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  “Like fuck you will,” I growl. “You stay away from her.”

  River could do a good job of it. But the idea of him touching Isabella makes me want to murder my only friend in this world.

  “You have plenty of willing subjects to play your games with,” I tell him. “This one is mine.”

  He smiles again and leans forward on his elbows.

  “Then what are you waiting for?” he asks. “Go and get her.”

  ONE NIGHT.

  I will let her have the night.

  I hate this fucking city. I hate Luke, and I hate this hotel. Anyone could get in here.

  Anyone like me.

  I stand over her bed and watch her sleep. The scent of lavender clouds the room, and this is how I know she is anxious. She always uses the oil when she’s anxious.

  There’s a knife on her nightstand. Because she doesn’t feel safe. She shouldn’t.

  There are so many predators out there. Predators like me. Predators like Luke. Even now, her phone vibrates from the nightstand with his name. Over and over. Never any peace. It has to stop.

  I retrieve her phone and block his number.

  Isabella flips over in the bed, and I freeze. It’s not necessary. She isn’t awake.

  She is trapped in a tormented sleep, tangled up in the sheets. And now her breasts are visible beneath the sheer material of her tank top.

  My hands ache to touch her.To feel her. I take the knife from her nightstand and trace the curve of her skin. She shivers, and it gets me hard.

  I want to taste the blood that flows beneath her milky flesh. I want to feel it between my fingers, sliding over my cock. The tip stops just above her breast, and I force myself to drag it away, digging it into my thigh until it burns.

  I must be patient. The rest will come. In due time. I know what I need to do.

  The pain doesn’t help. It doesn’t keep me from picking up her journal and indulging in the obscenities of her mind. She writes these lyrics every day. Depraved and melancholy. They speak to me. They speak to me in a way that nothing else ever has.

  It is a pipeline straight to the fucked up chambers of her deceptively innocent mind. These lyrics she writes are not lyrics at all, but only her own cravings coming out to play. Today’s song is darker than the rest.

  I am so hard I can’t control my thoughts anymore. Her clothes are on the bathroom floor. And this isn’t what I came here for. I tell myself to be patient.But I can’t.

  I find her panties, and I bring them to my face and inhale. Then I crumple them in my fist and unzip my jeans, wrapping them around my cock.

  Isabella breathes in and out, and I watch her. Choking my dick violently with her underwear. Her skin is so pale against the Raven of her hair. So pure and milky and untouched.

  I have watched her for so long. I have watched the way she turns up her nose at the boys who look at her. I have read the words in her journal.

  The confessions of her raw desires.

  She is a virgin.

  An angel.

  I’ve never had the opportunity to ruin something so beautiful before.

  Her hair spills over her shoulders and skates across her nipples. Small and pink and hard against the thin fabric. I want them in my mouth. I want them on my face and on my cock. I want so much to feel her from the inside. To fuck her until I can’t anymore.

  This is neurosis. Fervent and miserable. The agony consumes me from the inside out.

  I will destroy her. I will destroy everything divine left inside of her.

  Coming on a choked sigh, I spill myself into her panties. I shove them in my pocket and keep them.

  The man in me tells me to leave. The animal won’t let me. I walk to her bed and sit down beside her. She is within arm’s reach. But I won’t allow myself to touch her.

  Beautiful things must be admired from afar. Beautiful things must not be touched. That’s what he always used to tell me.

  He was wrong.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  WHEN I WAKE, I am well rested. I felt at peace if only for a few hours. The room is still dim, but a familiar scent lingers.

  A scent that feels like home. One that feels like comfort.

  I roll over to retrieve my phone from the nightstand but stop short. The phone isn’t there. Something else is though.

  A solitary red rose.

  So beautiful, so flawless, I almost don’t believe it’s real. At least until I bring the delicate petals to my face and breathe in the familiar scent of wild beauty.

