Claimed by my next door neighbour

Chapter 8: You can run but you can't hide

Felix POV

I hit the gap in the fence at a full sprint, metal scraping against my jacket as I forced myself through the narrow tear, and didn't stop moving until I felt open pavement under my boots again.

Eleven fifty three.

Seven minutes. Seven minutes to find whatever was supposed to be waiting for me on this dock, because if it wasn't here, I was as good as caught.

The shouting behind me hadn't stopped. If anything it got closer.

Fuck. I could feel them closing in.

I ducked between two containers, chest heaving, blood drying sticky across my knuckles. My eyes scanned the water ahead, desperate for anything that looked like a way out.

There. A single boat, engine idling low, lights dimmed almost to nothing. A man stood at the helm, watching the dock with a patience that said he'd been waiting exactly for someone like me to come tearing out of the dark.

I didn't slow down until I was close enough to see his face.

"You Felix?" he asked, voice low, already reaching out to haul me over the side.

"Leo sent me. Name's Matthew." He hauled me aboard without waiting for me to finish deciding whether I trusted him, and the second my feet hit the deck he was already pushing the throttle forward. "He said you'd probably be in a hurry."

"He wasn't wrong."

Behind us, more men ran onto the dock, but they were too far away now to do anything but watch us pull away. Someone shouted. I didn't bother turning around to see who.

"We'll be using the water taxi route," I said, still catching my breath. "Straight through the lagoon, docks right at the airport terminal."

"That's the plan," Matthew cut in, angling the boat hard, cutting a wide arc away from the shoreline, spray kicking up cold and sharp against my face. "Twenty minutes, maybe thirty if the lagoon's busy tonight. We hit the canal track, dock at the covered pier, then it's a straight walk from there. Moving walkway takes you right to departures."

"Fast."

"Fast enough that nobody's catching us out here." He glanced back once at the shrinking dock behind us. "Open water. No roads to follow, no traffic to sit in. That's the whole point."

"Yeah." I let out a tired, exhausted breath, sitting down hard on the bench seat, head dropping back. My lungs were only just starting to catch up with everything I'd put them through. "Good."

He didn't say anything else for a while, just kept the throttle steady, cutting through the dark water with the kind of ease that told me he'd done this exact run more than once.

I let myself believe it would be enough for exactly as long as it took the shoreline to shrink into a smear of light behind us.

The ride didn't take twenty minutes. It took closer to twenty five, the small water taxi cutting hard through the open lagoon before easing into the narrow canal track that led straight to the airport's covered pier. Matthew handled the whole thing without a single wasted word, docking smooth and fast, already waving me toward the moving walkway before the boat had fully stopped rocking.

"Straight through," he said. "Terminal's maybe eight minutes on foot from here. Jet's already cleared for departure."

I didn't ask how Jack had managed that on such short notice. I'd learned a long time ago not to question the things that worked.

Matthew didn't ask questions either, the entire ride, not about the men on the dock, not about the blood still drying on my knuckles, not about why I'd needed to disappear in the first place. I appreciated that more than I said out loud.

By the time I settled into my seat on the private jet, exhaustion finally caught up with me. My body ached in places I hadn't noticed during the fight. My eyes burned from what felt like weeks of barely sleeping. I couldn't remember the last time I'd actually slept through a night without something dragging me back awake.

The plane touched down just after three in the morning, wheels hitting the runway with a jolt that finally pulled me all the way out of whatever half sleep I'd managed. Through the small window, the airstrip looked practically empty, just a few ground lights cutting through the dark and a lone figure waiting near a car parked close to the tarmac.

He introduced himself simply as a driver, no name attached, and led me straight from the plane to a black sedan waiting nearby.

"This way please, Mr. Luciano," was all he said, holding the door open.

I didn't ask questions. I was too tired to care who he worked for, as long as he got me where I needed to go.

The drive was short, maybe fifteen minutes through empty streets, the city passing by in a blur of gray buildings and quiet, sleeping windows.

The penthouse Leo arranged was better than I expected, top floor, clean lines, floor to ceiling windows already catching the first gray hints of morning light bleeding over the skyline. Minimal furniture, everything deliberately unremarkable, the kind of place designed to be forgotten the moment you left it.

I dropped my bag by the door and had barely made it two steps inside when my phone buzzed.

Leo.

I answered without much energy left in my voice. "Yeah."

"You landed?" His voice came through fast, clipped, the particular urgency he only used when he actually meant it. "Please tell me you landed."

"I landed."

"Thank god." I heard him exhale hard on the other end, some tension leaving his voice all at once. "You had me worried, Felix. Matthew said it got messy back there."

"It got messy."

"You okay?"

I looked around the penthouse, at the quiet and the space and the complete absence of anyone who might actually be looking for me here. For now.

"I'm fine," I said. "Tired. But fine.”

I didn't unpack right away. I sat at the small kitchen table instead, laptop open, running the same security sweep I always ran the second I landed anywhere new. Force of habit. 

