Her Obsession (by Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 20

Tethered.

The water hit my back like a slap, scorching at first, but I didn’t flinch. I just stood there, palms braced against the tiled wall, watching the steam swirl around me like smoke from a fire I couldn’t put out. My thoughts drifted back to her, Sage, Specter, Ghost. My girl. God, I hated how natural that sounded in my head.

She had slipped behind my walls like it was nothing, walked through my defenses, both the literal and the emotional, with that damn calm of hers. Unbothered. Unapologetic Unreachable. But somehow, she saw me. Not just the Irish mafia boss with blood on his hands and a reputation that preceded him. She saw me, and she hadn’t looked away. That scared the shit out of me more than any mark or ambush ever could. I let the heat soak into my skin, hoping it would burn the tension out of my muscles. But it didn’t. It never really did. So, after scrubbing off the grime and whatever weight I could shake, 1 toweled eff, dragged on some sweats, and padded barefoot into the kitchen. The house was still too quiet, no gunfire, no arguments, no urgent calls. Just the hum of appliances and the low murmur of Nico cursing softly at his screen in the other room. Liam was likely doing inventory again, checking on the boys, maybe reworking our patrol strategy. I should have been helping. I wasn’t. Instead, I was standing at my stove, heating oil in a pan like it mattered. I cracked eggs, diced vegetables, threw together whatever was left in the fridge that didn’t look like a war crime. The motions were muscle memory, something human, something normal. But my head wasn’t in it. My mind kept flickering back to the way she’d said my name. Just once. Like it meant something

“Are you safe?”

Not where are you or what’s next. Just are you safe. She didn’t want thanks. Didn’t want praise. Hell, she didn’t even care about credit. She just wanted to know I was breathing. I reached for a plate and caught my reflection in the dark oven glass, eyes tired, jaw tight, hair still damp. I didn’t recognize that version of myself. Not really. That man looked… tethered. Like he’d found something he didn’t want to lose. I plated the food, tossed some onto an extra plate because I knew Liam and Nico would wander in eventually. But for a minute, I just stood there, leaning on the counter, eating quietly. Still shirtless. Still raw. She could get past all of this security, no problem. I knew that now. But the way she said it, if I can, someone else can, it wasn’t cocky. It was a warning. A gift, even. She was protecting me in her own twisted, distant way. And it made me want to tear the world apart to protect her right back. Even if she wouldn’t let me. I’d just sat down at the kitchen table with my plate when I heard footsteps behind me. Liam came in first, followed by Nico, both looking like they’d been up for three days straight, which, in fairness, we probably had.

Liam’s eyes landed on the food. “You cooked?” he said, like I’d performed an exorcism in the kitchen.

“Relax,” I muttered, nudging the extra plate toward him. “It’s not poisoned. Unless you count the week-old spinach.”

“Green stuff?” Nico asked, making a face as he grabbed a fork and helped himself. “You trying to kill us slowly now?”

“Wouldn’t be the worst plan,” I said around a bite. “No mess to clean up.”

Liam dropped into the seat across from me, letting out a groan as his spine cracked. “Honestly? This is the best thing I’ve eaten in days. Which is depressing.”

We ate in silence for a few minutes, the kind that felt easy between the three of us. Familiar. Safe. At least for now. Nico was the first to break it.

“She’s good,” he said, not looking up from his plate.

“Too good,” Liam added, eyeing me over the rim of his coffee cup. “You think she’s still watching?”

I didn’t answer right away, just shrugged. “Probably.”

Nico tapped his phone, then grinned. “Tell her to send more security suggestions. I’m learning more from her hacks than I did from my four years in cybersecurity.”

“She’s not your tutor, Nico,” I muttered.

“But she could be,” he shot back with a smirk. “Think about it. Ghost School. I’d pay tuition.”

Liam raised an eyebrow at me. “Still think she’s not yours?”

I paused, fork halfway to my mouth.

“She’s not a thing to have, Liam.”

1/2

“But she’s definitely yours,” he said, matter of fact. “The way you talk about her. The way you listen when she speaks. You don’t even do that for your

accountant.”

“I do listen to…

stopped, realizing I didn’t even know the man’s name. “Shut up.”

Liam chuckled and reached over to steal a piece of toast off my plate. I slapped his hand away.

Nico leaned back, staring at the ceiling. “So what’s next, boss? We keep tightening security. We lock shit down. But what about her?”

“I don’t know.” I admitted. “She doesn’t want protection.”

“Doesn’t mean she doesn’t need it,” Liam muttered.

“She is the protection,” I said, standing and gathering the empty plates. “And she knows it.”

I rinsed the dishes, watching water swirl down the drain, and spoke quieter this time. “But if she falls… we won’t see it coming.”

Silence fell again, heavier this time. More solemn.

Nico exhaled slowly. “Well. That’s not terrifying at all.”

