“Not stupid,” I mutter. My fists clench on my knees. I want this Porter bastard to appear right here, right now, just so I can kill him.
She shakes her head but continues, words picking up speed like a car rolling downhill. “He pulled me in. Slowly. Compliments. Little favors. Gifts. Then a hand on my shoulder. A touch on my back. Until suddenly I was in his office, and he was kissing me, and I thought… Fuck, I thought it was hot. And some young, naïve part of me thought maybe this is what it’s supposed to be like.”
Her eyes flick to mine, full of shame. Andthatjust about kills me. Shame in her eyes, for something that was never her fault.
“It wasn’t. It was wrong. From the start. He pushed. He always pushed. Past what I was comfortable with. Past what I wanted, past what I could even process. And I—” her voice cracks— “I didn’t stop him.”
I move before I think, reaching across the couch, taking her hand. She squeezes back so hard it hurts. Good. Pain is better than the emptiness in her face.
“He took my virginity,” she says in an angry whisper. “And I tried to convince myself that it was what I wanted, that he was good for me. But it wasn’t good. It hurt. It was… dark. And every time after that, he always wanted to try something different. He tried to frame it like he was teaching me, because I was inexperienced. But I didn’t like it, the things he did, the things he made me do. It was too much. But he just steamrolled me.”
Her words keep growing quieter, and I feel something deep inside of me dying. But there’s something else waking up. Something molten. Something vengeful. Something demonic.
Porter Young. I sear that name into the back of my mind, carve it onto the backs of my eyelids. When I track him down, and I will… it won’t be pretty.
“It was three months of hell,” Willow whispers. “He did things I didn’t want, things I wasn’t ready for. And I let him, because he made me feel like I didn’t have a choice. He wasn’t just some guy. He was a teacher. Respected. Connected. If I said anything… I knew he’d ruin me.”
Her breath shudders out, but those tears in her eyes don’t budge. Something in her expression hardens, goes darker. And she looks just a little bit more like the Willow I know. “Then I found out I wasn’t the only one. There were two other girls. While he’d been sleeping with me, he was also doing the same thing with two other students. And when I started digging, I realized… he’d done it to dozens. Years of it. Hidden in plain sight.”
I can barely see straight, the rage pounding through me like drums. My jaw aches from clenching it.
Willow swallows hard and those tears in her eyes disappear as she blinks. “So, one night, I went to his office. He thought itwas just another… another session. What he had in mind that night…” she shakes her head as her expression goes cold. “He had ‘toys’ there. Things I’d said no to, but he wasn’t going to take my answer.” Her voice goes flat, dead, and it chills me. “Things escalated in his office. I said no again. And he put his hands on me. He was forceful. But there were two letter openers sitting on the edge of his desk. The old-style ones.”
Her gaze is fixed on the floor, but I can practically see it like a movie as she paints the picture. I don’t want to. I want to evaporate every word she’s saying from existence. But Willow is controlled, empty, cold recollection.
“I daggered him to his own desk,” she voices the words I knew were coming. “Made him confess every name, every girl. He cracked like a twelve-year-old boy caught with porn. It felt good, making him face justice, making him feel even a little bit of the pain he’d made me feel. But it wasn’t enough. He’d broken me. I cracked. And I wanted him to know what he’d made me into.”
This asshole was on the verge of raping Willow. Hell, he’d been doing non-consensual stuff to her for months, so he’d been doing it all along. Willow might feel like she turned into a monster that night. But it was fucking self-defense.
Willow’s eyebrows raise slightly, and something looks a little lighter in her expression. “It wasn’t enough just to make him feel pain. I looked around, and what was right there on his desk? A plastic takeout bag. I didn’t even flinch when I grabbed it and yanked it over his head. And something felt like it reset, like it righted in me, when he finally went limp.”
The room feels ice-cold. The Strip’s neon paints her in pink and blue, like a stage light on a tragedy.
“The only man I’ve ever slept with,” she says, voice going rock steady, “was also my first kill.”
Silence. Except for my heart slamming against my ribs.
I want to break things. I want to find every bone in Porter Young’s body and snap them one by one, even if it means digging him out of the dirt to do it. But all I can do is sit here, holding her hand like it’s the only lifeline left.
“Willow,” I rasp, my throat thick, “you were a kid. He was a predator. That wasn’t sex. That wasn’t love. That was him stealing something he had no right to.”
Her eyes flash, but not with anger—with relief. Like someone finally said what she’s been trying to convince herself of for a decade.
And in that moment, I make a vow. If nothing ever happens between us, if she never wants to be touched again, I’ll live with that. What happened to her makes my chest burn. It makes me want to smash every piece of furniture in this penthouse. I want to go back in time and put my own hands around Porter Young’s throat. But all I can do is sit here with the woman who had to do it, who’s carried that weight alone all these years.
I squeeze her hand tighter. “You didn’t kill a man, Willow. He wasn’t worthy of the word. You took out a disease.”
Her lips tremble. “I still feel… ruined,” she says the word in a whisper. “Every time I’ve tried to go anywhere with a man, any time I’ve caught feelings and wanted to do things with him, it all creeps back in. The shame. The anger. The violence. And I just… can’t.”
Ruined. That word wrecks me. “No.” My voice comes out rough, fierce. “You are not ruined, Willow. You are the sharpest, strongest thing I’ve ever seen. You survived him. You ended him. But if you never want anyone to touch you again, I’ll—” My throat locks up, but I force it out. “You are yours, and yours alone. And I swear with every bone in my body that I’ll never, ever push you. I might have done some things I’m not proud of in the past, but Willow, I swear it, you’ll always,alwaysbe safe when it comes to me.”
Fuck, the words are agony to speak. The way I want this woman is soul-consuming. I want every single bit of her. But if keeping my hands off of her is what she needs, that’s what I’m going to give her.
Willow’s eyes glisten once more, and this time, the emotions are different. She doesn’t speak, she just lets go of my hand, and climbs across the couch to fold into my lap like she’s drowning and I’m the only thing keeping her afloat. I hold her, arms banded tight around her, and bury my face in her hair. She smells like incense and tea leaves, blood and salvation.
It hits me, sharp and undeniable: I’m not just obsessed with her. I am one-hundred-percent in love with Willow Vale.
I sit there, breathing her in, letting her heartbeat hammer against mine. No stage lights, no masks, no Saint Shade. Just me. Just Lucky. We’ve borne every part of ourselves to the other, and we’re both still here. She’s still here in my arms.
