A brother.
She says he’s her brother.
But I’ve studied her. Obsessed over her. Stalked her for years like a disciplined animal. I’ve seen her habits, her playlists, her bedroom drawers, her trash. I’ve read the letters she never sent. Watched the videos she didn’t know she recorded.
And not once—not fucking once—did she mention a brother?
Not in the school records. Not in the medical files. Not in the surveillance notes I paid a quarter of a million for.
She doesn’t remember me. She doesn’t fucking remember me, it shouldn’t hurt. It was a long time ago but it does.
Not once looking into her past was a brother mentioned, it would have popped up, I would have known.
So either she’s lying.
Or someone else is.
And I don’t know which version of that truth I want to destroy more.
She’s in the other room. Sitting on the floor, silent, with her arms wrapped around her knees like a child. I haven’t locked the door. I don’t need to.
She won’t run again.
Not now that she’s seen what I become when I’m angry.
I stare at my bloodstained hands. Not hers—mine. From punching the wall hard enough to split the skin. I didn’t even feel it.
All I could feel was the shift. The crack. The second the fantasy rotted because I’m not just obsessed with Raven.
I built my entire world around her.
Since I found her, I have painted every room I’ve lived in, in her image. Every woman who looked at me was compared to her. Every single part of me that felt human again—came from imagining her beneath me, screaming my name.
And if she lied?
If she manipulated me?—
“Don’t,” I growl to myself, pressing the heel of my hand to my temple. “Don’t think it. Not yet.”
Because if she did?—
If this whole thing is a trap?—
Then I’ll burn every fucking building she’s ever walked in to the ground just to watch her scream for me.
I storm back into the room. She startles, flinches like she thinks I’m going to hit her.
Fuck.
The way she was so scared when she looked at me—It short-circuits something in my chest.
I kneel in front of her slowly, my bloodied hand resting on the floor.
“Raven,” I say, and my voice comes out wrong. Quiet. Strained. “Tell me the truth. Just the truth. Was he ever in your life? Is he who you say he is?”
She nods. Swallows. Her voice is soft, broken.
“He’s my half-brother. We weren’t close. I never told anyone about him. Not even friends. Not even my mother. We… we didn’t talk for years.”
