Page 25 of Torn By Fate

She was a good woman, someone with a gentle soul.

I wasn’t a good woman.

My heart was broken and my soul was tainted.

Me: Give the babies a kiss from me.

Arabella: I will. And Serafina?

Me: Yes?

Arabella: I meant what I said. Come to me. Whenever. Whatever. Promise me.

I looked at those words for a long moment. Then, I typed.

Me: I promise.

I set the phone face down on the mattress. For a long moment I sat in the silence of the room, listening to the hum of the hotel’s ventilation system and the distant pulse of traffic three floors below.

The chapter sat abandoned on my laptop, the cursor still blinking its patient, indifferent rhythm. The words wouldn’t flow tonight, and I knew better than to force it.

It was time to accept defeat. At least for tonight. Tomorrow was a new day.

I untangled my legs from the bedsheets and stood up, stretching my sore, aching muscles. The numbness in my legs slowly faded away.

The cream-colored carpet was thick beneath my bare feet as I walked to the window and stood there, looking.

Thud.

I looked for a long minute, my eyes searching into the unknown darkness of the night.

Thud.

He was there. I knew he was.

Thud.

I didn’t know how I knew. It didn’t make sense to me how I knew, but I just did. There was no figure standing in the shadow across the street, no silhouette in a parked car, no telltale glint of binoculars catching light.

It was almost two in the morning and the streets were empty except for one or two random passing cars.

I knew he found me a couple days ago. I felt it, the unmistakable sense of him… but then, somehow, I had been lucky enough to slip past him. I didn’t know how because Adrian Salvatore wasn’t a distracted man.

He was perfect in everything he did. Meticulous. Calculated. Precise.

Yet, I had successfully eluded him. I would be lying if I said it didn’t stroke my ego more to outmaneuver a man like Adrian. There was something intoxicating about knowing I could still stay one step ahead of him.

Again and again.

His defeat lingered on my tongue, sweet and satisfying.

I thought I escaped him, but now here I was in Brussels, and my husband had found me yet again. When I realized he had tracked me down again, I thought this time I was truly done for.

Only, he kept his distance, watching from far away, always invisible to my eyes…

Adrian had tracked me to this hotel, to this room, to this specific window where I stood in an oversized white shirt with my hair still damp from the shower.

He was here, but he wouldn’t come to me.