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“What,” I said, flat.

“You want to hire the man you’re jealous of.”

“I want to leash the man I’m jealous of,” I corrected.

Vale stared at me. I stared at the feed.

My jaw clicked again.

Vale exhaled slowly. “You can’t buy instincts,” he said.

“No,” I agreed, still watching. “But I can buy loyalty, and I can buy routine, and I can buy enough proximity to know what he’s doing when he’s near her, which means I can stop guessing and start managing.”

On-screen, Kalon’s knee brushed hers again, small and deceptively accidental-looking.

Vale followed my gaze and made a quiet sound in his throat. “You’re going to start a clan war over a couch,” he said.

“I’m going to prevent a clan war,” I replied, because it was technically true. “If Kalon’s attached to her and some other idiot gets brave, he’ll kill first and ask questions never. If he’s on payroll, he calls us. He listens. We keep it contained.”

Vale’s eyes stayed on me. His mouth twitched like he might laugh and choke at the same time.

“You’re insane.”

I watched Liv shift on the couch, her hand lifting to rub at her face, exhaustion pulling at her, and Kalon leaned in like he wanted to say something soft to her, something private, something that would make her eyes do that little warm thing again.

Vale didn’t move for a long second. Then he sighed, long-suffering, resigned, like a man negotiating with a natural disaster.

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll vet him.”

“Tonight,” I added.

“Lux,” he said, flat.

“Paid is better than dead, Vale,” I said, still watching the feed like it was going to confess something if I stared hard enough. “Get it done.”

Vale stared at me a second longer, then nodded once.

“Understood.”

Kalon finally left, not because he wanted to, but because Liv needed sleep and he understood enough about boundaries to retreat the second her laughter faded and she started rubbing her face like the day had bruised her from the inside. I hated him for that too, because leaving when you’re supposed to leave was the kind of responsible behavior that made it harder to justify killing him out of pure jealousy.

The door shut, the lock clicked, and she settled into her apartment while my cameras kept feeding me everything because I had built a system that didn’t care about privacy or decency, only access. I should turn it off.

I didn’t.

I switched to the living room feed and watched her move through her space, alone now, slow and tired. Her shoulders dropped the way people softened only after the last witness left, and something eased in my chest that wasn’t peace so much as possession finally getting a room to itself. There she was, Liv, alone, my problem, finally, and the fact that my mind accepted that sentence without protest should have alarmed me more than it did.

The roses sat on the counter, and she stared at them for a long while with her mouth twisting like she wanted to argue with a flower before sighing and changing the water again. She adjusted the stems with careful fingers like she couldn’t help herself, like tenderness was an instinct she hadn’t managed to kill yet. I watched the small, domestic ritual with an intensity that would have embarrassed me if I had any shame left.

Liv walked into her bedroom, and I went to switch to the bedroom feed, then caught myself. I hadn’t installed that one. The hallway camera gave me the bedroom door from outside in the hallway. She walked out with something tucked under her arm.

My throat tightened. The book. I stared at the cover on the screen. I was her type, apparently, and I couldn’t wait to see her reaction to my . . . “improvements.”

That thought landed in my head and immediately started chewing through my restraint, dangerous like a match near dry paper, because the second I believed she might enjoy me, I stopped feeling guilty. Guilt was useful. Guilt kept the monster leashed. And now, the monster was smiling at an illegal camera rig . . . So, we’re doing this.

I tapped the desk and switched feeds again to Liv settling on the couch with the book, like reading about an obsessed, psycho man made her feel safe, and my pulse jumped—not jealousy this time but something sharper, something greedy, while I stared at her hand on the cover, mouth dry.

“Liv,” I murmured, “you’re going to ruin me.”