Chapter Eleven

Cole’s Pov

I’d been standing outside Sienna’s apartment building for almost an hour before I found the nerve to move.

Four years. Four years of watching her from a distance, telling myself it wasn’t the right time, that showing up would only put her in danger. Four years of convincing myself that staying gone was the same thing as keeping her safe.

Tonight I’d finally decided it wasn’t.

I checked my phone one more time, rehearsing what I was going to say. Something simple. Something that wouldn’t scare her off before she even understood who I was. “Sienna, I know this is going to sound insane, but I need you to hear me out.” That was as far as I’d gotten in four hours of practicing.

I took a step toward the entrance, and that’s when the black SUV pulled up across the street.

I froze instinctively, years of habit kicking in before my brain even caught up. Two men got out, both dressed like they were trying too hard to look casual, both scanning the street the way people do when they’re watching for something specific.

I knew that look. I’d worn that look myself, back when I still worked for people like Victor.

I ducked behind a parked car and watched them position themselves, one near the entrance, one across the street with a clear view of the windows. They weren’t randomly loitering. They were watching the building. Watching her building.

My stomach turned over.

Victor had found her. Or he was close enough to be watching in case she led him to me.

I stayed low, moving along the row of parked cars, putting distance between myself and the men without making it look like I was running. My motorcycle was parked two blocks down, and every step toward it felt like it took an hour.

I kept glancing back at her window. The light was on. She was home. She had no idea two of Victor’s men were standing outside her building like they had every right to be there.

I wanted to warn her. God, I wanted to walk up to that door and tell her everything, tell her who I was and why I’d stayed away and why she needed to be careful. But if I did that now, with them right there watching, I’d be leading danger straight to her instead of keeping it away.

So I did the only thing I could do. I left.

I reached my motorcycle, swung my leg over, and pulled my helmet on with hands that weren’t quite steady. As I pulled away from the curb, I made myself look back one more time, just to check the window, just to make sure the light was still on and everything still looked normal.

That’s when I saw her.

Sienna had stepped out onto her balcony, arms wrapped around herself against the cold, looking down at the street like something had caught her attention. For one terrifying second I thought she’d seen the men. Then I realized she was looking at me.

I gunned the engine and took off before she could get a good look at my face, cutting down the side street and merging into traffic two blocks later. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat.

I told myself she hadn’t seen anything. Just a guy on a motorcycle, gone in a few seconds. Nothing memorable. Nothing that would matter.

I was wrong.

Sienna’s Pov

I don’t know what made me go out onto the balcony. Maybe it was the cold air, maybe it was just restlessness after a long day, but I stepped outside and looked down at the street below, and something about it felt off.

There was an SUV parked across the street that hadn’t been there earlier, two men standing near it like they were waiting for someone. I almost went back inside without thinking twice about it. People wait for things all the time. It didn’t have to mean anything.

Then I saw the motorcycle.

It pulled away from the curb fast, faster than someone just casually leaving, and something about the way the rider moved made me lean forward without meaning to. He wasn’t wearing a full helmet, just one of those half-shell ones, and as he turned his head to check for traffic, the streetlight caught his forearm for exactly one second.

There was a tattoo there. A compass wrapped in vines, wrapping around his wrist.

My whole body went cold.

I hadn’t seen that tattoo in four years, not since the last night I saw Cole before he disappeared without a word, before everyone told me he was gone and I needed to move on and stop asking questions. I used to trace that tattoo with my fingers when we sat together, back when things were simple, back before everything fell apart.

“Cole,” I said out loud, to no one, my voice barely above a whisper.

I didn’t think. I just moved.

I ran back inside, grabbed my keys, and took the stairs two at a time instead of waiting for the elevator. By the time I made it out to the street, the motorcycle was already turning the corner two blocks down, and the two men by the SUV were watching me with an intensity that made my skin crawl.

I ran anyway. I ran down the sidewalk, ignoring the strange looks from people I passed, ignoring the ache in my chest that had nothing to do with how hard I was running.

“Wait!” I shouted, even though I knew he couldn’t hear me, even though the distance between us was growing with every second. “Please, wait!”

By the time I reached the corner, the motorcycle was gone. Just an empty street, streetlights humming, the sound of my own breathing loud in my ears.

I stood there for a long time, staring at the empty road like it might give the bike back if I looked hard enough.

It didn’t.

I walked back to my building slowly, my mind racing faster than my legs had a moment ago. The SUV was gone too by the time I got back, like it had never been there at all, like I’d imagined the entire thing.

But I hadn’t imagined the tattoo. I knew that tattoo better than I knew my own hands.

Cole was alive.

He was alive, and he’d been close enough to see, close enough to almost reach, and somehow that made everything worse instead of better. If he was alive, why hadn’t he come to me? Why had he run instead of just saying my name?

I sat down on the curb outside my building, ignoring the cold seeping through my jeans, and let myself cry for the first time in years over a man everyone told me was gone.

He wasn’t gone. He was out there somewhere, close enough to almost touch, and I had no idea why he was hiding, or from what, or from who.

But I knew one thing for certain now, sitting there in the dark with my heart still racing.

I was going to find him.