Page 56 of A Smile Full of Lies (Secrets of Stonewood #1)

Chapter

Thirty-Six

ROS

No one answered when I called out for Knox.

The second I stepped deeper into the house, I felt it. A shift in the air. The kind of instinctual, bone-deep awareness that sent a jolt of primal fear straight through my veins.

I definitely wasn’t alone in here.

The house was dark, save for the faint silver glow of the streetlamp bleeding through the curtains. Shadows stretched long and jagged across the floorboards. The silence pressed in on my ears, deafening in its intensity.

And then I heard it. A faint whisper of movement.

My pulse slammed into my ribs. A sharp, painful jolt of adrenaline shot down my spine. Every nerve in my body went rigid, locking me in place.

The sound had been subtle — the barest shift of weight against the floor — but it was there. And I wasn’t imagining it.

My breath hitched. Slowly, I turned my head, scanning the darkness, heart pounding so hard it echoed in my skull.

And then I saw him. Sitting in the chair across the room. Waiting. Neon purple cut through the darkness, glowing softly.

The goddamn mask.

The mask I’d seen in those thirst trap videos on social media. The mask that Nox Obscura wore the night he chased me through Knox’s family’s mansion.

The one that had been a warning, a taunt, a promise. He’d said once that our business with each other wasn’t finished yet, but I’d told him it was when I chose Knox. I’d thought this was over and done with.

I was fucking wrong. He was here, in that mask, right fucking now, in Knox’s goddamn house.

And he was watching me.

What the fuck… how the fuck? This can’t be real.

A chill slithered down my spine. Not just fear. Something deeper. Something I didn’t have a name for.

He spoke in that same eerie, distorted voice he used in all his thirst traps.

“I told you we had unfinished business, sweetheart. I told you we’d see each other again. I meant that shit.”

And then came the first prickle of wrongness. Because he looked familiar. Not just the way he sat there, the lazy sprawl of his legs, the confidence woven into every muscle. Not just the way he held himself, like a wolf too patient to pounce just yet.

It was him. No… it was his build. The shape of his jaw beneath the neon glow. The way he sat there, head tilted, just like in the videos.

Nox Obscura.

A TikTok thirst trap fantasy just walked into the fucking house that I was supposed to be sharing with the man I loved.

No, no, no.

He couldn’t fucking be here. Not in Knox’s house — not in our house. Not in the place that had become ours ever since my power got cut off and he refused to let me struggle alone.

The room swayed.

No, goddamn it. No, no, no.

It was a coincidence. It had to be. But my stomach twisted in protest, a sick, sinking feeling dragging me under.

It was like seeing a ghost of something I should have never encountered in real life. A fictional monster suddenly made real.

The videos. The ones I’d watched, over and over, until I knew every flicker of movement, every precise shift of his body. The predator’s walk. The deliberate tilts of his head. The breathing. The mask.

He wasn’t just wearing one like it. He was wearing the exact same one.

A storm of static swelled in my skull. No. It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t fucking possible.

I took a single, staggering step backward.

He tilted his head the other way. Exactly like he did in the videos. The bottom dropped out of my stomach.

“I thought you’d come straight home tonight,” he murmured, his voice smooth as silk, low as a promise. “You surprised me.”

The reality of it slammed into me all at once.

This wasn’t random. This wasn’t a coincidence.

This was curated. Designed. A slow, careful unveiling of something I was never meant to know until this very moment.

Oh, God.

The rage hit first. White-hot, sharp, and electric.

“You broke into our fucking house?”

He hummed, fingers tapping lazily against the arm of the chair.

“Your man left the door unlocked.”

“That’s not an invitation.”

“It is to me.”

A shudder ripped through me, a wicked, involuntary response that had nothing to do with fear.

His voice was so damn confident. Like he already owned me. Like we were still playing a game that I hadn’t realized I was losing.

I took a step back. His head tilted the other way, that eerie, glowing mask making him look inhuman, untouchable. Wrong.

“I should call the cops,” I hissed.

A beat of silence stretched between us.

Then, a slow chuckle rumbled out of him.

“You won’t.”

My stomach twisted. I hated that he was right. That the very idea of telling someone — of admitting to this — made my insides revolt.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I whispered.

“I’ve always been here, baby.”

His voice sent a ripple of something hot down my spine. Because that wasn’t just a statement — it was a truth. One I didn’t understand. Not yet.

I needed to get out. Right fucking now.

