Page 28 of XOXO, Little Butterfly (The Storyteller’s Bodyguard #2)

Butterfly Man

I have been watching.

Every anxious glance, every feigned moment of control, every desperate little scheme.

“Even when you’re hiding, I know you want me to find you.

Fly as high and far as you wish, little butterfly.

In the end, I’ll always catch you.” Memory floods back.

Not the first time I saw her face, but the moment I truly saw her.

The darkness behind her eyes. The pain that matches my own.

The line in destiny that wrote her mine.

There were men before me who tried to own her, to shape her into something lesser than what she was.

Men who try to take her from me now. The detective.

The man with the motorcycle. They don’t understand her like I do.

They don’t see the darkness inside her the way I do.

The hunger. The need. They will fail like the others before them.

And they will pay like I’ve made the others pay.

Every threat I eliminate brings me closer to her. Every potential rival removed makes her more dependent on my presence. Soon, she’ll realize the monster I’ve become to keep her safe, the one I’m ready to become to make her mine, is the only constant in her world of chaos.

Unlike her bodyguard —it makes me laugh every time—I haven’t lost track of her husband.

Lingering in the shadows, my breath a whisper against the night, I’ve followed Blake.

He moves with the desperation of a man who knows his time is running out.

A coward, seeking refuge in lies. I know exactly where he is.

I can see him now like I see my reflection in the mirror.

I didn’t even need to hack his phone to track him. I simply cloned it. One text from the cheater’s phone to his, and I’m in with a little backdoor that allows me to clone his entire phone.

Every contact, email, photo, phone call. Apps, passwords, timings, patterns. Everything I can control. I have the son of a bitch by the balls.

Except…

The dead man’s switch app. The same kind of app the pervert had. The one I wished I’d known about seven years ago.

I hate those. They get more advanced by the day, and Blake uses one of the most complicated ones when it comes to security.

It needs more than a password or passkey to open.

It is device-bound with a biometric sequence of authentication to get in.

It means only Blake can open the app, and if I create a spoof system to mimic his check in pattern or attempt to open it on my device, it will trigger a security alert that will tell Blake he’s being breached.

Whatever message he sends from that app if he doesn’t check in can’t be good. After his phone call with the lawyer, I don’t need to see what he has inside the app to know it’s a threat to Reagan meant to destroy her.

Nobody threatens my little butterfly and walks away with it. Nobody threatens my Reagan. Period.

My hand slides into my pocket and closes around the blade handle, the familiar grip molding perfectly to my palm. The thought of sinking it into Blake’s flesh burns through me. Not the clean kill of a mission, but something primal, a taste of the divine, final and euphoric.

I imagine the moment, the sharp gasp as he realizes, too late, that he is not the predator but the prey. The way his blood will spill across my hands, a final offering to my queen, the—

My phone buzzes with an alert. It nudges me before the rush of the fantasy consumes me too soon.

The notification is for a post on Birdie’s Instagram. I open it. I watch it. I watch it again, and again, and again, like I’m some sort of an obsessed maniac—a very angry one.

The video is a direct message to me. Meet me at the school in Miami.

A trap so obvious it’s laughable. But there’s another message encrypted in her face, in her hidden eyes behind the shades, in her carefully crafted words, in the lies, like the location of the video.

It says Miami when she’s in Jacksonville.

Yes, I know where she is, too. I can see her like I see my reflection in the mirror. She’s here with her bodyguards, where Blake is, where Shane is.

Shane. The name sits heavily in my mind. A man rightfully imprisoned for a heinous crime or a pawn in a larger game? Pawns can be useful. Especially when they’re desperate.

Blake’s prison visit with Shane isn’t just a random encounter. In Blake’s book, it’s a calculated move. In mine, it’s a mistake. A misstep that has unraveled everything. That video proves it.

Blake and Shane are working together, trying to expose her, to hurt her.

Trying to destroy what we have. She is afraid now, tangled in a web of threats.

Blake holds something over her, something dark enough to make her come out of hiding and try to stall me with that message. But she underestimates me.

My fingers trace the edge of the phone, feeling the electricity of anticipation.

My queen is summoning me into an ambush.

And despite everything—every warning, every rational thought—I will go to her.

She knows me. She knows I can’t resist. Our connection transcends logic.

Our hunt is written in blood and desire long before it’s begun.

I play the video again and smile. “I’ll answer your calling, my sweet butterfly with a message only you will understand.”

If life has taught me anything, it’s patience. The wait for the perfect moment. Her video is confirmation of what I’ve already planned. “Don’t worry, my love. Tonight has never been about Blake. His time hasn’t come yet. I have a different prey to catch for you.”

Tomorrow, she’ll wake up to a gift wrapped in crimson and steel, a reminder that I am always watching, always listening, always taking care of what is mine.