Callum hadn't slept in what felt like weeks. His face was a growing map of mosquito bites and stress. His eyes were shadowed like the haunted man that he was and his breath always tinged with liquor. He sat on the edge of a rust-eaten cot in an abandoned garage, fingers trembling as he replayed Alexa's voice in his head. Crisp and arrogant. Always in control.
He hadn't been close enough to overhear everything she said in that lounge but he could guess how the conversation had gone, seeing how things had been playing out in the media.
He hated that about her. He hated that she always walked away clean while people like him took the fall. While he burned.
Since the botched kidnapping, he'd been nothing but a ghost. A fugitive breathing through cracks in the city. He knew he couldn't show his face. He had gone too far from the stalking, the threats, to the night Evie woke up gagged and bound. It was only a matter of time before someone pieced it together.
