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KALEB

A man’s name—Brian Perry. His description. Address. When he should be home. Whether he’ll be alone or not. The best times to pay him a visit.

That was the information Jerome sent me.

What I need to complete this job for him.

So here I fucking am. Here, on the other side of the city. Away from Shiloh, sometime before noon. After I snuck behind the bushes, Wren reported to her father that, in fact, there was nothing to report.

The air smells of the rain that just ended a second ago. But its scent is mild and hardly traceable. The real scent I pick up on doesn’t come from outside.

It’s from somewhere deep within me.

Remorse. I’m drowning in it, and it smells putrid and nauseating. Fucking corrosive.

Leaving Shiloh alone after being ambushed by Dr. Reynolds is eating me alive .

I would’ve stayed. Stalked them. I would’ve killed him against her wishes if he so much as looked at her for too long.

Instead, I have to be here and pay what’s due to Jerome.

Life hardly ever goes my way.

What comforts me is that I’ll be back to stalking her by the time she heads out to the police station.

What comforts me is the echo of her voice.

They’d be better off having your genes. Being a carbon copy of you. Don’t give me that look. Of course I want them to be like you, Kaleb.

Those words. Spoken through plump, abused lips. In the sincerest tone.

The things they did to my heart.

The way she keeps changing me.

Our revenge will be finalized soon. Then, I won’t let her out of my sight. Sunrise to sundown. That’s how long I’ll stare at her. Hold her. Look at her while she showers. While she has no idea I’m there—just outside, watching her.

Stalking her.

I’ll roll out from under the bed while she sleeps. Wait for her to wake up, grab her delicate ankle, and drag her down there with me. Do filthy, inconceivable things to her.

After I’m done here.

Getting to Brian Perry, the poor janitor who works the graveyard shift, has my undivided attention.

His doorstep is nothing special.

One welcome mat on the floor. Patches of green and dark mold on the ceiling.

A cheap lock .

Killing him won’t cost me a damn thing. My conscience won’t suffer. I won’t shed a tear over him.

I don’t know what he did to deserve it.

Couldn’t give a fuck less.

This is the price of doing business.

Of having Shiloh’s pictures with me at Berkshire.

Before meeting her, I’d never been alone or lonely. These concepts had been foreign to me, much like love and attachment.

But once I moved in and became her stepbrother, my life had never been the same. She was mine. I couldn’t breathe—couldn’t survive—without her.

Needing her was awful. That human emotion damn near destroyed me. I endured it. I wouldn’t swallow their meds. They’d make me foggy. They would’ve fucked with my memories of her.

I tricked them. And I had Jerome fill in the void with her pictures and information about her whereabouts.

If ending a person’s life is the price I have to pay, so be it.

What’s one less person on this overpopulated earth, anyway?

In the grand scheme of things, Brian Perry’s existence makes no difference whatsoever.

I pull my gloved hands out of my hoodie pockets. After texting Shiloh’s dad, I dropped by my apartment and changed into my jeans. Grabbed the gloves, two paper clips and here I am.

My weapon choice for today, that part I leave up to fate. Whatever I find in this man’s home will have to do .

It’s still daytime. I can’t just walk around with a butcher’s knife or a baseball bat around the city. I even left my mask at home.

The things I do for Shiloh.

Click, click, click.

I pick the lock at record speed.

Thank you, Shiloh’s dad, for being a bastard and locking her up in her room some days.

My mark launches himself at the door when I push it open. He’s already closer than I would’ve liked.

“Who the fuck are you?” His hand slams on the door. An attempt to close it.

Futile attempt.

My foot blocks him.

“What the—” he starts.

Never finishes.

I shoulder my way inside his apartment. The force of the blow almost sends his body flying into the air. He lands on the floor, skinny and useless.

Shock renders him silent while I reach behind me to flip the lock.

The click wakes him back up. He opens his mouth to scream, his brown eyes bulging.

I get it. It’s not every day that a six-foot-five lean guy picks your lock and breaks into your apartment.

But I can’t let him make a sound.

I’m on my knees, my hand covering his mouth. His eyebrows fly up his forehead. The look he’s giving me is manic, fingers raising to claw at my forearm .

One shake of my head and he stops screaming into my palm. Stops fighting.

Poor idiot. He thinks it’s some kind of code to be quiet and you might live another day .

