I type back slowly.
Anything, Little Spider? You say that so easily. Would you let me tie you down, watch you struggle, listen to you cry until your throat’s raw? Would you let me press my mouth to every bruise I leave, whisper that you’re mine while you’re too tired to fight back?
I hit send, feeling my pulse race. She won’t respond to that. She’ll curl up, hide under the blankets, whisper to herself that it’s not real. But it is. I’m real. I’m right here, and she can’t escape me.
My phone pings again. A photo this time. I open it, and my breath catches.
She’s on the bed, knees drawn to her chest, eyes red-rimmed and terrified. She must have hit the camera by mistake, but it’s perfect—the vulnerability, the defeat. I can almost hear the ragged way she’s breathing, like she’s choking on the air.
I save it. I’ll look at it later, when I’m alone, when the need for her coils too tight in my chest to ignore.
I send another message, voice rough, low, dripping with intent.
“I’ll make you feel it, Little Spider. Every inch of my obsession. You’ll scream for me, and when it’s too much, I’ll make you take more. You’ll never forget me.”
The phone remains silent. I know she’s breaking, crumbling piece by piece. I let out a slow breath, dragging my hand through my hair. I’m close—so close to finally seeing her shatter.
I walk, heading back toward the motel. I won’t go inside. Not yet. I’ll let her feel me outside the door, let her think every creak and whisper is me coming to get her.
When the time’s right, I’ll make her see me. And when she finally looks into my eyes, she will realise I was always meant to find and catch her.
And when I have her?
I’ll never let her go.
CHAPTER 5.5
DAMIEN
The warehouse hums with silence—the kind that hangs after a storm. The kind of quiet that comes when men are dead and others are wishing they were.
Blood still stains the floor in streaks. Not fresh. Not dry. Just… permanent.
I sit at my desk in the back office, cigarette burning low between my fingers. The room stinks of iron and smoke and power. Loyalty is tested, bought, or buried in this place.
A low click echoes from the terrarium beside me.
Vex.
She’s perched perfectly still on her driftwood throne, eight black legs tucked like a queen waiting for an execution. Her glass box is cleaner than my soul. Sometimes I think she’s the only thing in this world I can’t break.
“She doesn’t know yet,” I murmur, watching her shift a leg, slow and deliberate. “Raven thinks she can play coy. Play prey. Like she’s not already tangled in the web I built for her.”
I flick ash into the tray beside me, lean back, and smile.
“But you see it, don’t you, girl? That sharp, brief glint in her eyes? Like she wants me to chase. Wants to be caught.”
I reach into the drawer and pull out the file. Not her file. Her file. The last one.
Juliet.
Even now, the name tastes like poison on my tongue.
I crack it open and let the rot spill out.
A photo slips free—her mouth twisted in that cruel little smile, the one she wore when she left. When she burned my flat to the ground and carved RUN into my wall with a kitchen knife.
“She thought she was clever,” I murmur, showing the photo to Vex. “Thought hurting me first meant she’d win.”
