But this was how he knew it had to be. She was there because she felt safer next to him. She trusted him.
That scared him more than the threat outside, because trust was leverage. And leverage could be used against you. But still, when she curled into his side, he didn't move. He just wrapped an arm around her and stayed very, very still, like a man trying to hold back an avalanche with his bare hands.
Two days passed without incident.
The black SUV didn't return. The security footage from the garage stayed clean. No new messages or signs of forced entry. Just an eerie quiet. Zane didn't trust quiet. It always meant someone was repositioning.
This stalker, whoever he really was, had crossed a line by entering the building. But then he'd stopped. Like an animal backing into the brush, watching. Waiting.
And that made Zane more paranoid than if Charles had smashed a window and screamed his name into the penthouse walls. Predators didn't strike without planning. They circled their prey. They observed, looking for weaknesses. They anticipated, that moment when their teeth tore into flesh, ripping the prey to pieces.
So Zane did the same. He watched. He kept Taryn close. In a way, that was almost scarier than the predator lurking in the shadows. This woman right here in front of him. Sharing his life, sharing his bed.
He had to keep her safe. But he also had to question his own intentions. At what point did it become more than just a way of keeping her safe? He knew it was.
He just didn't know what to do about it. He was thinking about this the next morning, as they sat in the living room, the smell of fresh coffee lending a sense of normalcy and routine that the moment hadn't earned.
"You really think we can find him?" Taryn asked as she curled one leg beneath her on the leather sectional, a laptop balanced on her knees.
Zane sat across from her, papers scattered on the coffee table. An organized mess of incident reports, digital printouts from private servers, and notes from Harris.
"I think we can get close enough to corner him," he said. "And I think when we do, he'll make a mistake."
"What if he doesn't?" she asked, voice quiet.
Zane looked up. "Then we make one first," he said. "On purpose."
She didn't smile at that. But she nodded. A few minutes later, her voice cut through the silence. "Hey."
He looked up again.
She turned the laptop toward him. "This face. It's blurry, but this guy looks like the one I said creeped me out near the loading dock two weeks before we met."
Zane leaned in. The screenshot was from a city surveillance cam. Mid-30s, medium build, neutral clothing. Nondescript. Just your ordinary, average sociopath, blending right in like a chameleon.
Exactly the kind of face a predator would wear. "You remember him that clearly?" he asked.
"I remember how he looked at me."
Zane's pulse quickened. He flagged the timestamp, and as he did something clicked in his memory.
"I've seen him before," Zane muttered. "Not in person, online. Years ago."
He stood and disappeared into his office, returning a minute later with a hard drive. He plugged it into her laptop and scrolled through a compressed folder labeled Archived Incidents – Williamson Court Properties.
Ten minutes later, they found it.
Security Report: 2018 – Santa Monica Build Site.
Suspect Name: Charles Edward Collins.
Detained: No. Escaped perimeter. Matched to prior trespass arrest in 2012. No formal charges filed.
There was a photo, and it was definitely him. Thinner, younger, and smiling a little too widely.
Zane sat back, stunned.
"Who the hell is this guy?" Taryn whispered.
"Persistent," Zane replied. "And smart. I remember this incident now. He was caught photographing blueprints from the outside. Claimed to be an architecture student. He slipped through security before they could hold him."
"Why?"
"No clue," Zane said. "I let it go. We assumed he was a squatter, maybe a disgruntled subcontractor."
"Now you think he was watching you."
Zane nodded slowly. "I think he's been watching for a long time."
An hour later, Harris joined them.
Zane slid the tablet across the table.
"I want everything on this man. His history. His family. I want to know where he was born, who buried his dog, and what brand of cereal he used to eat."
Harris gave a sharp nod. "I'll call in a forensic profiler."
"And Harris?" Zane added.
"Yes?"
"Don't make it subtle."
Harris smirked. "Understood."