Page 14 of He Followed Me First

He’s right.

I can’t kill him.

But I can’t let him go either.

I’m wedged between panic and consequences, stuck in a trap of my own making. I need to find my friend—desperately—but I need to stay safe, too. And dragging him here was a catastrophic misstep. What was I thinking?

He knows my name. My face. Where I live. If he gets out, he’ll know everything else there is to know.

And what do I have left, really? My job is probably gone. My ex is still out there, picking apart the remains of my life one thread at a time.

Can something—anything—just go right for once?

He’s waiting, staring through my soul like he can already see the answer.

I flick on the lights, the harrowing brightness temporarily blinding me. I catch the way his eyes graze over my swollen face, probably judging my mess of a life the way everyone else does.

“You need to talk. Until you tell me what you know about my friend and where she is, you’re not going anywhere. And in case you haven’t noticed, my life is falling apart anyway, so if I was you, I’d be smart. ‘Cos the person you should fear most is the one with nothing left to lose.”

He’s thinking. Probably weighing his odds. But deep down, he knows I’m right—he should be a hell of a lot more afraid of me than I am of him right now.

“You do realise, if I tell you… there’s no walking away from this?”

His gaze hardens.

“Once you know, you’re in it. All the way.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s fine,”

I mutter, brushing off the theatrics like I always do. Foresight’s never really been my strong suit.

“I run a company that targets sex trafficking networks,”

he says.

“Manticore—the ones who took your friend—are our current priority. They abduct women and sell them to the highest bidder. And once someone vanishes into that system, they don’t come back.”

I freeze.

“We dismantle them from the inside out,”

he goes on, voice steady now.

“And your friend… she was supposed to be my way in. Until you knocked me out cold and set the whole thing on fire.”

“Well, if that’s true how did they find her in the first place?”

“You’re friend hasn’t got good choice in one-night stands, let put it that way.”

Damn her. I think I know exactly who’s behind this. I remember the way she spoke about him the next day—mysterious, charming, thick Eastern European accent. She thought it was thrilling at the time, romantic even. Until he vanished without a trace.

We figured he ghosted her. Turns out his version of ghosting comes with a far darker subtext.

Just one more reason I don’t pick up strangers in bars. At least I have the sense to do a background check first.

“Alright,”

I say, swallowing down the knot rising in my throat.

“Let’s say you’re telling the truth. I intercepted you, and now my friend’s out there, alone. How do I get her back?”

He laughs—deep and sudden, a full-bodied sound straight from his chest.

Apparently, my desperation’s the funniest thing he’s heard all day.

“Oh, you’re serious.”

My expression doesn’t flicker—not a crack of amusement anywhere.

“You really are trouble aren’t you?… You don’t bring her back. That kind of extraction takes precision. Skill. Training that you don’t have. That’s my team’s job—if it’s even possible. And between you and me?”

I lean in just a fraction, feeling drawn to every word.

“I’ve never pulled anyone back from that black hole. Not once.”

My gaze lingers on his, waiting for the punch line.

“You should be less worried about saving her, and more worried about staying alive. Manticore hunts in pairs. Always has. And if there’s one thing years of chasing them has taught me—it’s that you’re next.”

I wait for a telltale sign he’s lying, that this is just a scary story he’s retelling to scare me into setting him free. But there’s nothing, just his dark intense gaze.

“And what, if I let you go where does that get me? Then I’ll just be alone and waiting to be captured. At least if I keep you here, I have something that might deter them.”

“If you let me go, I might be able to get to the bottom of their plans before it’s too late. Unless of course you want to be kidnapped and sold for sex? Whatever floats your boat.”

Is he just telling me what I want to hear?

Probably.

But what other choice do I have?

The only reason I kidnapped him was because he was stalking my friend, and with her now awol, I don’t know what other reason I have to hold him here.

“I’ll see in the morning.”

I conclude, but for tonight I need to figure out a way to keep him shut in one place, without the risk of him attempting an escape again.