  And now I know for certain that I have not imagined it. The scent that always seems to surround me is not a figment of my imagination, and the rose petals at my house have not simply been carried there by the breeze.

  Fear settles over me like a cold blanket as the stem falls from my fingers, the petals wilting to the floor.

  If not the wind, then who?

  I wrap my hands around the sheet and squeeze as my eyes dart around the shadowed room. I don’t see anyone. I don’t see a thing. But someone was here. In my room. And they left this rose right beside me.

  The curtains are long and dark, and I’m too afraid of what might be hiding behind them. I’m too afraid of my own shadow right now to stay here another second.

  I bolt for the door without grabbing anything. Not even a pair of shoes or my room key. Fear has taken the wheel now, and nothing is safe.

  I have no idea where I’m going. What I’m doing. I just know that I need to leave. I need to get out of here. I punch the down button for the elevator repeatedly, but it’s taking too long. My mind is wild with possibilities. And it keeps circling back to one thing.

  Luke.

  Did he do this? Has he been playing tricks on me all along? Is he watching me right now, savoring my fear?

  I can’t stand the wait. My heart is going to explode. My lungs are going to give out. Already, I can feel the air slipping away.

  I bolt for the stairwell and run down three levels, listening for steps behind me.

  They never come. They never come, and I am relieved. I can breathe again when I pass the second level. One more to go, and then I will be free. It is so close I can taste it. The fresh air. The escape.

  I look back one last time as I fling open the heavy door. The door to freedom. But freedom is obstructed by a wall. The wall of a hard chest in front of me.

  I was looking in the wrong direction. Because monsters don’t always come from the darkness.

  Sometimes, they hide in broad daylight.

  CHAPTER NINE

  BEFORE I EVEN OPEN MY eyes, a vivid and familiar scent hits me.

  Wild roses.

  I am surrounded by wild roses.

  They are the first thing I notice when I come to. And they are everywhere. Crimson and soft velvet perched upon delicate stems riddled with thorns.

  My eyes are dry and heavy, but a tear leaks from the corner and spills over onto my cheek. I don’t want to accept my reality. I don’t want to accept that this is anything more than a dream. But the high arched glass ceilings only confirm that I am trapped in a nightmare instead. A beautiful nightmare, with stars as far as the eye can see.

  It’s a conservatory. I’m in a conservatory. On a bed. Surrounded by roses and stars.

  This is not a place I have ever been. And yet, it feels acquainted to me. A place from my memories.

  My father used to speak of a place like this. A mansion in the forest. Moldavia, he said it was called. I didn’t know where it was. At times, I often wondered if it even existed, the way he spoke of it.

  But I recognize the architectural style. I recognize the trees outside the windows. They are things that I know can’t be a coincidence. There is no doubt in my mind that I am at Moldavia. And the person who was leaving rose petals at my door all along was really Javi.

  The same man who refused to meet with me.The one I was so desperate to meet before.

  I wonder now if Art knew. If he knew how dangerous Javi was and he was just trying to prot
ect me. I can’t understand it. Nothing about this makes sense.

  Has it been Javi all along? Has he been the one who has watched my every move for...

  I shudder to think of how long it's been.

  That terror seeps into every one of my bones when I try to move and I can't. I am bound by my wrists to the bed frame.

  My lungs burn with the need for air, and I can’t think. I want to scream, but I am paralyzed.

  Javi murdered his own mother. That's what his file said. And now he's going to murder me too. Tears well up in my eyes and I silently curse my father, wondering why he ever brought Javi into his life. Into our lives.

  With a jolt, I ride the rollercoaster of emotions. Hatred. Anger. Paranoia. And then, finally, determination.

  I'm struggling to pull free from my bonds when the sound of a door echoes through the cavernous space. A draft blankets the room before I ever see the shape of him.

  Even then, it is all I can see.

  He stalks around the perimeter like the predator he is, remaining shrouded in darkness. His hood is up, and his head is tilted down. A wildly overgrown beard is the only unobscured detail beneath the shadow of his cloak.

