And then there’s Bentley James. That name keeps circling back in my head, gnawing at me like a beast locked inside. She doesn’t talk about him, but the way she flinches when I bring him up—it tells me everything I need to know. She doesn’t just fear him. Sheremembershim.
I needed those files. I needed them to understand exactly what he did to her, to understand how he’s woven himself so tightly into the dark corners of her mind.
The silence is deafening as I sit at the desk, the file in my hands thick with the details I’ve been waiting for. Every word, every piece of information, feels like a knife twisting deeper into my gut. The more I read, the more my hatred for Bentley James burns hotter. It doesn’t matter that he’s locked away. What he did to Dove, what he took from her—it doesn’t get to be erased. Not for her, and certainly not for me.
I flip through his psych evaluations, his behavior—everything is a mess of violence, control, manipulation. The words are cold, clinical—unfeeling—but to me, they’re a story of a man who should never have been allowed to breathe, much less walk free. He was a predator, and Dove was his prey.
Bentley James had a history of targeting families, stalking them, waiting until the perfect moment to strike. He didn’t just kill. He tore families apart, devastated their lives before finishing what he started.
And then, the file hits me with something even darker: his fascination with Dove’s parents. He’d been watching them for months before the attack. He was meticulous, a predator in every sense, choosing Dove’s home as his next target. And when it happened, when he came in like a storm, Dove’s parents had fought back. They didn’t just die—they were brutalized, tortured.
My hands tighten around the file as I process the report. It wasn’t just a massacre. Bentley enjoyed it. He didn’t just kill Dove’s parents. He took his time, each minute more painful than the last, ensuring that the terror, the suffering, would sink deep into her memories. And the worst part? He had planned to take her, too. But something—something went wrong. He didn’t finish the job.
But why had he let her go? Why had he spared her when she was supposed to be just another victim in his sick game?
My fingers curl into fists, frustration and rage coiling in my chest. What had happened that night? I know the basics, the police reports, the interviews—but it’s still a blur. Dove doesn’t talk about that night. She doesn’t speak of the aftermath, the moments she must have lived through alone, in the dark, haunted by the blood, by the sounds.
Bentley James had a hold on her—had always had one, long before I ever entered the picture. And whatever he did,whatever twisted reason he had for sparing her, it’s left an indelible mark on her.
The file mentions that Bentley was obsessed with Dove for years, watching her from the shadows, manipulating her mind. I remember the way her nightmares scream at her when she’s vulnerable, how her breath quickens when she remembers that night. It’s not just the trauma of losing her parents, it’s the idea that she was chosen.
He wanted her. Not just to kill. He wanted to break her.
I lean back in my chair, the weight of it all pressing down on me. For a second, I let the darkness swirl inside of me—the same kind that has driven me, kept me cold and distant for so long. I don’t know why I’m doing this. I don’t know why I care so damn much.
But I do.
And I’ll burn this world to the ground if it means protecting her.
Dove’s past is tangled with Bentley’s madness, and I can’t undo what’s been done. But what I can do is take control of what comes next. He won’t touch her again. Not now. Not ever.
I pick up my phone and dial the asylum.
“Get me everything you have left on Bentley James. I want a full report. Any personal notes, any records, anything. I need answers. Now.”
I hang up, the weight of my decision heavy in the pit of my stomach. This obsession, this dark pull I have toward Dove—what I thought was merely attraction—has turned into something far more dangerous.
I don’t know how to save her from the past that haunts her, but I know I’ll burn everything to the ground until I do.
I don’t care what it costs me.
She’s mine now.
And I’ll protect what’s mine at any cost.
18
ASHTON
The woods were thick with silence as I made my way through the dense trees, my boots crunching against the dry leaves beneath me. The air was cold, but the weight in my chest burned hotter than any fire could reach. There was a heaviness to the night that pressed down on me, the stillness unsettling, broken only by the occasional rustle of branches swaying in the wind.
I couldn’t let my mind wander. I couldn’t afford distractions—not while she was asleep, shackled to that bed, a prisoner of my making. But even knowing she was out of reach, even with the drugs coursing through her system, my thoughts kept drifting back to Dove.
And that goddamn circus.
The closer I got to it, the more I felt it—a pull, a dangerous tug in my gut that made everything else feel like a distant memory. The flicker of those bright lights in the distance, the haunting echoes of a twisted melody carried on the wind. They drew me in, as they always did. I had to make sure she wasn’there. I had to make sure nothing would pull me away from her again. Not after everything we’d been through.
Lilith would not be the one to tear me apart.
