Page 27

Valeria

I picked up Zara from her grandmother's house on Saturday morning, a little tired after my night shift. But I hadn't spent quality time with my baby girl lately, so I decided to take her to the shopping mall and the movies.

She laughed all the time we were there, and my heart fluttered with happiness. She didn't mention Chester at any moment, which calmed an unpleasant feeling of guilt that I had taken her away from her father.

Lisa also confirmed that Zara was weirdly comfortable with her parents' breakup.

She replied with a shrug and a sentence when she asked about it, which slightly worried me.

She said her father wasn't a good man and didn't deserve us.

How could a seven-year-old girl come up with such a mature response? Did I really overlook her that much?

At four pm, Alice visited us in our new home, and we grabbed a quick coffee. I told her about my new job and the money Zyon gave me, and her eyes almost fell out of their sockets. She was even more surprised than me by that turnaround.

"What did he want in return?" Alice asked when I finished talking and watched Zara coloring Cinderella.

"Nothing," I replied, and she cast me a doubtful glance. "He even told me to come to him if I needed anything. "

"That doesn't sound like Zyon at all," she pointed out, pouring herself a glass of water. "I’ve worked for him many times. He pays great, but he's not a charity. Be careful with him."

"Maybe he changed," I objected, slightly offended by her insinuation about Zyon's reasons. However, I had to admit that the thought occurred to me, too. I had already decided to pay him back the twenty thousand he won from my husband. It was his money, and I didn't want to owe him anything.

"Guys like him never change, Valeria," Alice warned, taking her coat and bag. "Please, think about it before you exchange the asshole for the psychopath."

"There is nothing between me and Zyon," I hissed, annoyed by her assumptions. I also didn't want Zara to hear this.

"For now." She shrugged and kissed me goodbye. "If you need a dealer at work, just give me a call. I could use the extra cash. The new job isn't anything special."

"Of course. Keep me posted about your dad."

We hugged, and she waved at Zara and left, taking her opinions about Zyon with her.

I wasn't sure why her words infuriated me.

I decided to keep away from my new boss for my own good, yet I still felt like I should protect him from these claims. The healthy part of my brain knew he murdered people he deemed inconvenient, but the other one—the one that was grateful for his help—ignored everything wrong he ever did. He was my savior.

"Mommy?" Zara's curious voice broke me from my musings and justifying my feelings toward a killer, and I met her in the living room.

She sat on the ground with her teddy bear, pony, and two dolls, examining the white bear.

It was a gift from Chester when I found out about my pregnancy.

I told him about it on the street, and he bought the first thing he saw.

I always considered this toy a token of our relationship.

"What happened to his eye?" Zara asked, handing me a bear, and I frowned, examining his black, reflecting orb. The other one was brown with a black iris. I was sure he didn't have mismatched eyes when I packed him into the box the other day.

Using my long nail to dig the tiny black ball out, I gasped when it fell into my palm. It wasn't an eye. It was a camera !

Dread washed over me, and fear consumed my thoughts.

My mind swirled with different scenarios about who would place a surveillance device into my daughter's bear.

My husband and his shady business popped up as the most probable case, but then I realized I knew someone with a twisted interest in me.

Chester was still in the hospital, and he didn't know I had left our apartment.

He didn't have a reason to harass me yet.

Hastily, I grabbed my phone, ready to give the culprit a piece of my mind. Anger bubbled just under the surface like a hot lava prepared to burst out. My stalker committed a crime by kidnapping me, but cameras? It was a massive violation of my privacy.

However, after I typed a long, furious message canceling our date and sending him back to where he came from, I changed my mind. My finger hovered over the send button. A devilish idea stopped me. He wanted to watch me? Well, then, I would give him something to look at.

Lisa picked up Zara at five-thirty, giving me half an hour to prepare for my date.

I chose the shortest, tightest dress in my closet with fishnet stockings and high heels stilettos.

I was ready to provoke the shit out of him with my outfit and seductive behavior, but simultaneously, I would say no to any sexual offer or game.