  The magnitude of his frame increases as he draws near, veiled in jeans and motorcycle boots. Every step is a gunshot to my ears.

  My breath has gone still, and my thoughts are careening out of control.

  I need to convince him not to hurt me. I need to hurt him first.

  I need to escape.

  He stops next to the bed, and those notions die a swift and brutal death.

  A tank.

  The man is a goddamn tank. And I’m going to die without mercy under the weight of those bear paws he calls hands. I don’t stand a chance.

  "Please," I beg him. "Please, Javi. You don’t have to do this.”

  His name on my lips startles him, at least momentarily.

  “You know of me?” his voice echoes through the space and sends another wave of terror straight through my chest.

  Javi’s file said that he doesn’t speak to anyone. That’s what Art told me. That’s what my father told me. For all the agency knows- he can't speak verbally at all. But it isn’t true.

  It isn’t true at all.

  His words are accented with a Spanish lilt. Beautifully so.And he said them to me. A low growl rises from his chest, and I try to curl into myself.

  “How do you know of me?” he demands. “How do you know my name?”

  “Your file,” I whisper. “I read your file.”

  Another growl.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, but it doesn’t block it out. I can still hear him. He takes a step closer. Then another. And then he is sitting on the bed next to me.

  When I open my eyes again, he reaches for me. His fingers touch my face. Rough. Huge.

  Lethal.

  I wait for his wrath. For my death. But it doesn't come.

  His palm drifts down my cheek and over the sensitive flesh of my throat before dipping to my heaving chest. He's only an inch from my breast when he stops and jerks away.

  The impact shifts his hood slightly, and I can see him now. See his wild, golden eyes staring back at me.

  The scar that slashes right through his eyebrow. He has the bone structure of a Viking. One who looks as though at any moment, he might pillage my very soul.

  "Javi," I whisper.

  Again, his name on my lips seems to knock his senses astray.

  He rises and disappears, only to return a moment later, placing a fresh cut rose on the pillow beside me.

  "Why are you doing this?" I beg. "Please tell me."

  "Are you ready, beauty?"

  "Ready for what?"

  He smiles. And his teeth are perfect. His lips, sinister.

  “To sing me a song.” He touches my arm with a featherlight caress. “With words only I can hear.”

  WHEN HE RELEASES me from my restraints, I dare to hope. I dare to believe that he isn’t as bad as I’ve heard. That maybe there is still some humanity left in him.

  A notion snuffed out completely in the next breath.

  He reaches into his pocket and retrieves a red rubber ball with leather straps attached. When he moves towards my face, I try to jerk away, but he captures me by the hair and wrenches me back. My scalp burns from the force of his grip and my eyes water.

  It doesn’t feel real.

  None of this feels real, and I just keep thinking it must be a bad dream. I will wake up and realize this is all some fucked up part of my imagination that conjured up this scenario. It’s the only logic I can find in a situation where nothing else makes sense.

  My father loved Javi. He treated him as his own son. And I can’t imagine why he would ever want to hurt me.

  Fighting him off is a fruitless endeavor. The man is a brick wall. More terrifying than I ever could have imagined. And the fact that he has something to hide beneath that hood only adds to the escalating fear in my mind.

  He secures the band around my head and forces my mouth open to lodge the ball between my teeth. Once it is secure, he taps me on the lips.

  “This will stay in place until I have a use for your mouth.”

  His words send another shot of adrenaline through my body, and it is pure instinct that has me trying to fight him off again. To flee.

  I kick him in the stomach, and pain radiates up through the bottom of my leg as though I’ve kicked a rock. But still his grip on me loosens, and I grasp at the opportunity to run.

  I make it ten steps before he’s got me by the hair again. I try to scream, but it only vibrates against my lips. He turns me in his arms, and I cower beneath his shadow, waiting for him to lash out.

