I felt as if the world had stopped spinning for a split second. The chaos of the music still pounded in my ears, the coppery tang of blood assaulted my nose, but all I could see was him. Alan. My lover. My betrayer. A man I thought I knew, reduced to a corpse at my feet.
Blood was everywhere. The floor. The wall. The fucking ceiling. His brains were splattered in a Pollock horror show. Red on white.
I didn’t scream right away. I couldn’t.
I walked toward him, feet slipping slightly in the sticky puddle. His mouth was ajar. Like he was trying to say something. His fingers were curled. One foot was twisted wrong. His temple...fuck, therewas notemple. Just a hole. A black fucking hole.
My fingers slid over the volume knobs and I managed to shut off the speakers. But the silence that followed was unbearable.
"Alan..." My voice cracked, barely a whisper.
I dropped to my knees beside him, reaching out to touch his face, hoping he might blink. Hoping it wasn’t real. But death is cold. And he was colder.
The phone shook in my hand as I dialed 911. I sobbed into the line. Gave them my address. Told them there was blood. So much blood. And then I hung up.
And then a voice inside my head, my father’s voice, growled loud and clear...
Run, Stephanie.
RUN.
This wasn’t a mugging. This was a message. Clean. Professional. Final. Alan had fucked up, and if whoever this was found me here, I was dead.
I stumbled back, blood on my hands, knees wet from kneeling in the mess. I looked down at my jeans, and they were soaked in the blood of the man I once thought I loved.
Love?What the fuck did that even mean anymore?
The mess they had left in the apartment wasn’t random. Furniture had been overturned, drawers yanked open and left hanging, and paperwork was scattered everywhere. Whoever had done this wasn’t just here to kill him; they were here to find something. Something Alan had been hiding. And by the looks of it, they would stop at nothing to get what they wanted.
I ran to the bedroom, tore open the stash drawer Alan kept hidden, and grabbed anything I thought was of importance. A burner phone, paperwork, his checkbook, my passport, and I stuffed them all into my backpack. I stuffed any cash he had lying around in my boots. By the time the sirens lit up the street below, I was gone.
It suddenly felt like I had no out. My entire world ended right here with Alan’s. The only question that kept repeating in my head was how the fuck was I going to survive without him.
Chapter 1
Duchess
Three weeks later…
Dark gray clouds filled the sky above, looming over me as I stood alone in Evergreen Cemetery. The scent of damp soil curled around me as I stared down at the freshly dug hole where my so-called boyfriend was now buried.My boots were soaked from the wet grass, my hands cold, and I was shivering not from the cold, but from the image of Alan's dead stare that was now ingrained in my head.
Three weeks.
That’s how long it had been since Alan, or rather, Serhan Kaya, the man I thought I loved, went and got himself killed. Now here I was, standing over his grave, watching the black casket descend, surrounded by five weeping women who all thought they were his one and only. The tears, the whimpers, the dramatic sobs, it was all a fucking joke. And they didn’t even care that he had made us all look like fools. They were all a bunch of fake sluts anyway with their plastic tits and thousands of dollars in botox that made their faces look more like scared porcelain dolls.
They were pawns, every last one of them, dressed in black and too stupid to see the game he had played on us all.
But me? I wasn’t just a pawn. I was the one he sacrificed.
Because Icared.
Because I gave my life for this asshole.
I gave that man everything. My loyalty. My skills. My body. My time. My goddamnsoul. He promised me forever with lips that lied prettier than most men breathe. Told me I was his only, the only one who everreallyknew him, understood the monster underneath the charm. And I believed him.
But I wasn’t enough.
Why would I be? Nothing was ever enough for Alan Brown. He was a sociopathic, compulsive liar. I knew that from the start, yet I let him manipulate me into believing he loved me. I let the way he touched me override every red flag, every gut scream, every sign that this man was danger wrapped in a pretty suit. I let him use me because, in truth, riding his dick was better than seeing any truth.