My muscles unlocked all at once, the fight-or-flight instinct slamming into me. I kicked off my high heels, half hoping one might hit him, and I ran like a bat out of hell. He caught the one that flew straight at his face and slung it into the kitchen.

I bolted, feet barely touching the floor as I tore back out of the living room, through the hall, throwing open the front door so hard it slammed against the wall. Cool night air rushed against my skin, shocking me into clarity.

Go, bitch, before he gets your ass, my mind screamed.

My bare feet hit the pavement as I sprinted down the driveway. I didn’t stop. Didn’t look back. I just ran.

Across the street. Down the sidewalk. Into the trees. I barely made it ten steps into the woods before I heard him.

He wasn’t running. No. He was following me, and the motherfucker was whistling again. Casually. Confidently. Like he was savoring it. Like he knew exactly how this would end.

A shiver shot through me, wicked and sharp.

Branches whipped at my arms, my legs, slicing against my exposed skin. My lungs burned. My heartbeat crashed against my ribs, wild and erratic.

I thought I had a chance. For a second. For a breath.

Then I heard a whisper of movement. Too damn close. I tried to lunge away from it, and then I was tackled from behind.

I went down hard, my body twisting beneath the weight of him. A scream barely left my lips before a gloved hand clamped over my mouth.

His other hand fisted in my hair, yanking my head back, exposing my throat. His breath was hot against my skin despite the mask, his voice pure, dark amusement.

“I let you run,” he murmured, his modulated voice drenched in satisfaction. “I wanted to see how far you’d get.”

A whimper trembled in my throat. My body was on fire. My mind screamed at me to fight, to resist, but deep in the marrow of my bones, something else unfurled and stretched its limbs.

Something I had tried to deny. Something he already knew.

He pressed closer, his body hard and unyielding against mine. Heat radiated off him, seeping into me, sinking beneath my skin like a poison I didn’t want to cure.

I felt everything. Every sharp line. Every inch of muscle. Every solid reminder that he was stronger. Faster. In control.

The asshole wasn’t even out of breath.

The realization sent a shudder through me, violent and traitorous.

His chuckle was dark silk and razor wire.

“My poor little prey.”

My stomach clenched.

“I told you we were done.”

He pressed the mouth of the mask to my ear and breathed in, slow and deliberate, like he was taking his time relishing my fear.

“Isn’t this exactly what you wanted, baby?”

I gasped, the words wrecking me.

No. No, it wasn’t supposed to feel like this. I wasn’t supposed to feel like this. Not with him. Not with anyone.

He wasn’t supposed to know. But he did. He knew everything.

His fingers brushed my lips. A taunt. A test. A fucking game.

I jerked my head away, my breath coming in short, sharp bursts. Panic warred with something darker. Something low and traitorous, curling deep inside me.

“Go on,” he whispered. “Take the mask off.”

No. I didn’t want to know.

I shook my head, twisting against him, but his grip tightened — not enough to hurt, just enough to tell me I had no choice.

“Take it off,” he repeated, softer this time. More dangerous.

The way he said it sent a sharp, unwanted thrill through me. My hands shook as I reached up. My fingers curled around the edges of the mask.

I didn’t want to know. I already knew. But I had to see the truth for myself. I ripped the mask off, and there he was.

Philip. Fucking. Knox.

His face was sharp and beautiful in the low light, his feral, wicked smile curling at the corners of his mouth.

The smile I’d seen before. The one I’d dismissed. Mistaken for harmless. But it was never harmless. It was a smile full of lies. Beautiful, patient, insidiously perfect lies.

My stomach dropped.

No. No, no, no ? —

I knew that face. I’d seen him before. Too many times over the years, but I couldn’t reconcile my neighbor, the man I was in love with, the man I’d gone up against Thayer for, the man I’d gotten stabbed for, with Nox Obscura…

the man who hunted me, toyed with me, manipulated me, pulled the truth out of me against my will.

It wasn’t fucking fair, and it hit me like a train wreck.

He had been circling me. Waiting. Since we were eighteen. Since he bought the house next door just to be close while I was still with his best friend.

He was never just watching. He was studying me — mapping me .

He leaned in, drinking in my realization like it fueled him.

My breath came in ragged bursts. I swallowed hard, bile and something far hotter rising up my throat.

“You sick fuck?—”

His hand snapped up, fingers gripping my jaw with just enough pressure to hold me still. His smirk deepened.

“Now, that’s not a very nice way to treat a guy who’s making your deepest, darkest dreams come true, is it?”

