Aurora is different.

It’s not even a sense of duty and mutual understanding like it was with Alicia. There’s no mutual fucking understanding with Aurora. She does what her head tells her and tests my control every step of the way.

Yet she’s the only woman who’s fit to be the queen of my empire.

With Aurora, it’s…belonging. Yes, I believe that’s the right word. She’s the first person who’s spoken to my soul without words. Which is weird as fuck since I always thought I lacked that — a soul, that is.

At first, I didn’t understand how she brought out that part of me, but the more time I spend with her, the more certain I am that she’s slowly but surely becoming an indispensable part of my life.

The thought of living on without her punches a hole in my previously impenetrable chest.

That’s why her suggestion of ending it per the agreement pissed me the fuck off. It still brings on incomparable rage to the front of my head.

There’s no way in fuck I’m letting her go, or worse, standing by to watch her move on. I’ll kill every last fucker before that happens.

The car rolls to the mansion and I release a long breath.

Is the confrontation with her going to be easy? Probably not, but that’s the thing about Aurora, I’m ready for her tantrums and provocations and everything in between.

Hell, I even strive for them now.

My phone vibrates in my hand, and I expect it to be one of the guards who’ll tell me she’s trying to leave — or that she has already left.

I’ll chase her to the ends of the earth if I have to.

The unknown number that flashes on my screen gives me pause.

I answer with my curt tone, “Jonathan King.”

“Kyle Hunter.”

“Right, Kyle. Have you figured out the identity of the attacker?”

“I’ve done more than that and I’m on my way. Give me access inside.” His cool voice filters through the phone with ease.

“Who is it?”

“Not only is he under your roof, but his game is a lot bigger than you think.”

I stop breathing as Kyle continues speaking. The name he says, the dates, and the events that occurred are all connected. But it’s not his words that make me barge out of the car before it properly stops.

It’s the woman inside.

Aurora’s life is in danger.

31

Aurora

Voices reach me as if I’m at the bottom of the sea and they’re somewhere at the surface. Distorted, far away, and barely audible.

My tongue sticks to the roof of my dry mouth and it takes me a considerable amount of energy to swallow.

My pupils move behind my eyelids, but I’m not seeing anything… I don’t think. It’s like I’m back in that grave. My side open, blood pours from me and I can’t lift myself to come out.

Tears pool at the corners of my eyes. No. I’m not that sixteen-year-old girl anymore. I said goodbye to my nightmare. I mourned him.

Slowly, too slowly, my eyes open. The walls are turning and I’m about to fall.

Only…I don’t.

I’m bound to a chair by thick ropes around my torso and others strain my arms behind my back.

Blinking twice, I start to register my surroundings. The counter, the clean white flooring, the table in the middle.

The kitchen. I’m in the kitchen at home.

My eyes widen when I make out the man behind a camera that’s sitting on a tripod. The man who has a mask falling around his neck. The scratch marks I left earlier run diagonally across his face.

The man who stabbed me eleven years ago and attacked me a few weeks back.

Tom.

The reason I haven’t picked up on the dragon tattoo is because he has hair now. He was bald back then — eleven years ago, I mean.

Despite the taste of acid and fear at the back of my throat, I hold my ground. I have no doubt that he plans to hurt me, and that camera is probably a way to record it.

Shit.

Fuck.

During my stay here, I thought he was silent because it’s a part of his personality. He’s actually grown on me for his kind nature, but I had no clue he’d been plotting my demise.

But he wasn’t the one who drugged me earlier…right? I scratched him and was running…then I somehow got punctured by a needle and fell back into his arms.

Someone else was there.

“The princess is finally awake.”

I jolt at the voice coming from my right. My eyes nearly bug out of their sockets as she joins Tom.

“M-Margot?”

“Yes, Miss?” Her tone is flat, her green eyes stone cold.

“B-but how? Why?” I stare between her and Tom. “He was the one who attacked me.”

“With my help.” Her Irish accent becomes more prominent. “As for why, maybe you should’ve asked your father during today’s visit.”

“Y-you’re a victim’s family member?” It’s hard to speak, and it’s not because of who’s standing in front of me. My tongue is heavy and so are my limbs — probably due to the drugs.

“The first one,” Margot says. “The forgettable one because she didn’t get suffocated and buried in a grave. My sister, Megan, was the Duct Tape Killer’s first victim, but it happened more than twenty years ago. She was kidnapped, but since she had issues with drugs, the police categorised her as a runaway. Your father made her death seem like an overdose and dumped her under a filthy bridge. He never admitted to that murder, and when Shelby, my sister’s boyfriend at the time, went to prison a few years ago, he asked him if there were any women he’d never mentioned. Maxim said he never talked about the ones who happened before his muse came along. Those were forgettable, mere practice, as he called them. The ones who happened after he met Bridget and Alicia were his real masterpieces. He didn’t even remember her name. My sister and only family was a nobody to him. He called her practice!” Margot’s voice raises at the end before she releases a breath and smooths it.

“So Tom and I decided to make him pay in the best way we knew how. Tom is my nephew and I raised him after Megan died when he was only ten. We’d already tracked down Maxim before you turned him in. We learnt his patterns and his obsession with his pretty little muses. Bridget had already killed herself at the time, so we paid extra attention to you and Alicia. We were going to make him suffer, and killing him wouldn’t have sufficed. He had to lose the two people most precious to him.”

I gasp as the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. “Y-you…you’re the one who poisoned Alicia?”

“Her mind was fragile anyway. It was a piece of cake to slip her something here and another thing there. In no time, everyone, Jonathan and Aiden included, believed she was losing it. The bitch even thought Jonathan was poisoning her since she decided to be smart and test the tea he brought her. She never suspected me or how I made her think she was losing track of everything. Her hallucinations were mostly caused by elaborate plots Tom and I concocted over the years. We recorded whispering voices and made her think she was hearing things. A lost book here, a missed item there, and she started talking to herself in order to remain sane. Which, of course, only made her more insane. It was her payment for being Maxim’s willing muse.”