RED NOTES AND KISSES-Chapter 83: LAZ -

"Been tracking the son of a bitch for two years," Laz thought, sitting in his darkened domain.

Surrounded by multiple monitors, he observed everything with an eerie calm. Frida had been steadily writing her exams for the past few days, and he had been watching her silently. Sometimes, a person just needed space.

From the drones he’d planted in every corner of the campus, he could see it all. He wasn’t a genius for nothing. His access surpassed even the campus’s CCTV system. That’s how he knew her every move.

At first, he did it out of curiosity, when the red notes began to appear. Death threats weren’t new to him. He’d been receiving them long before college, even before Frida entered his life again.

He was glad she hadn’t stumbled upon this hidden room during her aimless walks. Shelly could be a handful, but Frida was easier to manage. Both had their crazy sides, but Shelly? Shelly was a menace.

She had been stalking him too, to the point where he once suspected her of sending the red notes herself. Laz used his surveillance cameras to track her movements, but Shelly was unpredictable, a true wildcard.

She wasn’t always like this. Shelly had once been Frida in her raw, unfiltered form. She was his best friend during middle and high school, wild and untamed. But then came the incident.

The trauma shattered them both. Frida emerged subdued, a pale shadow of Shelly’s vibrancy. Over time, Shelly faded into the background, almost nonexistent. Yet Laz could never forget her, his Shelly, his Frida.

The first note had arrived when he gained admission to college. "Welcome to death’s door," it read. He’d laughed at how absurd it sounded, but the unease lingered.

It wasn’t a mere prank. He knew danger when he saw it. And whoever was behind it was no ordinary threat. Laz began keeping tabs on Frida, initially to soothe his anxiety. But after the second red note, his monitoring turned into something more, an obsession.

That’s when the obsession got worse.

When he laid eyes on her, when they brushed skins, when they bumped into each other, and she would look at him but not speak to him, it made his heart ache.

He became obsessed. He wanted to hear her voice, he needed her to talk to him, to look at him, to want him.

He thought staying away from her all these years would dull the feelings he had for her. He believed it would make him forget how much he hated himself for hurting her. He convinced himself that partying, sleeping around, and burying himself in his father’s business would erase the memory of this woman.

So why did his world tilt the moment their eyes connected?

Eyes as rich and warm as bronze, skin as luminous as ocean pearls, lips as perfect as seashells.

He had snuck into her apartment once and seen her fridge empty, her cabinets bare, her shampoo bottles nearly drained.

It started there.

Quietly, he began restocking her essentials. At first, she didn’t notice when he came and went.

She didn’t notice at all.

Her focus was entirely on her schoolwork, oblivious to his silent care—until he started restocking her favorite drink.

It took six months for her to catch on.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. Someone had to protect that woman from her own unbothered nature.

And he ached for her so much, his body throbbed, and he was so determined to talk to her that day in the library, only to catch a glimpse of what she was watching through the books on the shelf.

He was amused, so amused that he took out a red note and scribbled how much he wanted to pleasure her like that.

Now that was the beginning. He didn’t know his obsession would drive him to madness, that he now knew exactly how many strands of hair she had on her scalp because he spent hours counting it every night she slept.

He sat in darkness in her room watching her, caressing her hair, touching the strands one by one, wrapping them around his fingers.

He would watch her breathe so he’d know her respiratory rate, how many breaths per minute she took.

Then he’d count her pulse to know how many times it skipped.

And she was so perfect that he was now attempting to count her perfect pores.

He thought as he watched her writing the exams on the screen.

As she wrote her exams, he watched her brilliance shine through the screens. She was focused, determined, but he could sense her fear. He wished he could hold her and tell her everything would be fine.

But he trusted her. Frida was strong, capable, and smart. She could handle this.

She was brilliant, his Frida.

She was no weakling his sunrise.

But he trusted her, that she could handle this alone.

Because his girl was smart and amazing.

Speaking of amazing, what could he impress her with today? fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓

Denying himself two weeks of her presence to give her time to focus on her exams was killing him mentally and slowly.

She was his breath.

How could a man live without breath?

He sighed as they finished the exam, her last paper for the semester.

Then he saw Alex on the other footage heading her way.

His thoughts were interrupted by another camera feed. Alex was heading toward her. Laz clicked his tongue in annoyance. Stupid idiot just doesn’t know when to quit. This was why he fought underground in his rebellious days, to crush guys like him.

Then his phone buzzed, the screen lighting up with Frida’s name. His heart leaped, and he cleared his throat before answering. "Hey, babe."

"Hey," she said, her voice light. "Wanna hang out? I just finished those boring exams."

He arched a brow. "Does Frida know about this, Shelly? She must be exhausted."

He could hear the smirk in her voice. "Oh, she’s a coward who can’t admit what she wants."

Now he smirked. "My girl is no coward. What could she possibly want that she can’t tell me?"

Her response stole the breath from his lungs: "Oh, just how badly she wants to suck your dick."

He inhaled sharply as she giggled. "So damn easy."

She hung up, leaving him grinning in the dim glow of his monitors. "What a damn tease."