Page 106 of Misery

His hands frame my face, forcing me to meet his eyes. "That was the most real thing that's ever happened to me."

"How can I believe you? How can I believe anything when it's all been lies?"

"Because I'm telling you now. When I could have kept lying. When you might never have found out." His thumbs stroke my cheeks, wiping tears I didn't know were falling. "Because I love you. Not the idea of you. Not the broken girl I could fix. You. Stubborn, fierce, brilliant you."

"Love?" I laugh but it's all broken edges. "You don't stalk someone you love. You don't lie to someone you love."

"You're right. I fucked up. I know that. But Elfe, everything between us—every touch, every word that mattered, every moment you trusted me with your pain—that was real. The watching was wrong. The lying was wrong. But what I feel for you? That's the only true thing in my entire fucked up life."

I want to pull away. Want to rage and hit and hurt him like I'm hurting. But his eyes—there's something in them I recognize. The same desperate need I feel. The same impossible love despite everything.

"Thiago," I say, changing the subject because I can't process the rest right now. "You knew it was him. Your childhood friend."

"I suspected after the roses. Confirmed it when I pulled up the surveillance footage at the florist." His hands drop from my face but stay close, like he's afraid I'll disappear. "We were like brothers once. Did everything together. Then he died—or I thought he died. Turns out he's been here, watching you even longer than I have."

"Why me? What did I do to deserve two stalkers?"

"You existed. You survived something traumatic. You kept fighting when anyone else would have given up." He touches a streak of green paint on my arm. "You create beauty from pain. Men like us—broken, violent men—we're drawn to that. We want to possess it because we can't create it ourselves."

"I'm not a thing to possess."

"I know. That's the difference between Thiago and me. I know you're not mine to own. He thinks you already belong to him."

"And my father? Why take him?"

Oskar's expression darkens. "Leverage. He wants you. Sent a video demanding you come to him tomorrow night. Midnight. The old church on Cemetery Road. Alone."

"Then I'll go?—"

"No." The word is sharp, final. "That's exactly what he wants. You, alone, walking into his trap."

"It's my father!"

"And he's using your love for him against you. Against all of us." He pulls out his phone, shows me a video. My father, beaten but alive, saying Thiago wants me at the church tomorrow night. "We know where this was filmed—the old Starlite Motel. But it's a trap. He wants us to come."

"Then what are you going to do?"

"Spring the trap. But on our terms, not his."

"I'm coming with you."

"No."

"You don't get to tell me?—"

He kisses me. Hard, desperate, like it might be the last time. And maybe it is. When he pulls back, we're both breathing hard

"I'm going to get your father," he says against my lips. "I'm going to end this with Thiago. But you have to stay here. Please. If you've ever trusted me, trust me now."

"How can I trust you when?—"

"Because I'mbeggingyou." And he is. The Executioner, the killer who doesn't bend for anyone, is beggingme. "Stay here. Stay safe. Let me fix this. Let me save the only good thing I haven't destroyed yet."

"Oskar—"

"I love you." He says it like a prayer. Like a promise. Like goodbye. "Whatever happens, whatever you decide about us after this, know that I love you. That everything real in me loves everything real in you."

He steps back and heads for his bike.