And to top it all off, I placed the teddy bear and my phone with the turned-on front camera before my bed, dressed in sexy black lingerie that barely covered my pussy and breasts, and took out my vibrator.

I never made an erotic video for my husband, and I’d never been watched while masturbating, but I found it strangely arousing.

Knowing that someone observed me while I touched myself messed me up a little.

Suddenly, I wanted to give the best performance, and I was also curious if the person on the other side enjoyed it.

Taking a deep breath, I touched the button on my phone to start recording and climbed on the bed. I knelt on the mattress, tilting my head to the side and roaming my body with my hands.

"Hello, sweetheart," I said in the most seductive voice I was capable of, staring into the eye of a teddy bear.

The absurdity of this situation almost made me laugh out loud, but I couldn't know if my stalker was watching me or not.

For all I knew, he could already be on his way to pick me up because it was 6:35 pm.

"I hope you'll enjoy this little gift from me, baby," I continued, closing my eyes and massaging my breasts. I turned off that annoying voice in my head that made me shy, and instead, I woke up my inner goddess. This would be a performance of a lifetime.

Zyon

I checked my phone out of pure curiosity about what Valeria was doing before our date night. But seeing her in black lingerie with stockings and high heels made my eyes bulge. She gave me an instant hard-on, and I wriggled uncomfortably behind the steering wheel.

Hypnotized by her striking beauty and seductiveness, I almost crashed into the car before me.

That would be an issue because I would have to explain why I wore skull makeup when there were still three weeks until the holidays.

My entire body was covered with makeup that hid my tattoos, and I had painted bones on my hands.

I looked like a caricature or a Halloween advertisement, but I had to be thorough.

However, I pushed all the worries aside, focusing on the divinity offering herself on a silver platter.

I couldn't tear my eyes from the fucking screen. Valeria exposed her chest, and then she lay on the mattress and pulled the fabric down her long, stunning legs. She stayed only in her heels and stockings, and she spread her thighs wide before the camera.

The only device she could have found was in the teddy bear.

My boys warned me that she could notice it, but I liked the idea of her knowing I watched her.

Obviously, her observant eye caught it, and she decided to tease me.

Yet when she started talking like she streamed this for another man, the rage mixed with all-consuming jealousy almost sent me on a rampage.

I totally stopped focusing on her, enjoying the vibration of her toy, and speeded through the city like fucking lightning.

Valeria couldn't know the cameras in her apartment were from me. She could assume it, but exposing herself like this would still be a considerable risk. Her little session was for someone else, and I had to know who it was to kill the fucker with my bare hands .

The thought of her doing this for her husband or any other man was suffocating. My chest tightened, and my hands shook on the steering wheel. I had to direct my rage elsewhere, or someone could get hurt.

I parked the car behind her apartment, fishing the keys from the inner pocket of my black suit jacket. Valeria didn't know that I owned the entire building and that she had paid the rent to me. The money she sent was automatically added to her salary. I would never take a penny from her.

Stopping before her door, I inhaled deeply, but the thundering of my heart didn't lessen. It nearly exploded through my ribcage. For a brief moment, I hesitated with my hand on the knob, dreading to find out there was another man in her life.

Killing was easy. I would snap him in half right before her without a second thought. But if she didn't want any version of me, the stalker or the businessman, was I prepared to force her into a relationship?

I would rather die than push her into something she didn't want. I never asked for permission. I always took what I wanted, not caring about results. But, with her, my rules didn't apply.

Nonetheless, if, by any chance, she decided to refuse me, it wouldn't be an end. It would be a beginning because I was obsessed, enchanted. She was my drug, and I was addicted. Nothing could stop me from making her mine, but she could make it the hardest task ever.

Valeria had it in her. The ability to seduce and then reject. The urge to start a game and then run away. The passion to tease, ignoring the consequences, and then fear the outcome.

She elegantly balanced the thin line between my common healthy sense and my utter insanity and obsession with her. But was she able to tame the beast she awakened?