Chapter 4
1004 Words
The crack didn’t come in the form of shattering glass or a slammed door.
It came with silence.
With the way Bella moved through the house that morning, a little too softly. With how her hands trembled when she picked up her tea, then quickly steadied as though denying the fear outright. With the way Steven watched her, pretending not to see.
But he did.
He always did.
---
Steven waited until she stepped into the shower before making the call.
He moved into the kitchen, shut the door softly behind him, and dialed a number he hadn’t used in years.
“Hey. It’s me.”
A pause. Then a familiar voice, rough with sleep and something always halfway to anger. “Steve? You alive?”
“Yeah.” Steven rubbed his hand over his face. “Listen, I need a favor. Quiet one.”
“Talk.”
“There’s someone watching Bella.”
“Stalker?”
“I don’t know. It’s… off. She saw something, a few days ago. Some guys behind the market. Since then she’s been—different. Quiet. Scared. Flowers showed up yesterday with no name. Weird s**t. I’ve been feeling it too, like someone’s watching the house.”
The line crackled.
“You think it’s random?”
Steven hesitated. “No.”
“Send me the address. I’ll have someone sweep the place.”
Steven exhaled. “Thanks, Aaron.”
“Don’t thank me yet. If it’s what I think it is… you're not dealing with a stalker. You’re dealing with someone who already thinks she’s his.”
---
Bella stood under the hot spray of water, forehead resting against the cold tile. Her skin was flushed, her heart loud in her ears.
Something was wrong.
She could feel it crawling beneath her skin.
Yesterday it was the flowers. Today it was the sound of footsteps—light, deliberate—outside the bathroom while she undressed. They were gone by the time she opened the door.
Steven said he didn’t hear them. Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe she was unraveling.
But then—there was the dream.
The man again.
This time he didn’t speak.
He only stood at the edge of her bed, watching her sleep. A cigarette burning between his fingers. Eyes like glass. Unmoving. Waiting.
And when she screamed, he smiled.
---
That night, Bella found a note.
Tucked beneath her pillow. Her name written in crimson ink on the front.
Inside, in that same careful handwriting:
> “You were meant to see me, Bella.
You were always meant to run.
But I’ll teach you not to.
I’ll teach you how to belong.”
—X
She didn’t scream. Didn’t cry.
She sat on the edge of the bed, the note trembling in her hands, and waited until Steven came home.
---
When he did, she handed it to him without a word.
His face changed. His jaw clenched, and his eyes darkened in a way she rarely saw.
Steven wasn’t the type to panic. But Bella saw the shift. The switch.
“I want to move,” she said softly. “I don’t feel safe here anymore.”
Steven stared at the note again, then folded it carefully. “We will. But first… I need to know who’s behind this.”
---
Across the city, inside a marble-walled study lit by candlelight and the soft flicker of a fireplace, Xavier sat back in his leather chair and exhaled smoke through his nose.
She hadn’t screamed.
She hadn’t called the police.
She’d folded the note like a keepsake.
A hint of a smile tugged at his lips.
“She’s listening now,” he said to the man standing beside him—his right hand, Damien.
“She’s scared,” Damien corrected. “You’re pushing her.”
“I haven’t touched her yet,” Xavier murmured. “Fear is the beginning of desire. It teaches us how to crave protection.”
“And if she doesn’t crave you?”
Xavier's smile faded.
“She will.”
---
Bella barely slept that night.
Even Steven beside her didn’t ease the cold coil in her stomach. She stared at the ceiling for hours, her eyes burning, the sound of every creak and wind-shift sharp as sirens.
At 3:12 a.m., she finally got out of bed.
She stepped onto the balcony, wrapping herself in a blanket. The night was cold. Still. The city quiet in that strange, suspended way only possible before dawn.
Then she saw it.
A black car. Parked across the street. Headlights off. Windows tinted.
It hadn’t been there yesterday.
It didn’t move.
Didn’t leave.
Didn’t blink.
Her breath caught in her throat. She didn’t scream. Didn’t wake Steven.
She only stared. Eyes burning. Jaw clenched.
Because deep inside her—beneath the dread, beneath the confusion—there was something else beginning to bloom.
Anger.
---
The next morning, Steven found her sitting on the floor of the living room with a knife in her lap.
He dropped to his knees beside her instantly. “Bella—what the hell?”
She looked up at him, calm. “He was outside last night. Just sitting there.”
Steven felt like the floor had disappeared beneath him.
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“I didn’t want to scare you.”
Steven stared at her. “Bella… you have to tell me these things.”
She finally looked away, voice low. “He’s going to take me, Steven.”
“No. He’s not. I won’t let him.”
She reached for him, hands shaking. “Promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“If he does—don’t try to follow. Don’t do anything stupid. Just—just let me go.”
Steven cupped her face. “No. Don’t ask me that. I will come for you. I don’t care who he is.”
Bella wanted to protest. But she didn’t.
Because deep down, she already knew—
Whoever this man was… he didn’t lose.
---
- Writer
