She's wearing jeans and a sweater that probably cost more than most people make in a month, but it's her expression that stops me cold. Fear. Real, honest to God terror barely hidden beneath a veneer of Hollywood composure.
This woman is scared out of her mind, and she's trying desperately not to show it.
"You must be Finn McKenna." Her voice is exactly what I expected. Smooth, cultured, with just a hint of vulnerability underneath. "I've heard stories about you."
"Ms. Wilde." I keep my voice neutral. "I understand you have a problem."
"A problem." She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "That's one way to put it. Come in. We have a lot to discuss, and not much time to do it."
I follow her into a living room that's bigger than my entire cabin with white furniture, abstract art, and floor-to-ceiling windows that offer a panoramic view of Los Angeles sprawling below us.
It's beautiful. It's impressive. And it's completely indefensible.
"Nice place," I lie.
"It's a fortress." She settles onto one of the white couches, and I notice the way she chooses the seat that puts her back to the wall, her eyes on all the exits. "Or at least, it was supposed to be."
"Tell me about the threats."
For the next hour, she walks me through six months of escalating terror. It started with fan mail that was a little too personal, a little too intense. Then came the gifts. Expensive jewelry, flowers, and items of clothing that were exactly her size, even though her measurements weren't public knowledge.
Then the photos. Pictures of her taken from impossible angles, in places where cameras shouldn't have been able to reach. Her bedroom. Her bathroom. Her private gym.
"He's been inside," she says quietly. "Multiple times. My security team sweeps for cameras every week, but he keeps finding new ways in. New ways to watch me."
"And last night?"
Her composure finally cracks, and I see the terrified woman beneath the celebrity facade. "Last night he left me a message. Written in blood on my bedroom mirror. Just one word."
"Soon."
She nods, wrapping her arms around herself like she's trying to hold herself together. "I can't stay here, Mr. McKenna. I can't keep living like this, waiting for him to decide he's tired of watching and ready to take action."
"You won't have to." The words come out harder than I intend, edged with a promise of violence that surprises me. "That's why I'm here."
She looks up at me, and something passes between us. Some recognition, some spark of connection that feels sickening like her green eyes see straight into my soul.
"Frank said you could make me disappear."
"I can."
"For how long?"
"As long as it takes."
She studies my face, looking for something. Reassurance, maybe, or just the confidence that I can do what I'm promising. Whatever she sees must satisfy her because she nods once.
"Where will you take me?"
"Somewhere he'll never think to look. Somewhere I can control every variable, every threat, every person who gets within a mile of you."
"That sounds like prison."
"It sounds like staying alive."
The bluntness of my words makes her flinch, but she doesn't argue. She knows as well as I do that her stalker is escalating, that the message on her mirror was a promise, not a threat.
Soon.Soon he's going to stop watching and start taking.
