Page 19

My lips curled into a cruel smile.

I couldn’t fucking wait to start playing with her.

I peeked through the narrow gap between the curtains of the private room in Joseph’s pub and observed Sienna.

She was older, twenty-five now, and thinner. Too thin.

Where soft curves used to be was now just skin and bones. I preferred her curves, but fuck, it wasn’t like I would wait for those to be back before I start punishing her. I’d make do with what she had.

Joseph slid the envelope to her, and the moment she opened it, her whole posture tensed. She sat rigidly on the stool, staring at the photograph in her hands, and started to shake.

Good, she knew exactly who it was from.

She mentioned once that she only drank whiskey with me and that I was the only one who called her by that nickname. Little blondie.

She slid off the barstool, never touching the drink I bought her. Her eyes lifted, sweeping the room and searching frantically, but she couldn’t see me.

I smiled.

Tonight, she’d meet the monster she unleashed.

She reached into her bag, said something to Joseph as she put money on the bar, then rushed out the door.

I waited exactly five seconds, then followed out the back door of the pub.

The cold night swallowed me the moment I stepped outside.

I pulled the collar of my gray tweed jacket tighter around my neck and followed the fading shadow ahead of me, my footsteps quickening as I walked beneath the pale, watchful light of the moon. The air smelled of damp earth and fallen leaves, sharp enough to sting my lungs with every breath. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked once and then fell silent, leaving the street wrapped in an uneasy stillness.

She walked a good distance ahead of me.

The red wool coat made her easy to see against the darkness, a solitary splash of color moving beneath the bare branches of the trees. Black UGG boots pressed into the carpet of autumn leaves, each step producing a soft crunch that seemed loud in the quiet night.

Sienna’s shoulders were drawn tight beneath her coat, as though she were bracing herself against what she knew was coming.

Every so often, she turned her head. Whenever she did, the moon caught her hair, turning the loose strands around her face into a shimmering golden halo. She seemed almost unreal, like someone painted into the darkness by the moonlight itself. Then she would turn away again and the spell would disappear.

I kept my distance but didn’t bother hiding the sound of my footsteps, my boots pounding the road deliberately.

Her pace quickened. Mine didn’t.

When the last pub light disappeared behind us, the road narrowed between the trees. Her cottage was within her reach. I could see the faint outline of its roof beyond the hedgerow.

She was nearly safe.

I almost expected her to start running, but she didn’t. We were barely ten feet apart and I would catch up to her before she’d reach her home. Not that the door would stop me.

But she surprised me.

She stopped, and so did I.

For a moment, neither of us moved.

She stood beneath the moonlight with her back to me, a few golden strands of hair drifting in the wind that lifted the hem of her red coat.

Then, slowly, she turned and looked straight at me, her chest rising and falling beneath the coat.

I smiled coldly.