Her Obsession (by Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 10

Breaking Protocol.

Sage

The hum of the ancient motel fridge was louder than it had any right to be. Between that and the buzzing fluorescent light overhead, I was two decibels away from putting a bullet in something, preferably Yakov, but the fridge would do. I hunched over the tiny table in the corner of the room, plastic fork twirling limp noodles in a Styrofoam cup. The kind of dinner that screamed don’t get comfortable. This wasn’t home. Nowhere was, I’d made camp a good distance from his cabin, too far to be close, close enough to act if I had to. Conner had been unpredictable lately. Too bold. Too reckless. He needed watching. And that was supposed to be easy. Routine. Slip in. Wire up. Tap in. Monitor. But tonight… The screen stared back at me…blank. No feed. No sound. No Conner.

“What the hell,” I whispered, shoving the noodles aside. My fingers flew across the keyboard. 1 rerouted, back-channeled, refreshed. Nothing. No signal. He’d found them. He’d found me. I leaned back, chest tight, rage prickling under my skin like static. Fucking hell, Conner. You weren’t supposed to look. You weren’t supposed to be this… smart. Or paranoid. Or interesting.

“Goddammit.” I dragged a hand through my hair. I’d gone through the trouble of staying close, of keeping him safe without crossing that line, because there was a line, or at least there used to be. But now? I was alone. And he was blind. And that wasn’t acceptable. Not when I knew the hit was coming. Not when Yakov was circling. Not when I still didn’t know whether I wanted to kiss Conner or kill him more. He was a target. But he wasn’t my target. And for better or worse, I couldn’t let anyone else take him out before I figured out why the hell I felt like I already belonged to him. I should’ve left it alone. Should’ve let it be.

But the silence on the screen was unbearable. So I did the one thing I never do, I broke protocol…Again. I reached for my phone.

Typed the message fast, before I could think better of it:

Put my cameras back, darling. xx

Petty? Maybe. Pathetic? Probably. But I needed eyes on him. To track his movements. To keep him breathing. And if I was honest, which I wasn’t, not even in my own head, it was more than that. It was about him. His voice. His fury. His fucked-up sense of loyalty. He was the first thing in years that made me feel anything other than duty or revenge.

The reply came faster than expected:

Or what?

I blinked. My pulse skipped. That cocky son of a bitch. God, he really was going to make me lose it. I threw the phone onto the bed, paced the room, breathing hard.

“I swear to god, Conner…”

He wanted a game? Fine. But he didn’t know what it meant to play with someone like me. I snatched the phone up again, fingers trembling. not with fear, but fury. Or maybe something worse. Something softer.

“Don’t test me, darling. Put. Them. Back.xx

The silence that followed was sharp, pointed. I imagined him standing by a window somewhere, city light painting shadows across his jaw. Imagined his lips twitching, eyes narrowing. Imagined that cocky voice reading my message aloud like he always did with things that got under his skin. Then came his reply.

Just one word.

“No.”

I dropped the phone. It bounced against the carpet, and I sat down hard on the edge of the bed, breathing like I’d just run a mile uphill with a bullet in my shoulder. Why does he do this to me? He was reckless, arrogant, dangerous. He was mine. If I knew Conner and I did, he’d be in Nico’s office. The tech guy was good, but he wasn’t that good. So I hacked right into his computer, the same one I’d slipped through hundreds of times before. His firewalls were slick, aggressive even, but I was better. I always had been. He thought he was clever, encrypting everything in rotating key cycles and bouncing signal redirects. Cute. I recompiled the tunnel I’d set up months ago, a dormant backdoor I’d left buried beneath fake code labeled supply chain redundancy. It pinged to life with the faintest whit in my headset. I smiled, lips twitching as I pulled the tangle of wires closer. I put the mask back on, sleek, black, seamless and slipped the hood over my head. My fingers flew across the keyboard, rerouting the signal. The screen shimmered, then went dark for half a breath before it connected. Nico’s office. Static buzzed for a second, then the camera came alive. There he was. Conner. Lit only by the blue glow of monitors, his jaw was

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Breaking Protocol.

locked, eyes burning holes into the screen like he could will it to give him answers. He leaned over Nico’s shoulder, tall and sharp and simmering with frustration. I could see the tension in his posture, in the twitch of his fingers against the table. God, I missed him. But this wasn’t about missing him. Not really. This was about protecting him. Recause someone was watching him and whoever it was… they weren’t doing it for fun. They were too loud. Too messy. Careless with placement, sloppy with their code. Not like me. They didn’t want to just see him. They wanted leverage. Positioning. Patterns. They wanted something I’d spent years keeping out of reach. They were dangerous. And Conner? He didn’t trust anyone. Which meant he was working this alone, spiraling deeper into that beautiful, broken, brilliant head of his. I knew that look in his eyes, that hard-edged focus that made the world blur around him. He’d pull every file, replay every second of audio, dissect every blip in the network until his bones gave out and still wouldn’t stop until he had an answer. That was his way. Always had been. If he didn’t understand it, he didn’t sleep and if he didn’t sleep, he got reckless. So yeah, I wanted him safe. I needed him safe. And I’d gotten reckless for that safety. I never should have messaged him. Never should’ve said “darling,” even if it poured out of me like a second skin. I definitely shouldn’t be doing this. But I wasn’t there right now, not close enough. I couldn’t pull him out by the collar, couldn’t drag him back from the edge. All I had was code. And instinct. And a gnawing fear that someone else had just enough access to make a move before I could stop them. So I clicked the keys. Let the lines of command flow from muscle memory, keys I’d carved into habit long ago and then, I did the one thing I swore I never would again. I hijacked his screen. The camera feed blinked to life. Mine. Just a flicker at first. Just enough to catch his attention. My face was half in shadow, mask still on, hood up, eyes visible. So he’d know it was me.

I let the static crackle, then whispered through the mic.

“Hey, darling.”

Chapter Comments

Kirsten Reyntjens

K

1 days ago

1 Reviews >

omg this is so good, absolutely loving it. can’t wait to read more. Wonder what Conner will say.