"I couldn't finish this. The 'hero' is literally a murderer. How is this romance?"
"Reported for glorifying abuse."
I read them all. Every single one. Caleb found me at two in the morning, curled up in bed with my laptop, laughing so hard tears streamed down my face.
"They hate it," I told him. "Theyreallyhate it."
"Let them," he said. "They don't deserve your brilliant mind."
My DarkDesires followers—the twelve thousand people who'd been asking where ScarletSins went for a whole year—found the book within hours.
'Someone' told them.
Who could that of been?
I'm looking at you, Masked Man.
The forum exploded. Then TikTok exploded. Then everything exploded.
BookTok creators posted videos defendingThe Watcherwith the kind of unhinged passion usually reserved for religious cults.
They made edits set to dramatic music. They wrote essays analyzing the psychological complexity. They posted photos of the text with captions like, "He's a 10 but he fucked her so hard, she blacked out." (Which is kind of a selling point if you ask me.)
Rom Com authors said I was sick.
An unofficial Goodreads poll named me the "Author most likely to need medication".
That 'famous' traditional editor called me a PR disaster on her blog.
I call it seventy-five thousand copies sold in six weeks.
Caleb told me the New York Times bestseller list is curated, not real. That publishers pay for placement. That the whole system is rigged toward certain types of books written by certain types of people, and dark romance erotica written by a nobody from Idaho was never going to make that cut regardless of sales.
I believed him because it made the rejection sting less.
Also because he showed me the receipts.
But here's the thing: I don't need their validation anymore.
The Smut Readers Sacramento Book Signing invited me as a featured author. Me. Scarletta Desmond. ScarletSins. The girl who couldn't function in the real world, who hid in blanket forts, and ate Lucky Charms for dinner, and wrote filthy stories aboutbeing owned because she was too broken to ask for love in any normal way.
They want me to sign books and talk on panels and meet the readers who understand my darkness.
And I'm going to go.
With Caleb.
As my trophy husband.
We're getting married in ten days.
Valentine's Day.
One year exactly from when I walked into a maze of my own making and came out the other side holding a shotgun and a kill count.
One year from when I finally stopped running from the monster I craved and let him catch me.
The dress is obscene—white silk that clings to every curve, a slit up to my hip, a neckline that would make my mother weep.
