You look so peaceful in your sleep. You’re my obsession, my salvation and my destruction as I will be yours. You’re the reason I breathe, the reason I kill. I love you so much that I’ll kill everyone who has ever hurt you, anyone who will ever touch you again, darling.

I used to think villains only existed in books.

That was before I married one. Before the bruises. The excuses. The way I learned to hide the truth between sentences.

And before the notes started appearing.

I call him Butterfly Man. The stalker who exists in the spaces between my breaths, the corners...

You look so peaceful in your sleep. You’re my obsession, my salvation and my destruction as I will be yours. You’re the reason I breathe, the reason I kill. I love you so much that I’ll kill everyone who has ever hurt you, anyone who will ever touch you again, darling.

I used to think villains only existed in books.

That was before I married one. Before the bruises. The excuses. The way I learned to hide the truth between sentences.

And before the notes started appearing.

I call him Butterfly Man. The stalker who exists in the spaces between my breaths, the corners of my vision, the silence just before sleep takes me. Eight years of weaving his obsession into my life like a murderous promise.

My demons ask if the only way to get my happy ending is to let a killer get away with murder.

My sanity hires Tristan Morra, a grumpy scarred bodyguard to protect me.

But Tristan, too, has his own demons.

He looks at me with unhinged darkness, like a morally gray antihero who will burn the world to keep me from falling into the wrong hands.

Maybe I already have.

Maybe I was never meant to be saved.

In my stories, villains always get the girl. But in reality—villains kill the girl.