Chapter 14 - The Net Tightens
1110 Words
Aria
The café still hummed with gossip long after Damon Cross walked out the door.
Jenny wouldn’t shut up. “Seriously, Aria, you have got to tell me who that was. He looked like he stepped out of a movie. And the way he said your name…” She fanned herself dramatically. “Do you realize you’re sitting on a gold mine? That man is dangerous-sexy.”
Dangerous. She had no idea.
“I told you—I don’t really know him,” I muttered, scrubbing at the counter so hard I thought I’d wear a hole through it.
Jenny’s eyes narrowed. “Not really, huh? That’s not how he looked at you. Girl, he looked like—”
“Drop it,” I snapped, sharper than I meant. Her face fell, and guilt stabbed me, but I couldn’t undo the edge in my voice. My nerves were shot.
The bell chimed again. My body jolted as if it were an alarm bell, but it was only a mother with a stroller. My pulse refused to calm.
Damon had walked into my world. My fragile, ordinary little sanctuary. And he’d poisoned it with his presence, with a look, with words that stripped me bare in front of Jenny and half a dozen strangers.
How long until he came again?
How long until I broke?
By the time my shift ended, the sun was sliding low and golden through the streets. Jenny waved a casual goodbye, oblivious. I tied my scarf tighter around my neck and stepped into the cooling evening air.
The city should have been comforting. The chatter of people, the smell of street food, the familiar cracks in the pavement. But all of it felt tainted, like Damon’s shadow stretched over everything.
My steps quickened. Every sound behind me was him. Every brush of footsteps, every car idling too long, every shadow that shifted near the corner.
Don’t look back. Don’t feed the paranoia.
But I did. Again and again.
No Damon. Not yet.
By the time I reached my building, my hands shook so hard I nearly dropped my keys. I forced a laugh at myself, a weak, brittle sound. This was insane. He wasn’t here. He couldn’t be.
Inside my apartment, I locked the door, then double-checked it. I closed the curtains. I turned on every light.
Normal. Be normal.
I made tea, sat on the couch, pulled a blanket over my legs. Pretended I wasn’t listening for footsteps in the hallway, for a knock at the door, for his voice curling around my name again.
I hated him. I hated that my body betrayed me, thrumming with a sick cocktail of fear and fascination. I hated that his shadow felt thicker than the walls around me.
And I hated the part of me that wondered what it would be like if he showed up again.
---
Damon
The bourbon in my glass caught the last red smear of sunset, staining it the color of blood. I swirled it slowly, savoring the weight, the fire, the control.
Across the room, the monitors glowed. Aria’s café, Aria’s street, Aria’s building. Grainy cameras, all feeding me pieces of her life. Not enough—but enough to know.
She thought locking her door and drawing curtains could keep me out.
It amused me.
Marcus stood stiffly near my desk, holding out a stack of contracts. “The real estate firm confirmed, Mr. Cross. The deed transfer will be complete by the end of the week.”
“Good,” I murmured. My gaze stayed on the screen where Aria paced her tiny apartment, hugging herself, flicking lights on and off like talismans. She didn’t know she lived in a cage I already owned.
“You intend to… reside there?” Marcus asked carefully.
I chuckled, a low dangerous sound. “No. She will.”
Confusion flickered in his eyes, but Marcus was too smart to press.
He left, silent as always.
Alone, I let my thoughts unfurl.
Why her?
I’d asked myself the question more than once. There were hundreds of women who would crawl into my bed with a whisper of my name. Thousands who would break themselves into pieces for a taste of my wealth, my power, my touch.
But Aria Morgan—she resisted. She feared me, hated me, yet something in her gaze betrayed a flame she couldn’t smother.
She was mine not because I demanded it. She was mine because some part of her would never stop wondering.
And I would feed that curiosity until it devoured her.
I drained the bourbon, set the glass aside, and typed a message to my investigator.
“She has friends. Coworkers. I want everything. Names, habits, weaknesses. No detail is too small.”
If I couldn’t step fully into her life yet, I would pull it apart thread by thread. Until the only constant, the only safe harbor she had left—was me.
---
Aria
The tea had gone cold.
I sat in the quiet of my apartment, staring at the steamless mug, replaying Damon’s words at the café like a scratched record. You think you can hide in routine, little flame? That coffee and powdered sugar will protect you? I’ll burn through it all.
Burn. That was exactly what he was doing. Slow, relentless, consuming.
My phone buzzed. My heart leapt, stupidly, traitorously—like it might be him.
It was Jenny. “Movie night tomorrow? You need a distraction.”
I almost said no. Almost told her I couldn’t. But the thought of sitting alone again, listening for footsteps, made me type yes.
A distraction. Maybe it would remind me I still had control of something.
I shoved the phone aside, pulled my blanket tighter, and whispered into the empty room, “You don’t own me.”
But even in the silence, it felt like Damon was smiling.
---
Damon
Past midnight, the city slept. I didn’t.
The screens flickered, but I wasn’t watching them. I already knew her routines, her patterns, her fragile attempts at normal.
What mattered was the next move.
Control wasn’t about force. Not yet. It was about inevitability. About surrounding her until she realized resistance wasn’t survival—it was suicide.
I tapped a finger against the desk, considering. Buying her apartment was only the first thread pulled. Next came her work. Her friends. The little distractions she thought would keep her sane.
I would cut them away, one by one.
And when there was nothing left but me, she would finally understand.
The net was tightening.
And Aria Morgan had no idea how little time she had left.
- Writer
