Page 21 of Sweet Venom

No wariness.

Just concern.

Pure, unfiltered concern for a fucking stranger.

I say nothing, just drop my gaze, willing her to fucking go.

“Do you need help?” Her voice isn’t pitying, isn’t careful, but steady, assertive. Like she genuinely means it.

“Fuck off,” I grunt low in my throat.

The sneakers slide back, just an inch, dragging against the concrete, but she doesn’t leave.

Instead, she reaches into her backpack and presses something into my bloodied palm.

A chocolate caramel protein bar.

“Sorry, that’s all I have. Stay strong.”

Then, before I can tell her to shove her sympathy up her ass, she does something even dumber.

She places the umbrella in my hand and runs off.

Holding her backpack over her head as she disappears into the foggy rain.

That was my perception of Violet Winters. A Goody Two-shoes who would stop and help as much as she could when others wouldn’t even bother to look.

So why the fuck is her name and face on the list of people who stood by in a public square as my mother was stabbed to death twenty fucking times?

As I watch her scurrying through the alley, I want to grab and shake her. To kill her and avenge my mom.

But that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?

As if feeling my gaze, Violet pauses, glances back, and freezes, her eyes widening and her shoulders shrinking.

She shouldn’t have looked back.

Because I’m striding toward her, and this time, I will burn that first encounter out of my mind.

She’s not the girl with the haunting eyes, blue umbrella, and chocolate caramel protein bar.

She’s one ofthem.

6

VIOLET

My stalker has a vendetta against me.

In reality, he’s not a stalker, but more like a man out for revenge.

Jude Callahan.

That’s the name of the man who’s been inserting himself into my unremarkable life lately.

I googled him earlier, after I threw up upon seeing him on-screen.

Jude Callahan is not only a hockey god, but one of the heirs to the Callahan pharmaceutical empire.