Page 35 of A Smile Full of Lies (Secrets of Stonewood #1)

My grip tightened on the phone until the cheap plastic casing creaked.

Christ.

I read it once. Twice. A third time, every line carving deeper.

She thought she was cutting me off. Thought she was drawing her line in the sand, walking away from the mask, choosing the man.

What she didn’t know was that she’d just handed me her heart in plain fucking text.

She chose me. Philip Knox. Not the fantasy. Not the shadows. Me.

My chest felt too tight, lungs working like I’d been hit square in the sternum. My cock stirred, traitorous and sharp, but underneath the hunger was something worse — something bigger. Something like reverence.

For one raw second, I almost stormed into the kitchen. Almost went to her, crowded her against the counter, and demanded she say it to my face. Wanted to hear it raw, wanted to brand it into my skin with her voice instead of her text.

But I didn’t move. Couldn’t.

Because the beast in me — the one who wanted to claim her, mark her, keep her — was fighting with the liar. The mask-wearer. The man who knew that if I told her the truth now, if I admitted it had been me all along, I’d lose her.

She wasn’t ready for that.

Not yet.

So I just stood there, pulse hammering, reading it again. Fixating.

I choose him.

Three words that might as well have been a blood oath.

Come what may.

She thought she was being brave. Thought she was saying it to a stranger. She didn’t realize she was saying it to me — to the mask, to the man, to both.

And it changed everything.

She thought she’d escaped the game. But all she’d done was step deeper into it.

I set the burner down before I crushed it in my hand, breath ragged, pulse still thrumming like I’d sprinted a mile.

The drawer to my desk stood half open across the room. I crossed to it, slower than I meant to, like my body knew this was a line I couldn’t uncross.

The USB drive waited where it always had. Black. Unmarked. Nothing to look at. But I knew better.

It was the only fragment left of Stonewood Manor that hadn’t been buried.

I’d pulled it myself, years ago, clawed it out of corrupted files the police had written off.

Hours hunched over hard drives, forcing the footage to give me something — anything — that could tell me what had really happened the night my family was slaughtered.

What I’d got was this: a single recovered clip. Grainy, incomplete, but mine. Proof the ghosts weren’t just in my head. Four men, wearing Halloween masks.

Until I saw that for the first time, masks had been just for fun, for Halloween and the like.

I’d seen Ros react to men in masks when we watched horror movies, but I hadn’t ever planned to go there – but when I saw this clip, something changed.

I made a promise to myself that if I could ever find those bastards, they’d find out what it was like to be hunted down by a masked man.

And not long after that Nox Obscura was born – that name had become something I hadn’t originally intended, something better, maybe.

I’d never shown the clip to anyone. Not investigators. Not lawyers. Not colleagues who swore they could help. Nobody. Because once it left my hands, I lost control. And control was the only thing that kept me from tearing the world apart looking for answers.

The drive was all I had left of them. My family. My house. My life before everything turned to ash.

And now I was standing here, holding it, thinking about giving it to her.

Ros.

The woman who had stood in my kitchen barefoot, making soup, like she belonged in my house. The woman who had come for me in shadows she didn’t know were mine. The woman who’d just typed out her confession like it was nothing, like she didn’t realize she’d given me her entire heart in the process.

If she wanted in, I’d let her in.

It wasn’t just a gift — it was a test. A warning. A tether.

Because once she saw what was on this drive, she couldn’t unknow it. She couldn’t step back into her safe little world and pretend Stonewood Manor was just a house or my family was just a story.

She wanted me? Then she had to take the rest of me too. The past. The blood. The ghosts.

I turned the drive over in my palm, the edges biting into my skin. Heavy as sin. Heavy as truth.

And I slipped it into my pocket.

I crossed back to the mirror, the drive pressing heavy against my thigh with every step.

The man staring back at me looked the same as he always did. Suit straight. Tie perfect. Watch gleaming. Untouchable.

But I knew better.

Beneath the pressed fabric, my skin still burned with her marks. My chest still carried the weight of her confession. My pocket now held the one piece of evidence I’d sworn I’d never share.

It was too much. Too raw. Too dangerous.

And yet I wasn’t about to stop.

Because Ros thought she’d made her choice — thought she was choosing me over the mask. What she didn’t understand was that there was no choice. The man and the mask weren’t separate anymore. They were both me. Both hers.

She thought she was stepping out of the game. She didn’t realize she was in deeper than ever.

I smoothed the lapels of my jacket, adjusted the tie one last time, and let the mask settle into place. Calm. Polished. Collected.

Same mask. Different skin.

When I walked into that kitchen, I’d hand her this drive. I’d let her see the ghosts I’d been carrying alone for years. I’d give her just enough truth to bind her tighter to me.

But the rest?

The monster. The liar. The one who had hunted her in the dark and pulled every confession out of her mouth?

That stayed mine. For now.

I palmed the burner one more time before sliding it into my pocket, screen dark. She thought she’d cut herself loose. She thought she was free.

She had no idea she’d just tied herself to me for good.