MY CRUEL PROTECTOR

Chapter 5: The Predator's Trail

POV RUBY

I woke up to the sound of the steel door closing from outside. The morning chill seeped through the cracks in the cabin, and the fire in the stove was now just a pile of gray, dying ashes. Nevan was gone. Probably patrolling the perimeter, or hunting, or simply leaving me alone with the echo of my own unfulfilled desire.

I sat up in bed, rubbing my arms. I could still feel the warmth of his hands on my waist, the pressure of his body against mine. My belly still throbbed with shameful wetness. I hated myself for it. I hated myself for being an art restorer who knew how to appreciate beauty in broken canvases, and for beginning to find it in a man who was pure rubble and violence.

I couldn't stay still. Curiosity, mixed with growing paranoia, forced me to get up. If Nevan wasn't here, now was the time.

I started with his tactical bag, but it was locked with a biometric code. I went to the small kitchen, rummaging through drawers in the hope of finding something other than tin cans and rusty knives. Finally, my eyes fell on the heavy wooden desk in the darkest corner of the room. It was an antique piece of furniture, out of place, with a bottom drawer that seemed to be stuck.

I pulled hard. The wood groaned, resisting, until with a violent click, the drawer gave way.

Inside there were no weapons or radios. There was a thick, unmarked manila envelope, worn from use.

My heart sank slowly and heavily. I took out the contents and spread them out on the dusty desk.

The air escaped from my lungs.

They were photographs. Dozens of them. And I was in all of them.

The first one was from three months ago. I was in the park, laughing with a coffee in my hand, my auburn hair tousled by the wind. The shot was taken from a distance, with a telephoto lens. I didn't realize anyone was watching me that day.

I moved on to the next one. Me in the lab, leaning over a 17th-century painting with a magnifying glass in my hand. Another of me entering my apartment at night. Another in the supermarket, choosing apples. There were photos of me sleeping on the bus, my head resting against the window.

I felt so nauseous that I had to grab the edge of the desk to keep from falling. These weren't photos taken after the crime in the gallery to "protect" me. They had dates written on the back in sharp, brutal handwriting.

August 14. September 2. October 20.

"He was there," I whispered, my own voice sounding like a stranger's. "He was always there."

I kept rummaging through the envelope. They weren't just photos. There were copies of my bank statements. My medical records. A list of my ex-boyfriends with red lines drawn through their names, as if they were eliminated targets. I even found a small piece of green lace ribbon, one I had lost in the park months ago and had searched everywhere for.

He had it. He had kept it.

I felt naked, exposed in a way far more violent than if he had ripped my clothes off. Every moment I thought I was alone—every time I sang in the shower, every time I cried over a glass of wine after a bad day, every time I undressed in front of my window believing the night was my only witness—Nevan had been there. Stalking. Watching. Harvesting my life as if it were a laboratory experiment.

At the bottom of the envelope was a handwritten note:

"Subject: Ruby Lane. Vulnerability: High. Status: Under surveillance. Order: Protect at all costs. Do not intervene until the breach."

The breach? Was he referring to the murder in the gallery?

The realization hit me like a sledgehammer. The crime I witnessed wasn't the beginning of my nightmare; it was the climax he had been waiting for. Nevan didn't show up by chance to save me; he was there, waiting for the exact moment my world would shatter so he could step forward and claim the pieces.

"Did you find what you were looking for, Ruby?"

The voice was like a whip.

I spun around so fast that the envelope fell to the floor. Nevan stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the gray morning light. He was soaked from the rain, his black hair plastered to his forehead, a dead rabbit dangling from his hand. He looked lethal, wild, and terrifyingly real.

"You've been stalking me," I said, my voice rising with each word. I grabbed a handful of photos and threw them at him. They flew through the air like wounded birds, landing at his feet. "For months! You knew everything! You knew Vane was coming for me, and you let it happen."

Nevan didn't flinch. He didn't even look at the scattered photos. He walked into the room, kicked the door shut, and set the rabbit on the counter with a thud.

"I didn't let it happen, Ruby," he said, his voice terrifyingly calm. He walked toward me, his boots crunching on the images of my own life. "I prepared for it."

"You're a psychopath," I hissed, backing away until the desk blocked my path. "You weren't protecting me. You were hunting me. You made me your prey long before that man pulled the trigger at the gallery."

He stopped in front of me, so close I could smell the rain and iron on his clothes. He bent down and picked up one of the photos from the floor: me in the park, laughing.

"At first, you were just a job, Ruby," he said, staring at my smiling image. Then he looked me in the eyes, and for a second, the ice in his gaze cracked to reveal something fiery, obsessive, and deeply disturbing. "Until you stopped being that."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about spending too many nights sitting in a car outside your window watching you brush your hair. I'm talking about knowing the sound of your laughter better than my own voice." He dropped the photo and grabbed me by the neck with one hand, not to choke me, but to force me to feel his heat. I didn't rescue you because it was my duty. I rescued you because I wasn't going to let anyone else lay a hand on you. You're mine, Ruby. Long before you knew I existed, you had already become my property.

Terror mixed with that treacherous electricity that always ran through me when he touched me. It was crazy. He was confessing that he was my stalker, that he had stolen my freedom long before locking me in this cabin, and yet my body tensed toward him, seeking his mouth.

"Why?" I whispered. "Why me?"

Nevan smiled, a cruel, flirtatious smile that chilled my blood. He leaned in, brushing my ear with his lips, his hot breath burning my skin.

"Because you're the only beautiful thing I've seen in this shitty world, sweetheart. And beauty is something that men like me don't let slip away. We catch it. We lock it up. And we keep it until it forgets it was ever free."

He let go of me abruptly and went to the kitchen to prepare the fire. I stood there, trembling among the photos of my past, realizing that Julian Vane was the least of my problems. I was locked up with a man who not only wanted to save my life, but wanted to possess every corner of my soul.

And worst of all, what terrified me the most, was that after seeing those photos, I no longer wanted to run away. I wanted to know what else he knew about me. I wanted to know how far his obsession went.