Page 8 of XOXO, Little Butterfly (The Storyteller’s Bodyguard #2)

Birdie

Tristan scans the car he drove to Gia’s place in front of me. “See? It’s clean.”

My exhale, a misty plume, dances briefly in front of my face before it dissipates like a fleeting dream.

Cold nips at my cheeks and nose. I hug myself tightly, the thickness of my coat useless against the island air at this time of the night, against the doubt swirling in my head.

If you can’t trust your mind, what else is left?

Tristan opens the passenger door for me. “It’s cold. Why don’t you get inside? The box I found at your assistant’s house is in there.”

“Was she there?” I ask. “Any sign she’s been to her place since the last time she was here?”

“No, but the door was open. That’s how I got in.”

“What about Blake? Did Marcus find him?”

Tristan shakes his head. “Abel wasn’t at his office then, neither was his car.”

We climb in, and he reaches for the backseat. Then he puts a box on the center console between us. It has a butterfly drawing on the top.

I swallow. “Did you open it?”

“Not yet. I thought we’d do it together. But before we do, is there anything you need to tell me about what happened tonight, anything you forgot to mention, anything at all?”

His questioning stabs at me, but part of me knows I deserve it. I haven’t been one hundred percent honest with him about tonight. There are things I hide, things I’ll always be hiding.

I clasp my fingers in my lap, staring at them absently. “Everything we deduced about him is true. He’s someone I met a long time ago, and he knows who I am. There’s something he’s said, a confession of sorts.”

“The murders?”

“Yes. He called them the pervert and the thief. Then he promised he’d make Blake pay for what he did, just like the others, the ones I knew about and the ones I hadn’t yet.”

“Others? Is that what we’re gonna find in the box?”

Silence thickens around us, but I can feel his gaze boring into me. I drag my eyes toward his. “I think so, unless I made this whole thing up.”

He lets out a restless sigh. “Open it.”

My eyes zero in on the box. The butterfly drawing on top seems to flutter, a trick of the light or my frayed nerves. I take a deep breath, preparing myself for what I may find inside.

“Here goes nothing.” I lift the lid slowly, as if expecting something to leap out at me. Instead, I’m greeted by a neat stack of newspaper clippings. My heart races as I pick up the first one.

Principal of Troubled Youth School Dies in Suspected DUI Accident

My gaze widens at the photo under the headline. “That’s our school principal.”

Tristan snatches the piece of paper from my hand and examines it. “Oh God.”

“There’s more.” I reach for the next clipping, my fingers steady, as if they belong to someone else, someone more composed, someone who isn’t unraveling by the second.

He shifts, his impatience palpable. I pull the next piece of paper out, and my breath catches.

Fatal Car Crash Claims Life of Prominent Therapist

Bile rises in my throat. Another familiar face stares back at me from the photo. “That’s... that’s…”

“The school therapist.” His jaw tightens, the tension radiating off him. “The two men who didn’t believe you. The people who wronged you.”

“The ones I hadn’t known about yet. See? I’m not crazy or a liar. He was there, and he told me all about them.”

“He killed them, too, and made it look like an accident.”

“But how did he know about what they’d done?”

“The same way he knew about Aaron. He’s been stalking you for years.”

“Aaron was following me everywhere. He harassed me in public. It’s easy for a stalker to figure Aaron out, but the principal and the therapist, all our interactions were in the school, and no one knew about the way they’d treated me. I told you they’d covered everything up.”

His eyes sparkle. “Birdie, this could be a massive clue. Think about it. The only way someone would know about Aaron, the principal and the therapist together is that they were there when it happened. They’ve witnessed everything.

What if your stalker is someone who has worked at the school with you? ”

My breath comes out shallow. The pieces slowly come together. It makes a lot of sense for Butterfly Man to be someone from the school. “But I don’t remember anyone who could be…” My voice cracks under the weight of the revelation. “No one who stood out.”

“It wouldn’t have to be someone who stood out. Think about it. Could be a janitor, a teacher, anyone who had access to the school. Someone in the background.”

“Not a stranger emerging from the shadows but a face I’ve seen before countless times. A man who thinks I didn’t really see him, so he wears this mask, hoping this time I will.”