I haul the blond man up to his feet, dragging him to the small kitchen to our left.

It’s kind of sad how empty his apartment is.

Upsetting too. I meant for it to look like a burglary gone wrong, not a contract murder.

His living room consists of a worn-out gray and white rug. One coffee table, one side table. I think they’ve been here since the beginning of time. As well as the three empty whiskey glasses scattered on them.

A TV hangs from the wall, but who steals those anymore?

No one. That’s who. Definitely not me. It would get me unwanted attention, walking around with that crap.

I’ll have to snoop through his bedroom later.

“Mmm. Mmm.” My victim reminds me of his existence.

I feel nothing for my target.

He’s just another task keeping me away from what I’m truly after.

Shiloh.

Her. Everything revolves around her.

Fortunately for Brian. Missing Shiloh means I won’t spend hours torturing him to death.

We’re by his kitchen counter, and I turn to grab the first knife I can reach in his top drawer.

One second, the blade’s in the air .

His blue eyes tear up, horror bleeding from them. Horror, but no confusion.

Though I have no idea why I’m killing this person, he does.

I’m not even mildly curious enough to remove my hand from his mouth and find out.

Tears spring down his cheeks when I sink the knife between his ribs. Blood sprays down his gray shirt as soon as I pull it out. He howls into my gloved palm, his body thrashing against me.

I have one hundred pounds of muscle on him, easy. He isn’t going anywhere.

Four more stabs and a whole lot of blood later, Brian’s body is nothing more than a bag of bones. He’s heavier than he was a second ago. All quiet now.

The knife clangs when I dump it in the sink. I slide Brian’s body down to the floor and get to business.

Taking off my gloves, I shove them into the pocket of my hoodie, then retrieve a second pair from my jeans.

Jerome asked for proof that I finished the job so, snap and there, he has it. I step over the dead guy’s body and search for his wallet around the house. The easiest thing to steal.

Brian has been kind enough to leave it on his couch so I don’t have to waste time rifling through his room.

Thanks, I guess.

One debit card and two twenties are what I take with me. I throw them in the closest trash can as soon as I’m out in the street .

I draw the hood back up on my head and leave to get to her.

I’m a monster. A ghost.

I’m done.

I make it just in time to catch her stepping out of her building.

Just in time to stand there, seen and unseen, as my heart stops.

Would you look at her.

She’s gorgeous, as always. In her sleep. When she cries. When she comes.

And now. Like this, wearing black eyeliner framing her blue eyes, giving a dark edge to my dark queen.

Elegant. Royalty. Ready to put the entire police station in its place.

That’s why she’s wearing a sharp white blouse, a black blazer, and a black skirt, and a form-fitting black peacoat that she left unbuttoned. Those black high heels and the leather bag slung over her shoulder look expensive.

I don’t care about money. The way her clothes fall on her, though…

Her coat opens as the breeze blows around Shiloh, and I’m eating it up. Her . The clothes that accentuate each curve and slope of her body. I hardly contain a growl when her hair whips around her, reminding me of what she’s been hiding.

Her scar.

Anger rises. Anger simmers.

Her dad will pay.

Can’t blow my cover. Can’t ruin this .

Our game.

Before she gets into her SUV, her eyes scan the street.

She’s looking for me.

She won’t find me. It warms my wretched soul that she tries.

Warms me further when she starts driving and heads straight to the police station rather than buying another Plan B pill. I follow her, navigating through traffic. Maintaining a four-car distance between us.

Three lawyers wait for her outside the station. Surprise, surprise, neither one of our parents is there to accompany her.

At least she has professionals by her side. I wait for her while she’s in there, and in less than an hour, she’s out. As cool and collected as she was when she stepped in there.

A few nods to the lawyers, and she’s back on the road.

With me as her stalker.

It’s when we near her college that I get as far away from her as I can. I don’t have to see her to know where she’s going. And though I stalked her over the last couple of days, I’m staying here until it’s time for my surprise visit this afternoon.

Once I’ve bought the things I need to have fun with my Shiloh, I slip back into my car.

Count the seconds, minutes, hours.

Eventually, they go by.

The sun sets in the sky. The mask that I brought from home is calling me. I collect everything I need and shove it in my hoodie pocket.

The corners of my lips curve up.

This day might’ve started slow. Frustrating. Painful.

It won’t end that way.

I can guarantee it won’t.