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. Because in the pit of my stomach, that fear was already settling in, cold and sharp. She might be a ghost to the rest of the world. But to me? She was starting to feel like the only real thing I had left. It was late again, and I needed sleep, but I couldn’t shake the weight pressing on my chest. Like if I closed my eyes, I’d miss something. Like the second I let my guard down, it’d all fall apart. So I dragged myself toward the surveillance room, one more time, like a ghost on repeat. Then my phone buzzed.

Unknown Number: Sleep, darling. I’ll keep watch. xx

My feet stopped cold. Of course she would. She already was. I stared at the message for longer than I should’ve, my thumb hovering over the screen, the words sinking deeper than I expected. I’d barely known her. Barely seen her. And yet… the chaos in my mind dulled at the thought of her out there, hidden in the shadows, watching over me like some kind of avenging angel. So I turned around. I took her advice, because for some inexplicable reason, I felt safe.

Safe… knowing she was still out there. Watching. Like always.

Take Notes, AI Boy.

Sage

I made sure that Conner was securely in his room. Hopefully getting some sleep. God knows he needed it. His steps had been heavy, like he was carrying the weight of a thousand decisions, most of them made for other people. He hadn’t said goodnight, just gave the cameras one last glance like he knew I was watching. I was, I always was. Once I was sure the door had shut behind him and his phone had gone dark for more than three minutes, I started feeding prompts through to Nico. The little hacker prodigy was still up, still glued to his monitors, tapping away like caffeine and paranoia were his blood type.

Good.

The soft ping from my encrypted server hit his system and I watched as his posture changed, shoulders straightening, fingers freezing for just a second before he lunged at the new data packet like a starving dog. He clicked into it, and I gave a small nod of approval. He might be useful yet. He just needs a little help standing on the right edge of the knife. While he pored over the code I’d spoon-fed him, I stood up from my corner of controlled chaos and reheated a cup of noodles in my chipped black kettle. The steam rising smelled like processed regret and convenience. Whatever. It was hot and edible. Back in my chair, I took another bite, balancing the cup between two fingers while my other hand flipped through channels. Not entertainment, feeds. Monitors. Movement. I had eyes on everything. Conner’s house. His club. The safe house I’d turned into my own temporary war room. I’d set up three physical redundancies, motion-triggered fail-safes, and a drone stationed three clicks out just in case someone thought they were clever. I wasn’t taking chances anymore. Too many bodies had dropped already, and I wasn’t letting his be next. I opened another window on my screen, facial recognition scans cycling through everyone currently in his operations. Staff. Drivers. Dealers. Bartenders. Liam’s guys. Background checks, financial flags, digital footprints, anything that screamed anomaly or threat. I’d scanned most of them before, but now I was digging deeper. Anyone with access to Conner was a variable. And I didn’t do unknowns. I paused on one name, tapping my nail against the desk. A cousin, second degree, with an oddly clean record. Too clean. I marked it for further review and pulled up the feed from the alleyway behind Conner’s club. Motion. A cat. 1 exhaled. False alarm. Back to Nico. I typed three quick lines of code and watched him react like I’d lit a fire under his chair. He was catching on faster now. Good. If he kept up, I’d let him in on the patching protocol I’d designed. Maybe. I leaned back in my chair and looked at the still frame of Conner’s sleeping form, half sprawled, one arm draped over his stomach like even unconscious, he was guarding something.

“Don’t get too comfortable, Irish,” I murmured. “This peace is borrowed, not bought.”

I wiped my mouth with the sleeve of my hoodie and got back to work. Because somewhere out there, someone was watching me the way I was watching him.

Paranoia wasn’t a symptom, it was the only reason I was still alive.

“Ah… Ghost?”

The voice crackled through one of my earpieces, barely above a whisper. Nico. I switched one of my monitors back to the camera I had on him. He was hunched at his desk, looking around the room like I might crawl out from the ceiling tiles and stab him in the throat. I clicked into his mic feed and let my voice filter through his speakers.

“Yes?”

He jumped. Really jumped. I didn’t even feel guilty for smirking.

“Do you see this?” he asked, still wide-eyed, pointing a shaking finger at his screen.

A few keystrokes and I was looking at exactly what he was seeing. Someone was testing the perimeter. They were good, better than most I’d seen in months. A shallow ghost trace trying to break the handshake protocol we’d just implemented. It wasn’t a brute force attack. This was surgical. Controlled. Someone was probing, testing, trying to see how much we’d notice before they went deeper. But the thing about a new firewall? It bleeds curiosity. If you push too soon, it screams back. I watched the code flicker, rerouting attempts bouncing off the scaffolding Nico and I had built.

“Shit,” he muttered. “They’re poking at the architecture.”

“No,” I corrected coldly, already typing, “they’re mapping our response time.”

I was already rerouting the firewall’s echo responses, feeding false security protocols to stall the breach while I traced the inbound IPs. Whoever this was, they were careful, multiple proxies, location masking. But they weren’t me.

“You see where it’s coming from?” he asked.

“I’m trying,” I said, voice clipped, already stringing together fragments of digital breadcrumbs. “They buried it deep. Military-grade, possibly black market.”

1/2