Chapter 24 Cameras and protection

Chapter 24 Cameras and protection
Damien’s POV

The cameras never sleep and neither do I.

Every corridor in this mansion glows faintly with the quiet hum of surveillance. The kind of watchful silence that once comforted me. Now, it only reminds me of what I stand to lose.

On the screen before me, she moves through the kitchen, her fingers brushing the marble counter as though testing if it’s real. The light hits her hair in soft ripples, and for a moment, I forget to breathe.

Elara Martin. My wife, my threat.

My undoing.

She thinks I’m trying to control her. Maybe I am. But control, for me, has never been about possession. It’s about survival. Hers, and mine.

I lean back in my chair, eyes fixed on the monitors. There are eight angles focused on her. The kitchen, the hallway. Garden view, every breath, every flicker of emotion crosses these screens before they cross my mind.

I don’t do this because I want to rule her. I do it because I know what happens when I don’t.
Four years ago, I learned that lesson the hardest way imaginable.

A flash of memory cuts through me.

She was burned in her car, her scream swallowed by chaos, my father’s voice barking orders to cover it up. The headlines that followed were written with blood disguised as ink.

“Accident,” they called it.
But it wasn’t.

And now, watching Elara, I feel that same knife edge of dread sharpening again.

The same pattern. The same silence before disaster.
She’s being watched and it's not just me. 

That bug I found near the staircase wasn’t one of mine. Someone else is inside this house, playing a game they don’t understand.
And Elara, with her curiosity and defiance, is walking right into their hands.

“Sir.”

Adrian’s voice cuts through my thoughts. He stands at the doorway, composed as always, but his expression is tighter than usual.
“What is it?” I ask without looking away from the screens.

“She requested to go out,” he says. “Groceries.”

I glance at the monitor. There she is standing near the front hall, hair loose, clutching her phone like a weapon she doesn’t know how to use. She looks so damn small.

For a long moment, I don’t answer. Then I answered. “Let her.”

Adrian blinks, clearly surprised. “You’re allowing it?”

“I said let her,” I repeat, rising from my chair. “But she must not go alone.”

He nods once. “You want me to follow.”

“Yes, follow her and watch her carefully. Your eyes must not leave her.” I correct, my tone clipped. “From a distance. She can’t know you’re there.”

Adrian hesitates. “Sir, with respect, if she’s being monitored by an outside source—”

“I know.” I grab my jacket from the back of the chair. “That’s exactly why I’m letting her go. Whoever’s feeding on this wants her isolated. Predictable. If I keep her locked inside, they’ll find another way in. This way, we can control the variables.”

He crosses his arms. “You’re playing bait.”

I meet his gaze. “I’m protecting her.”

For a man who prides himself on silence, Adrian doesn’t hide his skepticism well. “Protecting her,” he says slowly, “or trying to convince yourself that’s what this is?”

My jaw tightens. “You think I don’t know what this looks like?”

“I think,” he says carefully, “you’ve started to care.”

The silence that follows feels heavier than the air in this room.

“Care,” I echo quietly. “That’s not what this is.”

But even as I say it, my eyes drift back to the screen. She’s stepping into the sunlight now, tilting her head slightly, eyes half-closed like someone who hasn’t seen the world in months.

Something inside me twists.

Adrian sighs, running a hand over his jaw. “If I’m following her, I’ll need details. Which car?”

“The black SUV,” I say automatically. “Keep your distance but close enough to intervene if anything goes wrong.”
“And if she notices me?”

“Then you’ve already failed.”

He smirks faintly. “Understood.”

As he turns to leave, I call out, “Adrian.”

He pauses.

“If she speaks to anyone, I repeat anyone, report it immediately.”

“Even if it’s harmless?”

“There’s no such thing as harmless,” I say.

When the door shuts behind him, the silence returns. I glance at the clock—9:13 a.m.

By 9:15, the car engine hums through the speakers of my private feed. I switch to the outside camera, watching as the SUV follows at a discreet distance behind her smaller sedan.

“Drive safe,” I mutter under my breath, as though she can hear me.

Her route is routine. Down through the main road, past the florist she always slows to look at, and into the little market near the waterfront. It should be mundane. But I can’t shake the unease that prickles beneath my skin.

I watch her step out of the car, a scarf tied loosely around her neck, sunglasses masking her eyes. She blends in easily. Too easily.
Something feels wrong.

I tap the comms switch. “Adrian. Status.”

“All clear,” he replies. “She’s inside. Picking up basics—bread, coffee, fruit. She’s fine.”

“Stay with her,” I say. “No blind spots.”

“Yes, sir.”

But the word fine means nothing anymore. I’ve seen how fast the fine turns into gone.

I take a sip from the cold coffee beside me, eyes locked on the monitor. Minutes stretch. Shoppers pass in and out. She lingers by a fruit stand, smiling faintly at something the vendor says.

It hits me then. How rare that expression is. She smiles like someone remembering how.
And that’s when the shadow moves.

A figure at the edge of the frame, hooded, slow, deliberate. Too still to be casual, too interested to be coincidence.
“Adrian,” I say sharply. “Two o’clock. Do you see him?”

“Got him,” Adrian’s voice crackles back. “Moving in now.”

My heart hammers in my chest as I watch the scene unfold. Adrian weaving through the crowd, keeping his pace measured. The hooded figure drifts closer to Elara, then stops when Adrian appears in view.

They hesitate, turn away and disappear into the blur of people.

Elara remains oblivious, paying for her groceries, tucking her hair behind her ear as she leaves.
Adrian’s voice returns. “He’s gone.”

“Track him,” I order. “I want footage pulled from every camera within a ten-block radius. No one gets that close to her without a reason.”

“Yes, sir.”

The screen flickers as Elara walks back to her car. She looks relaxed, unaware that she just stepped inches from a threat.
That’s the problem with her. She doesn’t understand danger until it’s breathing down her neck.

And I can’t tell her. Because if she ever learns what’s really at stake, if she ever learns what happened to the last woman I couldn’t protect she’ll run.

And she’ll hate me.

Maybe she should.

Because the truth is, I don’t just want to protect her. I want to keep her.

Not in chains, not in fear. But close enough that no one, not my enemies, not my past can ever touch her.
I rub a hand over my face, the exhaustion hitting like a wave. “You’re making mistakes again,” I mutter to myself. “Letting her in.”
But I can’t stop watching the screen.

When she finally pulls back into the driveway, relief floods through me like a drug.

Adrian’s voice comes through one last time. “She’s back inside. Safe.”

“Good.”

“Sir?”

“Yes.”

“She’s starting to notice the cameras. Sooner or later, she’ll realize how many there are.”
“I know,” I say quietly. “When that time comes, I’ll tell her the truth.”

Adrian hesitates. “Which truth?”

I look at the frozen image of her on the screen her hand brushing her hair away, her lips parted in thought, her eyes unknowingly looking right into the camera.

“That I’m not protecting her from me,” I say softly.

“I’m protecting her from them.”