Without a word, I rifle through the kitchen drawer where I keep the rope, fingers brushing past spare batteries and old takeaway menus until I find it. For good measure, I grab the carving knife, the biggest one I own.

I can see it in his eyes—the way they track the blade, the flicker of calculation already setting in.

“I’m going to untie your legs and then tie them back together,”

I say, my voice flat.

“Since you clearly can’t be trusted not to bolt. And if you try anything?”

I hold up the knife, steady in my grip like I actually know what I’m doing.

“I’ll cut your balls off before you can scream.”

He doesn’t need to know the closest I’ve come to carving anything is hacking through supermarket rotisserie chicken with kitchen scissors.

“I’m being serious,”

I warn again, never breaking eye contact as I loosen the knots anchoring him to the chair. He’s still bound tight, legs probably numb from inactivity—so if he’s thinking of lunging, it’d be a spectacularly bad move.

To his credit, he stays still. Watching. Maybe even a little impressed. Clearly, stalker boy isn’t used to taking orders.

It takes effort to secure the rope again, one-handed and fast, looping it tight around his legs with a final yank to test the hold. Not pretty, but effective.

His eyes never leave me. Tracking every shift of my weight, every flick of the blade in my hand. And when I move behind him, loosening the rope that held him to the chair back, his fingers twitch. Subtle, but enough to set my nerves alight.

“Try it,”

I whisper, pressing the knife to the thick, pulsing vein at his neck.

It’s a strong neck. Shame if anything were to happen to it.

“I’m only stretching out, do you even understand how uncomfortable it is being tied to a chair for twenty-four hours?”

Even now, a full day into his capture, his scent clings to the air—aftershave laced with something darker, rougher. Earth and fire. It coils around my senses, stirring something I don’t want disturbed. My mouth waters.

No. Absolutely not. I’m shutting this down right now.

When I cut the last knot across his torso, I slip the knife higher, pressing the blade to his back—firm enough to prove I’m not playing games.

One wrong move, and he’ll feel just how serious I can be.

“Go to the bed,”

I instruct, leaving no room for questions.

“Really?”

“Now,”

I say again, pressing the blade just a touch deeper until he gets the message.

He hops forward—clumsy, off-balance—each bound more awkward than the last, until he lands in a graceless sprawl on the mattress.

Even though it’s a double, he dominates the space entirely, his frame swallowing it whole like it’s a child’s cot.

“Now what? Want to undress me too?”

He’s teasing obviously. But it still heats my cheeks in a way it shouldn’t.

“Haha, you’re hilarious. Move up, I’m not sleeping on the floor. And if you try anything, I will cut you.”

“Easy tiger,”

he counters, struggling to move with his hands tied behind his back.

He grunts a few times, shifting around in a clumsy attempt to get comfortable. I do feel for him—being trussed up on my bed isn’t exactly five-star sleeping conditions—but I can’t risk cutting him loose. Not yet.

Silence folds in around me, thick and smothering. My mind spins, images of what Darcy might be going through unspooling in the dark—each one worse than the last, each one my fault.

I’m coming for you, Darcy. I swear it.

She’s the only one who ever stood by me, who never backed down when everyone else did. She fought for me. Now it’s my turn to return the favour.

I try to stay alert, knife still pressed loosely to his ribs, but his breathing slows until it’s deep and heavy. He’s drifting.

And that’s when I really look at him.

In any other world, a man like this would never end up in my bed. Tall. Broad. Unapologetically handsome. But here he is, unconscious and bound—and I can’t help but study him like he’s some impossible paradox.

The sharp cut of his jaw, dusted with stubble. That tattoo, dark and intricate, crawling from the buzzed edge of his scalp into the darkness of his hairline—matching the black ink that curves down his neck in crisp, deliberate lines. He looks carved, not grown.

And if he wasn’t a stalker—a very inconvenient stalker of my missing friend—I might even want to lean closer. Breathe him in. Let myself get lost in the heat radiating from those banded arms.

But he is stalker boy. And I am his captor.

And there’s no version of this story where that ends well.