She grabs the glass and plate in one hand, then tips the wine bottle back and drinks the last few milliliters with the other. Just like nobody’s watching...
One corner of my lips curves at the ungracious gesture. She makes it look sexy as hell. Especially in her sultry nakedness with her creamy, unmarked skin on full display. How perfect she would look against my heavily tattooed complexion.
She walks toward the old stone cottage, and I match her steps, keeping to the shadows of the trees. Low garden lights hidden within the flower beds dimly illuminate her path, and one antique outdoor lamp lights up her front door. She presses the handle, looking behind her for a moment before she steps inside and closes the door. Then the porch light goes off.
She doesn’t notice me. Not in this darkness.
It pleases me, but it angers me, too. What if someone else was watching her? What if others have in the past?
I circle the house at a slow pace, looking for cameras that could catch me in the act. Once again, there are none.
What I do note are the dim lights turning on inside, window by window brightening as she walks through her house, stopping behind one that’s frosted—the bathroom. I stand here, listening through the sounds of the crickets, until the toilet flushes and the shower runs.
My need to gather evidence justifies my next move. Inside this house, I could find an indication that she is the person who broke into my car. My bar. Or maybe at least some clues as to who Scarlet Brasa-Glass is, this mystery woman with no social-media presence and almost no trace online.
I use this reasoning as I head back to a dark window I noticed was slightly cracked. I keep using it as I open it and slowly lift myself until I can climb through. I use it again when my steps guide me through this dark room, toward a cracked door, and into the light.
The shower runs in the distance, and I walk into the main hallway of the house. I called it a cottage, but it’s definitely bigger than that.
A disabled alarm blinks slowly by the front door, and I memorize the model for later, but that’s not the first thing I notice in her space; it’s the display tables. Old and new. High and low, sturdy and skinny, filled neatly witheverything.Art in all of its forms. Sculptures. Gold and silver knick-knacks. And bones. So many bones. Anything from animal skulls to a human spine displayed in an artistic curve, the ends of each vertebra dipped in a gold metal.
What have I walked into?
As I peek into a couple of the rooms, I see even more interesting things—fossils. Out of all the things I thought I would find...none of these were on my list. And these are not just any fossils, but Mesozoic pieces displayed under paintings that look too expensive to be in the house of anormalwoman. And I have yet to figure out what this one does for a living.
Judging by my surroundings, definitely not a mundane nine-to-five.
I walk deeper into the house, listening as the shower sounds shift with movement—she stepped in. I shouldn’t, but I take it as an invitation to observe.
The door to the bathroom is already half open, steam rolling in gentle waves through the wide gap. I close the distance until I fill that space and lay my eyes on her once again, bathed in the dimmed wall light. Her head is under the spray, hands running slowly through her hair, creamy skin blurred by the steamed-up glass.
I stopped filming after she entered the house, but I can’t help myself now. Not when she’s so close. So oblivious to this predicament. I turn on the phone’s camera once again, aiming it at her.
Something stirs within me as I watch her run her hands over the curves of her body as her head delicately falls back. A cruel tremor quakes from my chest straight down to my cock. My gaze widens, my brain having trouble finding the logic between my duty and physical reaction.
This shouldn’t be happening. It can’t keep happening.
This woman is black magic, crawling under my skin when I don’t know a goddamn thing about her. When I’m supposed to fucking end her.
With gritted teeth, I take one step further into her space and reach into my belt holster for my favorite knife—four inches long, thin blade. I shift closer, eyes trained on her as she turns her back to me.
My hand flexes around the knife’s hilt on the same rhythm as hers runs through her hair. This synchronization bothers me too...Hearts thrumming on the same beat.
And hers must stop.
Scarlet must die.
This was always the plan. Since the moment I lost her in that alley too many months ago.
I don’t care if she’s the person behind the puzzle boxes.
I don’t care if I have many more questions that only she can answer now that I’ve seen the contents of her house.
I don’t care if one side of my brain is telling me she’s important somehow.
I have to kill her. If I don’t, I fear she’ll grow roots inside of me. It’s already started, and I must sever them now. Only, a sharp, raking feeling tears down my throat, clawing through my chest until my lungs are shredded and my heart is caught in a tight, choking grip. Squeezing. Hard. My hands clench painfully around the phone and knife. My windpipe tightens as I take one step further, and the realization of what these feelings are slams through me—hesitation.
Not indecision, not avoidance, like what I’ve been doing so far, but pure hesitation. The type that brings doubt and ridiculous morality into play. The one that feeds curiosity and demands more.
