Part 79
(Alex's POV)
The notification came in waves.
Mentions, tags, fan pages — all screaming the same impossible thing.
He's alive.
Adrian spotted in a countryside café.
Still handsome, still quiet, still ours.
Alex stared at the screen until the words blurred.
Her pulse slowed to a crawl.
For weeks, she had searched, retraced, hunted — and now the answer glowed on her phone in a thousand retweets.
There he was.
Hat low, sleeves rolled up, serving coffee like a man who wanted to disappear.
Her fingers trembled over the photo. He looked so ordinary — a stranger behind a counter — but she could still see it. The same precision in his movements. The same faint smile that never quite reached his eyes.
And for a second, her breath caught in her throat.
He looked peaceful.
The emotion that followed wasn't joy. It was rage — cold, quiet, blooming deep in her chest like a slow-burning fire.
Peace? After everything?
After she'd been left in the dark, blamed, erased?
No.
Alex stood up so fast the chair toppled behind her. The dim apartment was filled with the static of her own breath, shallow and sharp.
"Found you," she whispered.
She didn't post. She didn't comment. She didn't even like a single photo. That would've been too easy to trace.
Instead, she opened a map, searched the café's name — Moonlight Brew — and marked the route.
Four hours by train.
Two hours by car.
Her mind ran faster than her heartbeat, stitching together the plan: what to wear, when to arrive, how to stay unseen. She couldn't just walk in and scare him off — not yet. He needed to see her again on her terms.
She imagined the look on his face when he'd realize it — that no matter how far he ran, the world still led him back to her.
Her lips curved faintly.
Let the others scream, post, and chase the ghost of him.
She would be the one standing in front of him when the noise died down.
Because Adrian's peace wasn't real.
Not until she said it could be.
She slid her phone into her coat pocket, eyes glinting with that familiar, dangerous calm.
The train to the countryside left at dawn.
And this time, she wasn't coming to stalk.
She was coming to take back what she lost.