For the first time since I’ve known him, a sliver of uncertainty moves through me.
This is confirmation. He’s not just a stranger I met online.
I think he’s also…my stalker.
6
ROMEO
[ENTRY 001] — INITIALIZATION
> Observation: subject = fun-sized distraction.
> Threat level: annoyingly high.
> Disruption potential: vulnerability with no patch.
> Outcome prediction: irreversible corruption.
> Note: little miss sunshine’s obsession with Ghostface runs deep.
>Exploitation sequence initiated.
“Jesus.”Rafe glances around the gore-filled woodshed.
Blood, guts, and vomit cover the floor and some of the walls while my chosen instruments of torture lay strewn wherever I last tossed them. I’ll have a mess to clean up later.
“What did these assholes do?” My brother glances at the remaining two carcasses propped against one of my workbenches.
“They touched something they shouldn’t have.” I stare at them, only marginally satisfied as I recall the way I tortured them until they begged for death.
After I slipped out of Gabi’s bed in the middle of the night, I loaded them into a van and set their boat on autopilot in Lake Union. I transferred them onto one of our vessels at the private marina, then made a questionable decision in a long list of them.
I went back to the penthouse, crawled into Gabi’s bed, and held her as she slept.
I didn’t trust myself to sleep beside her, and even if I did, I’m usually too wired at night to rest. Unlike most people, I thrive under the cover of darkness, when the world is silent and my brain comes alive.
So, I lay there and stared at Gabi like a psychopath, swinging on a pendulum between self-loathing and need. Every boundary I gave myself was for her protection, but meeting her as Eros destroyed any restraint I had left.
When I saw what those four assholes intended to do to her, it felt like a declaration of war—because who the fuck would touch her when she clearly belonged to me?
It wasn’t rational. Neither was the demon inside me when he came to life and neutralized them until I could satisfy his bloodlust.
After I brought them back to the island with me, I spent the morning torturing them, long after they gave me what I needed to know.
They were all spoiled, entitled fucks who belonged to what they called Imperium—a secret society at Laurelhaven University. It’s an invite-only organization of legacy students from wealthy alumni families.
Nate was an initiate, and Gabi was his intended target for their ritual. Needless to say, I spent the most time on him.
In the end, they had no loyalty to each other. They were all too eager to sell their brothers out, hopeful it might somehow spare them. They blamed each other for the plan, reasoning that she wouldn’t even remember what happened the next day.
I rewarded them for their honesty by testing the limits of the human body until their suffering reached its natural conclusion.
It tempered some of the rage I’d suppressed from last night, but not nearly enough. If I didn’t have other things to do, I might have drawn it out. But I also had to scrape the cloud feeds of every private security camera near the house on Lake Union.
It’s been thirty-six hours since I last slept, and as soon as I torch what’s left of these assholes, I’m going to crash.
“You want to give me a hand?” I glance at my brother, who’s busy typing out a text on his phone. I don’t know why he’s even hanging around here, but I may as well put him to work.