  This must be it. I expect him to hit me. To kill me. I don’t know what it is he wants from me, and I’m petrified to find out.

  He reaches into his pocket again, and this time, he produces a knife. A strangled sound leaves my throat when he brings it to my chest and skims along my collar bone. I squeeze my eyes shut, and water leaks from the corners.

  This can’t be real.

  It can’t be real.

  That’s what I try to tell myself. But it is real. And this isn’t how I want to die. I haven’t even lived yet.

  The tip of the blade digs into my skin, and I stop breathing. I think of my father. I wonder how he could have ever trusted this man. How he could have ever cared for him. And then I wonder if Javi is responsible for his disappearance.

  The stark conclusion is a shock paddle to my heart.

  My eyes open again and seek out the golden orbs beneath the hood. But he is skilled at hiding them. So much so that I can no longer even see the lines of his face. And the need inside of me is real. To know. To unmask him and see him for the monster he really is. The boy that my father trusted and cared for. The one he sacrificed his time with me for.

  I hate him. I hate him with a level of passion I have never confronted before.

  I try to tell him so, but the words don’t come out the way they should. Instead, spit drips from the corner of my mouth, and my humiliation is real and painful.

  But none of that matters. Because he is still wielding the knife against my skin. Edging the framework of my bones. And then he dips lower. So low, he’s tracing over my nipples with the tip of the blade. They harden in response.

  My body is betraying me. Disgusting me. Giving him mixed signals. I reach up and wipe the spit from my chin. And then I do something incredibly stupid.

  I hurl it at his face.

  Another low growl. And he tugs me closer yet. So close, I can feel the sickening hardness of his erection pressed against me.

  This is turning him on.

  He drags the knife between the top button of my shirt, slicing through the thread. I try to move, and he clutches me by the throat this time, with a palm that could crush the life out of me in one good squeeze.

  I am completely powerless to him. The reality of that washes over me again with stark clarity.

  I
don’t move. I don’t even breathe.

  I just stand there, frozen and numb while he slices through the remaining three buttons. He slices all the way down until only two halves remain.

  Tears leak from my eyes when he does the same to the bra strap beneath. My breasts spring free, and he touches them with the knife. Dragging the blade over the soft mounds in an exercise that tests his own will. It occurs to me that this knife is the only thing keeping him from touching me himself.

  And suddenly, I am grateful for the blade.

  I don’t understand it. I don’t understand the darkness of his mind, but I realize that I need to. If I want to survive whatever fucked up game he’s playing, I need to make sense of this. Of him.

  He removes the scraps of my shirt and bra and allows them to fall to the floor. I squeeze my eyes shut again when he moves to my leggings and cuts through them too.

  Nobody has ever seen me this way. Nobody has ever seen me bare. I feel raw. Exposed. Vulnerable. And there is nothing I can do.

  The last and final piece to go is my panties. I try to beg him. I try to plead around the gag, but he doesn’t listen or care. He slices through the silky material and rips them away too.

  I am naked in front of him.

  My body is consumed with fear, and I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I can barely feel my legs as he drags me from the room, a blur of wild roses and shadows.

  The floor is cold beneath my feet, and I wish I’d grabbed my shoes. I wish I’d never left my hotel room. I wish I’d done so many things differently.

  His strides are too large, and I can’t keep up. My arm burns from his grip, and eventually, he grows impatient with me. Heaving me up like I am nothing more than a feather, he tosses me over his shoulders and clamps his forearm over the back of my thighs.

  My head bobs over his shoulder, and my teeth gnash into the rubber ball with every forceful step. I try to count them. To distract myself. To focus on anything than whatever is about to happen.

  He stops outside of an open door, and I stop moving too.

  I’m gulping down breaths, and my heart feels like it’s going to explode in my chest. I wiggle in his grip and have one last futile attempt at fighting back, kneeing him in the chest while my hands slap at his face.