An hour into it, I found something.

Buried three layers deep in a log I almost skipped over entirely, a fragment of code sat where it had no business being. Small. Elegant. The kind of intrusion that didn't scream for attention because it wasn't built to be found by someone sloppy.

A tracker had been planted.

My pulse picked up, cold instead of hot this time, and I leaned in closer, cross referencing the fragment against every signature I had on file, the specific rhythm certain hackers left behind without meaning to. Everyone had one, whether they knew it or not. Mine included.

This one felt familiar in a way that made my skin crawl.

I was three seconds from confirming it when my phone rang, loud and sudden in the quiet penthouse.

Unknown number.

I let it ring out, eyes still on the screen, still chasing the last piece of the comparison.

It rang again almost immediately.

I picked up this time, distracted, half my attention still on the laptop.

 "Hello?"

Silence for a beat. Then a voice, low, familiar in a way I couldn't place fast enough to brace for it.

"Uhm... it's Renato."

My hand went still over the keyboard.

"How did you get this number."

"You gave it to me. Remember?" A soft, low laugh followed. "So... can't sleep?"

"How would you know that."

"Educated guess." A pause. "Anyway. I was calling about breakfast."

"Breakfast." I glanced at the time on my screen. Four in the morning. I had to do the math fast, Italy was an hour behind, which meant it was barely 3 there. Early, but not early enough to raise questions if I played it right

 "It's three in the morning, Renato."

"And who calls about breakfast at three in the morning? Fair point." He didn't sound the least bit apologetic. "And who picks up a call at three in the morning?"

I didn't have a good answer for that one.

He had no idea I was thousands of miles from his building, thousands of miles from any excuse I might've needed. I'd left without a word, and as far as he knew I was probably still just a few floors down, avoiding him out of stubbornness instead of geography.

Good. Let him think that.

"I'm busy," I said instead, keeping my voice flat.

"At three in the morning."

"I have a life, Renato."

"Never said you didn't." Something in his voice shifted, still light but quieter now. "Just checking in. Wasn't sure you'd even pick up."

"I almost didn't."

"I noticed. Took you two tries."

I didn't have anything clever to say to that, so I didn't try.

"I should sleep," I said instead.

"You should," he agreed. "Goodnight, kitten."

He hung up before I could tell him not to call me that.

I sat there for a long moment, phone still in my hand, feeling ridiculous and unsettled and entirely too warm in the face for someone who'd just been hunted through a foreign dock four hours ago.

——

Renato POV:

The call came in just past midnight, my phone lighting up with a name I'd been expecting for hours.

"Talk," I said, already standing from my desk.

"He made it to Finland. Helsinki. We tracked the flight, confirmed the address about twenty minutes ago."  A pause, careful, the way my men always paced their words when the news might not land the way they expected. "He's alone. No further contact with anyone outside a call to someone named Leo, and one boat driver who dropped him at the airstrip."

I let that settle, something warm and dangerous curling low in my chest.

"Good," I said. "Get my jet ready. Tonight."

"Tonight, sir?"

"You heard me."

"And the men who came after him on the dock? Should we deal with them?"

I paused at that, jaw tightening slightly at the reminder. "Find out who sent them. Quietly. I want a name before morning."

"Understood."

I ended the call, phone still warm in my hand, and stood there a moment in the quiet of my office. Helsinki. He'd run further than I expected, faster too, and still hadn't managed to put himself anywhere I couldn't reach.

I dialed his number before I could talk myself out of it.

He picked up slower than I liked, voice thick with the particular wariness he seemed to reserve entirely for me. I let him believe I was calling from Italy, let him believe breakfast and stubbornness were the only things standing between us, watched him do the math on time zones in the silence between his words and felt something almost fond about how hard he was working to keep his lie intact.

He had no idea I already knew exactly where he was.

I let him go with a goodnight and a name he clearly hated, and set the phone down feeling considerably lighter than I had any right to feel about a man currently three countries and one very determined escape away from me.

I straightened my jacket and made my way to the private elevator, already running through the flight time in my head, already picturing the look on his face when he realized running had only ever bought him time, not freedom.

The car ride to the airstrip was quiet, the city thinning into dark stretches of road the further we drove from the center, and I spent most of it turning the last twenty four hours over in my head. The bar. The dock. Eleven men sent after someone who'd only ever wanted to disappear quietly.

Whoever had sent them had made a mistake. I intended to make sure they understood exactly how large a mistake, eventually. Just not tonight.

Tonight was about something else entirely.

The jet was waiting on the tarmac by the time I arrived, engines already warming, my pilot giving me a brief nod as I climbed the stairs without breaking stride. I settled into my seat, poured myself a drink I didn't particularly need, and let the anticipation sit warm in my chest the entire time the plane taxied toward the runway.

‘Run all you want, my little kitten’.

I took a slow sip, watching the city lights blur past the window as we lifted off the ground.

‘You can run. But you can't hide’.