CHAPTER 3 - The Watcher
599 Words
Dominic Valen.
Most people didn’t know the name.
They knew the title.
Don.
The man who controlled every shipment that moved through Arivella. Every crate, every route, every silent exchange that happened in the dark somehow, it all led back to him.
People who spoke too much about him didn’t live long enough to repeat it.
Cartels paid him tribute.
Governments avoided him… or paid him.
And people?
People feared him.
Respected him.
Wanted him.
Women threw themselves at his feet drawn to the power, the danger, the quiet promise of destruction that lingered around him.
Dominic never looked twice at any of them.
They were all the same.
Predictable.
Replaceable.
Boring.
Until her.
Elara Voss.
The first time he saw her, she was sitting in a small café tucked into a crowded street in downtown Arivella. Nothing about the place stood out. Not the chipped tables, not the low music humming in the background.
Only her.
She sat with her friends, completely unaware of the world beyond their table. Her head tilted back as she laughed unrestrained, unfiltered, real. Her hair was pulled into a messy bun, strands falling loose around her face as if they refused to be contained.
It was careless.
It was imperfect.
It was… captivating.
Dominic had gone still the moment he saw her.
Something unfamiliar stirred in his chest. Sharp. Immediate.
Possessive.
He didn’t like it.
Didn’t understand it.
But he didn’t look away either.
From that moment, everything changed.
It started small.
A name.
A background check.
A few questions asked quietly in the right places.
Elara Voss.
Age. Routine. Friends. Family.
Every detail laid out in front of him like a file waiting to be studied.
He should have stopped there.
But Dominic had never been a man who stopped.
What began as curiosity turned into interest.
Interest turned into fixation.
And fixation…
Fixation turned into obsession.
He hired private investigators.
Then replaced them when they didn’t move fast enough.
He learned her schedule down to the minute.
When she left her apartment.
What she ordered at the café.
How long she stayed on calls.
Which nights she couldn’t sleep.
It still wasn’t enough.
So he got closer.
Much closer.
The apartment next to hers was vacant for less than twenty-four hours before it belonged to him.
She never noticed.
Of course she didn’t.
Elara lived her life like she was safe.
Like the world wasn’t watching her.
Like nothing could touch her.
Dominic stood in the shadows of his darkened apartment, eyes fixed on the faint glow of light spilling from her window.
A slow breath left his lips.
“You have no idea…” he murmured.
On the other side of the wall, Elara moved blurred through the curtains, unaware of the eyes tracing her every step.
Unaware of the man who had already decided…
She was his.
Days passed.
Then weeks.
And Dominic watched.
Always watching.
Until the night everything changed.
The night she disappeared.
The city called it a quiet incident.
Unexplained.
Unimportant.
Another person lost in the noise of Arivella.
But Dominic knew better.
Because for the first time since he met her…
He couldn’t find her.
And Dominic Valen did not lose things that belonged to him.
The room around him grew colder as his expression darkened, something dangerous settling beneath his calm exterior.
“Find her.”
It wasn’t a request.
It was a promise.
And somewhere, far from his reach
Locked behind steel doors and whispered lies
Elara Voss waited.
Unaware…
That something far worse than the institute…
Was already coming for her.
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