Instinct [TEMPORARILY ON HOLD]

Somehow, I Cannot Hide...

A/N: Surprise! Thank you so much for keeping up with this story, I'm super excited to get back into the groove of things! This chapter is dedicated to @curlyfries2 for her dedication to me and my stories & for her awesome username!

The new cover of the story was done by @IncognitoMN ! Super super talented, check out her work! <3

***

As soon as the door closed behind me, I was throwing the leash off of Demo, freeing him, and headed to my room.

Hopping onto my bed, I fired up my laptop. I had him pulled up on three different search engines in a matter of minutes. And there was no lack of information.

Apparently, Alexander Romanov was a bit of a celebrity. No, not the Hollywood type, but the local kind - he was the head of the university football team, he ran track and was captain of the swim team. His last swim record was the best in the nation, and I even found articles about him preparing for the Olympics.

That explains the tight muscles and his frequent doctor visits.

However, what it doesn't explain is why he stopped. Because after all, all records of him being an athlete come to an abrupt end about six months ago.

No more training, no more meets. He disappeared from the public eye completely.

If someone was so talented that he beat every record in his way, and won every meet, why would he retire suddenly? Was he injured? - the thought suddenly crossed my mind. That would explain why he had such a tight relationship with the good Dr. Belkin.

But as I dug for injuries or any sort of clues of why he stopped, I came up empty.

The articles talked about him dropping out, and quitting the teams. No more Olympic training. But there were no testimonies about why.

And no one seemed to know the answer. One day, Alexander woke up, and decided to quit life as he knew it, and start over. Doing what exactly?

After a few more minutes, I came across his family's page. Apparently, the Romanovs came from Eastern Europe - not quite a shocker, really - when Xander's father was young. The family was practically royalty back home, and they brought the money with them. But instead of misjudged gambles and bad investments, Papa Romanov tripled the family fortune.

Which got passed down to Xander's father, and assumably would be Xander's one day.

The family was big in investment, startup businesses, the stock market - basically everything on God's green Earth, they had a share of. They even owned a few hospitals - one article tells me - although there were no specifics in the public page.

Very interesting. So Xander came from a rich family.

Rich genius, star athlete, coupled with the good looks - he must have left broken hearts behind, left and right.

Looking at everything I could find about him on the internet, Xander seemed to have it all - walking proof of the American dream.

But I was being honest with myself, I knew that that was only on the outside. I've seen the way he handled those men in the alley. I've felt his heartbeat. His strange reactions. How he seemed to read people.

I was a woman of science. It ran in my blood. My whole purpose in life was to find an explanation to the things out of people's control. After all, a mystery is only that until someone can explain it.

And that was exactly what I was going to do. Xander Romanov, I am coming to get you.

***