Prologue
Fair skin.Petite build. Beautifully delicate.
She wasn’t something that belonged in my world, but I loved watching her. Every night she would be here, dancing under the stars. And I would be here too, hiding in the shadows, watching her. She was completely unaware of my presence, and I preferred it like that. This way I could see the real her. The girl she hid from the rest of the world.
But not from me.
She could never hide her true self from me. Not while I watched her in her most vulnerable moments—moments when she didn’t even know I was there.
This was our place. The one place she didn’t have to wear a mask in order to be what others wanted her to be. And the one place I could be the true me. A man who desired a woman in the secret of night. A man who was fixated on a girl wearing a pair of pink ballerina slippers. A man who staked his claim over her even if she didn’t know it yet. A man who longed for the day when the object of his obsession was ready to be corrupted.
A depraved man.
I blew out a cloud of smoke. No one else was around. No one was ever around. Only us, and my body hummed with the thrill of knowing she was dancing just for me.
The way she lifted herself on her toes—perfect posture, perfect balance—she seemed weightless, like a feather, lost and drifting in the wind. Where would she land? Where would the breeze take my perfect ballerina girl?
She twirled, arching a leg behind her, and I knew her nightly routine was about to come to an end. It was only for half an hour every night that she escaped to the farthest corner of her parents’ estate, the part covered with oak trees and lush grass. What she didn’t know, the abandoned building across the road was the perfect spot for me to sit and watch the show.
I flicked the cigarette butt out the broken window. Tomorrow I’d continue to do what I’d been doing for years.
Watch her. Mark her. Protect her.
I wasn’t delusional. I wasn’t in denial. I knew my fascination with her was toxic, but she made it impossible for me to fight it.
She was mine. She had been mine from the first night our eyes met as she stared out her bedroom window.
Only thing was, she wasn’t ready yet.
She wasn’t ready for my world and for the ugly depths of my obsession.
But she would be.
Soon.
1
Alyx
Midnight.The witching hour. The time evil came out to play. It was also the time when they arrived. The roar of engines sliced through the silence of night and set my heart racing. My skin tingled, and heat spread through me like wildfire.
It was him. The man I’d been watching from my bedroom window ever since they started coming around. He would come once a week, and always around midnight. Three motorcycles would be parked in the dark out front, and I would watch as he and two other men made their way to our front door.
Leather cuts, torn jeans, and shit-kicker boots set them apart from us and our designer label clothing. Even in the dark they looked mean and callous.
One of them had a clean-shaven head, and the other short hair, cut neatly. But him? He had longer hair. Dark—the same color as midnight—and it settled just below his shoulders. It was never styled, never neatly put in place, but always disheveled. There was this thing he did with his hair after taking off his helmet, pushing his fingers through the strands and pulling it back. It was like he tried to make it seem more…chaotic. Messed up. Perfect.
From the second floor of our house, it was easy to see his frame was bigger than the other two. Long body, broad shoulders, denim jeans clinging to thick thighs. During the last year, I had committed every inch of his frame to memory. Thinking about him. Fantasizing…my stranger in the dark.
His weekly visits were one of my father’s many secrets. A well-respected police commissioner’s reputation would be ruined if the public knew about his ties with one of New York’s most notorious motorcycle gangs. I never could figure out what kind of business my dad would have with these men. But while I stared from my window at the man in the shadows, I didn’t really care. The way my heart kept racing, my stomach filled with a kind of excitement I’d never felt before, I knew I had grown addicted to it. The thrill of watching him, studying him…desiring him.
He never looked around when he walked up to the front door. Under the dim light that came from the porch, I could make out the contour of his face and the shadow of his beard. But everything about him screamed business. Determination. Danger. Every step he took was calculated, confident, and undeniably dominant. He was the alpha, the leader—even I could see that.
The weekly visits usually lasted about an hour, maybe less. And I would wait by the window with so much expectation from the prospect of catching another glimpse of him, because this was the exciting part. The part where he left. It was the part I loved the most.
The front door would open, and first I’d see their shadows falling on the well-manicured lawn and cobble walkway. I would lean to the side of the window, my heart thumping erratically inside my chest…waiting…anticipating.
Then he would appear, his back toward me. The cut he wore told me who he was, a member of the American Street Kings—a wicked skull with the American flag proudly displayed on the leather. It was beautiful and threatening at the same time.