Chapter 1
Evan
Ihaven’tbeenthismad since…well, I can’t remember. I’ve been disappointed many times, but angry—that is an emotion that can ruin a person, and I was ten years old when I told myself feelings were for failures, cowards, or hopeless romantics, and I’m not any of those things.
It’s why I write what I do.
Murders.
They’re factual, and while they can sometimes be messy, the plot of the story is to control the outcome—solving the murder with a killer in handcuffs.
Barrett Steele isn’t just the main character in my bestselling series,Murder After Dark;he’s been a friend to me for the last several years. He’s who I needed to restore my faith in people, to believe there was still good in a selfish-driven world.
I remember when I first met Barrett, when my calloused hands gripped a pen that scratched against lined paper, sitting in a musty corner in a small supply closet of the hotel I worked at, surrounded by the burning scent of Clorox and the flickering fluorescent lightbulb hanging above. It was as if he smirked at me off the page. I didn’t see words. I saw justice. I saw hope. I saw men and women being held accountable for their actions.
Yes, Barrett is fictional, but fictional doesn’t mean fake. He’s very real to me.
And I didn’t create Barrett so he could be someone else’s plaything, which is exactly what appears to have happened.
Lily handed me a manuscript yesterday. Well, not a manuscript. A short story? A fraudulent publication of words?
She called itfanfic.
I call it a complete invasion and decimation of my personal piece of property.
“Here,” she had said, handing me a stack of crisp paper, warm from the printer.
“What’s this?” I asked with a short tone, ready to get back to my apartment so I could change clothes and run six miles on the treadmill in my building’s gym.
“Only the most recent thing I’m obsessed with,” she said, dragging out the word ‘obsessed’ like if she didn’t savor the flavor of it in her mouth, it would soon be gone like a stick of Fruit Stripe gum she used to love as a kid.
I took it without thinking, but the second I saw Barrett’s name on the first line, my stomach turned cold. They weren’tmywords. They were someone else’s.
I skimmed the pages quickly, discovering flirting, kissing, and too much lingering happening between Barrett and some character named Willow Starborn, which from what I could tell, was a woman who had too many feelings and tears.
Barrett doesn’t flirt. He doesn’t smile until the end, when someone’s in cuffs, and he doesn’t fall in love. My jaw tightened as the paper crinkled in my hand.
“Are you okay?” Lily asked, like she hadn’t just handed me intellectual manslaughter.
“Fine,” I muttered.
But we both knew I wasn’t. I didn’t get mad. Not like this. Not unless something sacred had been broken.
And whoever had written this…they’d broken something sacred to me.
Barrett Steele wasn’t a punchline, or a romantic lead, or a fantasy. He doesn’t exist to make hearts flutter. He exists to remind people of the truth. Consequences. Order.
“It’s fanfic,” she said, shrugging her shoulders, like it wasn't a big deal. “Really good, too. I thought it might help.”
And I knew what she was referring to…That it might help me through my writer’s block, even though I am not experiencing writer’s block. I’m simply struggling to find the right words momentarily. It’s my fourteenth novel in a series. I don’t want to write something I’ve already penned.
I spent all night reading and rereading this knock-off version of Barrett, disturbed by the fact that my own character had a life I didn’t create for him. A life that included more feelings than facts. Aromancewriter had taken my cold-hearted and steely-eyed detective and turned him into a sorry sap of a man.
This morning, I’m running on three hours of sleep and thirty-four years of pent-up anger. I admit, it’s not the best combination.
“What exactly is this? Where did you get it?” I demand from Lily, my assistant, as I slam the wrinkled paper onto her desk.
She looks up at me, a smirk stitching itself onto her brightly-colored fuchsia lips and a spark of mischief reflecting off her clear-rimmed frames. “Well, good morning to you, too. I told you yesterday. It’s fanfic. I just thought you might find a piece of Barrett in there that might be helpful through your…notwriter’s block.”
