Her Obsession (by Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 64

Her Obsession.

I’ll Haunt The City For You.

Conner

We hit the threshold like a storm. Liam shouldered the door while still supporting Naomi, Matteo and the doc were already calling for saline and gauze, and I carried her straight down the hall. My bed again. Deja vu, except this time there’s more blood on the sheets. The second her back touches the mattress, the blonde is there, cool, composed, a blade in a pantsuit. She doesn’t look at the mess, just at me. A slim file and a burner phone appears in her hand like a magician’s trick.

I take it without thinking, fingers still tacky with Sage’s blood. “What is this?”

“Her week,” the blonde says, voice unbothered, accent sanded down to nothing. “Five contracts. Timed windows. Proofs required. I know it’s not the best time, but they must be completed. If they’re not, Yakov moves her to termination.”

The word lands like a hammer. Behind me, Matteo snaps his head up from Sage’s shoulder, where he’s bracing a pressure bandage.

“She’s in no fucking shape to be doing that,” he bites out. “She needs fluids and antibiotics, not…”

“Matteo.” I don’t raise my voice. I don’t have to. He grinds his teeth, goes back to taping, and the room exhales again.

The blonde doesn’t flinch. “Deadlines are stamped.” She taps the folder. “The clock doesn’t stop because she’s hurt.”

Of course it doesn’t. I open the file with my thumb. Clean pages. Clinical fonts. Targets in neat little boxes: headshots, last–known locations, windows, exit routes. There’s a red wax emblem in the corner of each sheet, a cheap flourish for a man who likes theater. Beside each name: “proof of completion, token image + dead drop.” Token requests vary, left cufflink, engraved lighter, wedding band, personal, petty. Yakov wants trophies.

Sage makes a sound, a thin hitch through her teeth, and the doctor says, “Hang another bag.” Matteo is already there, snapping the tubing, eyes flicking

between the line and her face.

+

“Pulse seventy–eight. Pressure’s crawling back,” he mutters. “Stay with me, Specter.”

The blonde watches everything without watching at all. “Are we clear?” she asks, and it isn’t a question. “The contracts must be completed.”

I close the file. “They’ll be done.”

She studies me, head tilting a fraction like she’s measuring what I didn’t say. “Correct proofs,” she adds. “Correct style.”

“What style?” I ask, bland.

Her mouth curves the slightest bit. “You know how she moves. Don’t insult me by pretending you don’t.”

We hold each other’s eyes for a long heartbeat. I see calculation there. And something like regret. Then it’s gone.

Matteo can’t help himself. “She needs seventy–two hours minimum. You people put her through hell.”

“Matteo.” It’s Liam this time, palm to his shoulder, a silent not now.

The blonde slides a card from the file, numbers stamped into plastic like an old hotel key. “Dead drop credentials. Upload proofs. The mirror site is live for seventy–two hours. After that, it burns.” She tucks it under the clip. “We don’t grant extensions.”

“Not asking for one,” I say.

She nods once. Business concluded. Then she does look at Sage. Really looks just for a second. It’s quick, a blink–and–miss–it fracture in the ice. She straightens. “I’ll return in two days.”

Two days. The same window Sage gave herself to disappear.

1/3

7:27 pm D

I’ll Haunt The City For You.

The blonde turns to go. At the door, she pauses. “Conner,” she says, like tasting the name. “Proofs must be… convincing.”

“I’m very convincing.” I tell her.

A ghost of a smile, then she’s gone, heels quiet on marble like she’s trained to leave no sound.

�:{

The room shrinks back to the living. The doc threads another line. Matteo swaps soaked pads for fresh. Liam slips out and returns with towels, hot from somewhere, presses one gently to Sage’s jaw to lift the grit. “Easy, lass,” he murmurs, unexpected soft.

I move to the side table, flip the file back open, and start reading like I’m memorizing a language I already speak.

Target One: Tobias Creed. South Brooklyn. Private dice game, midnight window. Proof: his grandfather’s silver Zippo, initials T.C. engraved. Upload: face visible, timestamp burned in cam. Notes: two bodyguards, one driver. Likes to cheat. Likes to be cheated more.

Target Two: Irina Belskaya. Midtown gallery opening, public. Proof: a torn corner of her invitation with blood. Upload: none, dead drop physical only. Notes: carries a ceramic knife in her boot, right side. Two floors, one freight exit.

Target Three: A banker with a taste for laundries. Target Four: a courier no one would miss. Target Five: the one that matters, buried beneath black redactions and a single line: “window flexible/proof discretionary.” The kind of vague that says the real test is the cleanup.

Matteo finishes a line and glances over. “You better not be thinking what I think you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking about dinner,” I say, and he snorts.

“You can’t fake her,” he warns. “Not the way Yakov counts. Not for long.”

“I don’t need long,” I say. “I need a week.”

Nico hovers in the doorway, hair wrecked, eyes feral from too little sleep and too much code. “If you’re going to ghost for a ghost,” he says, “I can spoof the metadata. Mirror her old EXIF patterns, bounce the drops through her usual lattice. But you’ll still need the tokens. Real–world doesn’t fake.”

“I’ll get the tokens.”

Liam leans on the doorjamb. “And the ‘style‘?”

I look at Sage. At the slope of her lashes, the stubborn line of her mouth even in sleep, the blood like rust drying at the edge of the bandage. I’ve watched her for three years. The way her marks end. The way her message reads.

“I’ve done worse with less,” I tell him.

Matteo shakes his head, but he doesn’t argue. He ties off the wrap and presses his knuckles to her wrist, counting beats.

“Sixty–eight,” he says quietly. “She’s climbing.”

The doctor exhales, “She’ll hold.”

I pick up the file and slide the card into my pocket. The weight of it is nothing and everything. “Liam,” I say, eyes still on her. “Pull four from rota. People who can keep their mouths shut.”

He nods. “Matteo?”

“I’ll prep a bag and a mobile kit,” Matteo says, already moving. “And you’ll wear gloves. No prints. Don’t get cute with the ballistic angles, keep them clean.

She doesn’t scribble.”

Nico’s hands fidget like he’s itching for keys. “I’ll seed the mirror. If the blonde checks the pipeline, she’ll see Specter’s ghost walking. For a while.”

“For long enough,” I say.

213

7:27 pm & D

I’ll Haunt The City For You.

I sit. The room hums around me, soft machinery and quieter prayers. Sage sleeps like someone clinging to the edge of a cliff, breath shallow, but there. I touch her hairline with the back of my fingers, feather light.

“You’re off the clock,” I murmur. “I’ll punch in.”

Her lashes tremble, the smallest flick. Maybe she hears me. Maybe she doesn’t. It changes nothing.

I close the file, stand, and tuck it under my arm like a promise. The house quieter than any house with this much blood should be.

“You rest, little ghost,” I tell the dark. “I’m going to haunt the city for you.”

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