He nods solemnly. “Exactly.”

“Who could it be?” My head spins. “I can’t place him, Tristan.”

“I’ll get a list of every person who worked at the school back then, and we’ll go through it one by one. I’m sure something will refresh your memory and help you identify him.”

“Maybe there are more clues in here.” I peer inside the box. There are more clippings about more accidents. The lawyer who covered the school’s tracks. Aaron’s parents. It’s too much blood, more than I’ve ever wanted, more than I’m prepared to accept.

“Why would he do this?” I rasp. “Look at the dates of all these accidents, Tristan. They all happened in the span of a week. Last week. So why now?”

Tristan leans closer, his voice dropping to a near whisper.

“You’ve been provoking him for quite some time.

He’s showing you he hasn’t forgotten about his promise.

This is his idea of proving he’s the only one worthy of protecting and loving you because no one else would go to such lengths for you. ”

A chill runs through me. “I didn’t want them dead.”

“Of course you wanted them to die.”

“No. No, Tristan. How could you say that?”

“Birdie, there’s no one else here but me. I understand you in ways no one else can, and I’ll never judge you. With me, you can drop the act. You wanted him to kill them. You wanted someone to make them pay in ways you couldn’t. You wanted revenge. You still do.”

He lowers his head to my level, leaning in, his stare searching mine. “Isn’t that why you didn’t say your safe word to Brandon? You weren’t scared for his young life. You were afraid your stalker would get caught or killed before he kept his promise till the end.”

His breath fans my cheek, hot and shallow. The proximity is overwhelming, his body a looming force just shy of touching mine. I don’t flinch. I won’t give him the satisfaction.

You think you see right through me? Perhaps you do understand me in ways others can’t, but you don’t see half of the darkness that swells to fill every corner in me, the chaos, the pain. Definitely not the pain.

“You keep saying you never judge me, but first you don’t believe a word I say, then you question my sanity. Now that there’s evidence I didn’t imagine the whole night, you question my integrity?”

A smirk stretches the scar above his lip. “It wasn’t a question, Birdie.”

It’s a truth he believes is damning. Birdie Abel is a lying, manipulative, morally grey character.

What does that say about him? About all of them?

How they stick to their moral high ground while swimming in a world filled with villains in crisp suits, uniforms, leather jackets and carefully crafted smiles that bleed lies…

He shifts closer, tension vibrating in the inches separating us. “I just wish you were honest with me.”

There’s no honesty here—only strategy. A plot. A story to be written, and I’m the one who must write it.

I wet my lips, deliberately slow. His gaze tracks the movement, and something flickers in it, a shift in him, the crack in his resolve. The tension between us tightens like a string pulled taut, ready to snap.

“How do you like to be written, Tristan? A hero, a villain, an antihero or a side character that ends up a casualty, a victim? Which one do you choose to be? Because you can’t be all of them.

You can’t be the war hero, the protector with an impeccable moral compass, and the man who promised to lie and kill for the forbidden woman he’s been fucking his fist to since he knew how. ”

He swallows hard, the muscle in his jaw ticking as he fights whatever hunger is raging inside of him.

The kind he’s spent years burying under that mask of righteousness.

The urge to close the gap, to kiss me, to push me away—it’s all there.

But he stays still, letting the moment stretch on, letting the tension coil tighter.

“Why are you still here, stuck in this…game with me?” I tilt my head just enough that our lips are almost brushing. “I’ll tell you why. Because you like it. The lies, the blood, the thrill of not knowing what I’ll do next. You like it when I’m bad.”

“You think I like it?” His voice is rough, barely restrained. “What I like is control. And you… Goddamn you.”

“What am I, Tristan? A chaos you’ve yet to tame but no matter what you can’t?” I lean in just enough for our lips to graze, the barest hint of a touch. “Someone you, too, hate for making you feel like this?”

There’s a beat where the world narrows to just this moment, just us, the flames between our mouths and the pitch-black secrets swirling with every breath.

And then he pulls back, seething. “There’s another piece of paper in the box. Check it. Maybe it’s a clue.”