Heat flooded my cheeks.

No. No, he wasn’t allowed to say that.

Not when I could still feel his fingers brushing over my lips like a phantom touch. Not when my pulse was still pounding, betraying me.

I shoved at his shoulders, writhing beneath him, but it only made it worse. Made it better.

His laugh was slow, satisfied.

“Oh, sweetheart. Keep fighting me. You know I love that.”

I hated him. I hated the way my stomach twisted, the way my skin burned where he touched me.

I hated myself more for liking it.

“Fuck you,” I snarled.

And then… then he said it, and the rest of the puzzle finally clicked into place all at once.

“Not until you ask me nicely, princess .”

The world shattered. My stomach plummeted. That fucking name. That name that only one person had ever called me.

My friend. My confidant. My anonymous escape. The one I had told everything.

Oh, God.

Only StrayDog777 ever called me princess. Had Knox and Stray Dog and Nox Obscura been one and the same this whole goddamn time? Fuck. I’d handed him the playbook to my goddamn fantasies in that anonymous forum, and he’d made them a reality.

My pulse slammed through me, making my whole body shake with the force of it. My lungs refused to pull in air.

It was him. It was all him the whole fucking time. I had been whispering my darkest secrets to him.

And now? I wasn’t going anywhere.

My throat closed, but I forced out the words.

“How long? How deep does this shit go, Knox?”

He didn’t answer right away. Just stared at me like he could peel my skin back and climb inside. Like he already had. His voice was low and shattered like broken glass.

“You let yourself get stabbed to protect me. I warned you that I was going to make you pay for it.”

“Quit dodging my questions. That’s not what I meant, and you fucking know it, Knox. How long have you known about my desire to be hunted? How long have you planned on acting on it?”

His fingers ghosted along my jaw, the touch lazy and indulgent.

“Since your first confession on that anonymous forum… since the first night I DMed you as StrayDog777 and asked how you would want to be caught.”

My stomach hollowed out. The air rushed from my lungs.

“I’m a mod in that forum. I was supposed to ban you.” His voice was all silk and steel. “That was the protocol.”

My whole body locked up.

“But then, I read what you wrote.”

Oh, God.

His grip on my jaw tightened just a little.

“I read,” he continued, softer now, dragging the words out like a caress, “every filthy, desperate confession you poured into that chat with StrayDog777, and I ate it up.”

A broken sound tore from my throat.

Why me?

“I should have kicked you out of the system,” he mused. “But you were too delicious, princess. Too perfect. I couldn’t bring myself to let you go.”

His lips curled into a wicked, sinful smile.

“And you don’t really want me to, do you?”

I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. And then… it got worse.

“You thought the social media algorithm was reading your mind, too, didn’t you?”

His smirk turned razor-sharp.

“It wasn’t the algorithm.”

He leaned in, his voice a whisper against my lips.

“It was me, baby. It was always me.”

My pulse slammed so hard I felt it leaping in my throat.

How the fuck was this my life?

I had been whispering my secrets to him. My confessions. My fantasies.

And the whole time, he had been watching. He had been listening. He had been feeding them back to me.

I had devoured every single one. I had begged the algorithm for more. And he had given me exactly what I wanted.

“I led you straight to my MaskTok videos,” he murmured.

Oh. My. God.

The corner of social media that StrayDog777 had suggested to me when I mentioned my interest in being chased, the perfect account that was exactly what I craved sliding into my For You Page like it had been waiting for me.

Nox Obscura. Him. The masked man in the dim lighting. The one who acted out every filthy scenario I had ever typed into my DMs with StrayDog777 on that anonymous forum in his thirst traps.

The ones I had hyper-fixated on. The ones I had watched over and over and over again.

I’d memorized his hands.

I had let them crawl under my skin, into my head, my dreams… and now they were on me.

His breath skated over my cheek.

“I made them just for you, princess. Every time you came to Nox Obscura’s content,” he murmured, voice dark and velvet, “you were thinking of me. Even when you didn’t know it.”

I choked on my own breath.

Every single one. I had devoured them. Obsessed over them. Let them sink into my fucking bones.

And the whole damn time, it was Knox. It was always him.

I should’ve screamed. Should’ve slapped him. Should’ve begged him to stop. But all I could do was shake.

Because some twisted, monstrous part of me liked it. Wanted it. Wanted him , even though he’d lied to me and manipulated me and god only knew what else he’d done over the seven years we’d been neighbors.