Page 151 of A Vicious Love

I need to see you.

Deleted with enough force the phone nearly cracked.

Baby.

I stared at that one for a long time.

Too honest.

Deleted.

I leaned back in my chair and looked at the six security feeds covering the streets around her ballet studio. That was not helping.

I kept watching anyway.

The Harlan Arts Quarter appeared across the wall screens. Front entrance. Rear alley. North side of the studio block. Street corner outside the cafe she liked. Gym entrance two doors down. Parking bay with the private driver zone.

I had started with one camera.

Security, that was the story.

Then one camera became six because the first camera did not show the gym door clearly, and the gym door mattered because Sienna had started training there on conditioning days between ballet sessions. Conditioning meant she entered in tight little workout clothes and came out flushed, completely unaware that half the men in a five-block radius should have had their eyes removed for looking too long.

The gym was a problem.

I had decided that at 6:42 a.m.

By 7:15, I had the ownership structure open.

By 7:30, I knew the primary owner had gambling debt through a third-party account attached to one of my casinos.

By 7:47, Reeves had been instructed to make an offer.

By 8:12, the owner had accepted.

At 8:31, I owned the gym.

That settled nothing.

Owning a building did not make it safe. The current staff needed review. The locker room camera sweep had to be done properly, not by whatever idiot company they used to check insurance boxes. The ventilation needed inspection.

The women’s changing area needed a second emergency exit. The parking approach was badly lit. The front desk let too many men linger near the protein fridges with no purpose beyond watching women leave classes.

I sent Reeves a memo with twenty-four corrections.

He replied within one minute.

Understood.

Now, I stared at the cafe camera.

Sienna went to the cafe every morning after barre when she had time. I had watched her do it twice this week, because apparently I had become the sort of man who knew the shape of her routine better than the shape of his own conscience.

She ordered a coffee with oat milk and cinnamon.

Sometimes she got a pastry, but only if the girl with red hair was working because that employee smiled at her and tucked an extra napkin in the bag. When the older man worked the register, Sienna ordered only coffee.

I did not like him. Because he looked at her too long.