Next Day

The morning light was pale and cold, filtering through the windows like it didn’t quite want to enter. The world outside was gray, the sky heavy with clouds that hadn’t decided whether to rain. Leo stood in the doorway of the dance studio, watching Bella move across the floor.

She had been at it for over an hour.

Her body was tired, he could see it in the way her arms trembled, the way her landings were slightly off, the way she paused between moves to catch her breath. But she didn’t stop. She kept going, kept turning, kept reaching, kept falling and rising again. Her reflection in the mirror was a blur of motion, a ghost dancing in the pale morning light.

Samantha wasn’t even here yet. Bella was practicing alone.

Leo’s chest tightened.

She had cried in his arms last night. She had trembled and sobbed and clutched his shirt like he was the only thing keeping her together. He had held her until she fell asleep, her breathing evening out, her grip loosening and then he had left to oversee the investigation.

When he came back, she was already in bed, her face pale, her lips slightly parted. Jace was sitting beside her, watching over her like a guardian angel.

Now, less than twelve hours later, she was here. Dancing, smiling and acting like nothing had happened.

Leo didn’t know if he should be proud or terrified. Maybe both.

He stepped into the room, his footsteps soft on the wooden floor. "Are you okay?"

Bella stopped mid-turn, her arms lowering slowly. She was breathing hard, her cheeks flushed, a sheen of sweat on her forehead. Her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, and she was wearing leggings and an old t-shirt. She looked exhausted and she looked beautiful.

She smiled at him. A small smile, but a smile nonetheless. "I’m okay."

Leo didn’t believe her. He could see the shadows under her eyes, the way she held herself a little too stiffly, the way her hands still had a slight tremor when she wasn’t moving.

"Did you find anything?" she asked, walking toward him. Her steps were steady, but he could see the fatigue in her eyes.

Leo’s voice was low, grim. "Yes. It was related to your stalker."

Bella’s eyes widened. Her smile faded, replaced by seriousness and alertness. "What do you mean?"

Leo’s jaw tightened. His gray eyes darkened, the way they did when he was thinking about violence, when he was imagining all the ways he wanted to hurt the people who had touched her. "I don’t understand what he was trying to do. This seems like a warning."

Bella’s brow furrowed. "A warning for what?"

"I don’t know yet." He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated, the strands falling back across his forehead. "But I will find out. And when I do—" His voice dropped, cold and hard, like steel being forged. "I will find him and end his pathetic life."

Bella was quiet for a moment. Then she reached out and took his hand. Her fingers were cool.

"Then find him," she said. "But don’t let it consume you."

Leo looked at her, at her tired eyes, her calm gaze, her small hand wrapped around his. She was so calm. So composed. How?

He voiced the question aloud. "How are you so calm?"

She shrugged, a small, almost helpless gesture. "I don’t know. But I felt I should maintain calm. Because if we face a problem and panic, it doesn’t take us anywhere. But if we maintain our calmness, at least we can judge the situation without being swallowed by it."

Leo stared at her. He wanted to argue. He wanted to wrap her in bubble wrap and lock her in a tower where no one could ever hurt her again. He wanted to burn down the world until there was nothing left but her, safe and whole and smiling.

"I’m going to increase your security," he said.

"I figured."

"I’m going to cancel your classes."

"No." Her voice was firm, unyielding. "You’re not."

"Bella—"

"I’m not going to hide, Leo. I’m not going to let him win." She squeezed his hand, her grip surprisingly strong. "If I hide, he wins. If I stop living my life, he wins. I won’t give him that satisfaction."

Leo stared at her. His heart was full of pride and fear and love and frustration, all tangled together into a knot he couldn’t untie. She was braver than he was. She had always been braver.

"Fine," he said. "But you’re not going anywhere without a guard."

She smiled. "I never do."

He pulled her into his arms and held her tight. She hugged him back, her face pressed against his chest, her body warm and solid against his. He could feel her heartbeat, steady and strong. She was alive. She was here. That was all that mattered.

Then Bella pulled back and smiled again, bigger this time, realer. There was a spark in her eyes that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

"Now go find that bastard," she said. "I have a dance to practice."

Leo laughed. He kissed her forehead, his lips lingering for a moment, and then he left.

Bella turned back to the center of the room, took her position, and began to move.

Leo walked into his study room and closed the door behind him. The room was dark, the curtains still drawn from the night before. He didn’t bother turning on the lights. The glow from his laptop screen was enough.

He sat down at his desk and picked up the stack of documents his team had left for him. They were rushed, messy, written hurriedly without care for spelling mistakes or errors. But they contained the main points.

He read through them once. Then again. His eyes flashed with anger.

The truck that had chased Bella, the massive vehicle that had slammed into her guard car, that had tried to run her off the road, had been traced back to a shell company.

One of many, buried under layers of false names and offshore accounts. The shell company was linked to a network of other shell companies, a tangled web of deception designed to hide the true owners. And that network had connections to Pablo’s organization.

Pablo. The same man who had been causing problems for months. The same man who had been slowly, quietly expanding his territory, testing Leo’s borders, pushing boundaries to see how much he could get away with. The same man who had been linked to the stalker through a series of untraceable payments.

The black car with tinted windows, the one that had followed them through the residential area, the one whose driver had fired a gun at the security office, was harder to trace. Its plates were fake, stolen from a similar vehicle across the city.

Its registration was forged, created by someone with access to sophisticated equipment. But Leo’s team had found a partial fingerprint on the door handle, smudged but still readable.

It matched a man known to work for Pablo’s associates, a hired thug with a long record of violence.

The stalker had ties to Pablo.