by Layla Frost
“A lot of grief talk.” At his lowered brows, I expanded, “You know, with the Jenna thing.
“Oh. Yeah. That was a bummer. She was,” he paused, trying to find the words before finishing with a polite, “nice.”
Huh.
I’d assumed Jenna and Jared had a mutual thing for each other, but maybe it was one-sided.
Or no-sided for all I knew. I’d been going on speculation.
“Yeah, she was.”
“See ya next week,” he said, barely glancing at me as he hurried to catch up with the others to go to dinner.
Okay then. He’s definitely not wallowing in the pit of despair and lost love.
I grabbed my bag and was nearly to the door when Derrick shouted, “Briar!”
Shouted name and startled from behind.
My two favorites.
I hid my annoyance—that only contained a dash of anxiety rather than a whole metric shit-ton—before turning around. “What’s up?”
“Dr. Linda and I spoke earlier. I wanted to talk to you before we reevaluate your treatment plan again.”
Shit.
I’d thought I was doing better interacting, even though I hadn’t shared much more than I usually did.
Derrick’s look of sympathetic disappointment made it clear I’d thought wrong.
“How’re things with the apartment? You haven’t given an update on it. We’re worried your progress is stalling.”
My apartment was empty because my minimal possessions were either at the house I shared with Alexander or in the dump where they belonged.
I opened my mouth to tell him as much, but he stepped closer to squeeze my shoulder. “You set lofty goals for yourself. There’s no shame in admitting they were unattainable.” His hand slid down to my upper arm, his thumb stroking the skin there. “I know you only have Aria, and you don’t want to be an imposition. Especially since she has her own busy life with her career, dog, and boyfriend taking up her time. I can put you in touch with some resources to help because it can be hard to feel like you’re succeeding if you’re always stressed about money. Even small worries can weigh on you like massive failures.”
The catalogs and coupons flashed through my head, advertising all the things I couldn’t afford on my own. Not when my job was more like a hobby. “It is hard. I can’t seem to get ahead.”
He dropped his hand farther, wrapping it around my hip. “You don’t have to be alone. I can help turn your can’ts into cans.”
My body tightened as tears burned in my eyes. “I’d… I’d really like that.”
“Go home and get changed into something presentable. I’ll be over in an hour, and we’ll see what I can do for you.”
I nodded, and my voice was shaky when I whispered, “Thanks.”
Without another glance, I hurried home.
I had a big night to prepare for.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Alive
Alexander
PUNCTUAL.
I like that in a date.
At the knock, I opened the door.
The goofy looking bastard’s gaze darted to the number on the frame then back to me. “Sorry, I must have the wrong apartment.”
“Would I look better in something presentable? Lingerie maybe? Either way, you’re at the right place, Derrick.”
“How do you—”
His question was cut off when I grabbed his shirt and yanked him inside. He didn’t have time to think about screaming before I jabbed the needle into his neck.
I released my hold, letting him fall to the floor in a heap. The paralytic worked fast, and he was unable to move his arms to catch himself.
But it didn’t dull the pain. When his head cracked against the floor, he felt it.
He would feel everything I was about to do to him.
I walked slowly around his prone body. “You fucked with the wrong person.”
A tiny whimper escaped him, like air being let out of an annoying yet evil balloon.
“You saw Briar as damaged and weak. But she’s far fucking stronger than you. That’s why she doesn’t have to manipulate people to get laid, you tiny dicked fucker.” Punctuating my point, I hauled my foot back and kicked him in his crotch.
Another sharp exhale from the sick bastard.
“She would never have fallen for your bullshit. She’s too smart for that.” Going Briar on him, I kicked his shin as hard as I could. And then I stepped on it until I could feel and hear it crack.
I rounded the body, grabbing what I needed off the island before circling back. Crouching in front of him, I watched the tears stream from his eyes.
I didn’t miss it. All the business cards and evidence had been burned. I didn’t dig around hard drives while I worked. It was easy to be finished because killing people wasn’t an itch I had to scratch. It’d been my way of doing what I thought was right.
My own twisted moral compass.
But I couldn’t deny that staring into his eyes while he died was going to be satisfying. He’d tried to destroy my flower. She’d shown him her wilting stem, and he’d maliciously twisted it.
Too bad for him that she had me.
I was her sun. I made her live for me because I sure as shit lived for her.
And no one was changing that.
I took the cap off the needle. “This is for the others. The ones who aren’t as strong. Who are alone and vulnerable, making it easy for you to prey on them.”
Rapid breathing and more tears. More soft noises—the only thing he was capable of doing besides feeling pain and terror.
The same two things he’d purposefully inflicted.
“I promised Briar I’d tell you.” I jabbed the needle into his vein. “This is for Jenna.”
And then I pushed the plunger in.
Briar
For closure
I HAVE TO stop pacing.
I’m making the animals nervous.
I paused long enough to check my phone before starting again.
The chickens paced with me, walking back and forth inside their run. Mister trotted along, too, splitting his focus between me and the chicken he wanted to eat. He was so strong, I wasn’t sure I could hold him back if he went for them. Thankfully, he didn’t make me find out.
He was a good boy.
And the chicks were good chicks.
Life would be perfect as soon as Alexander came home to me. When it was done.
I checked the time again. It felt like weeks since I’d left the center, not hours. My thoughts hadn’t stopped, more memories and realizations racing to the forefront of my mind.
Smacking me in the face with the clues I hadn’t put together.
When Derrick had moved in close after our group session, I’d smelled it. Just a hint. A subtle waft. But that was exactly the amount I’d needed to identify the scent I knew down to my churning stomach and worst nightmares.
Chanel Nº 5.
I hadn’t recognized it in such concentrated volumes in the apartment building hallway, especially since it was mixed with so many other scents. But I’d recognized it then. My mother’s perfume.
And he’d known that.
I’d shared it during therapy. How the smell disgusted me. How it was a sensory trigger to previous trauma.
I’d tried to come up with some other explanation. To give him the benefit of the doubt. But then he’d confirmed my horrible suspicion.
By trying to turn my can’ts into cans.
I’d only heard that bargain bin motivational bullshit from one other person.
Once I figured that out, everything else came together like the worst kind of puzzle.
All his well-meaning talks that’d left me feeling like shit. The way he’d constantly startle me even though he knew I hated it. His affable questions that he knew would trigger my anxiety as surely as a threat. The way he would inadvertently pick and poke at my biggest anxieties, tugging at the loose threads of my sanity until I’d been ready to unravel.
The coupon
s.
The catalogs.
The fake past due notices.
Like he’d ripped a page from a bad pickup artist’s self-help book, he wanted to make me feel like shit so I was desperate enough to sleep with him.
I trusted him—well, as much as I was capable of trusting anyone other than Aria and Alexander.
He was supposed to listen to my worries and fears and anxieties in order to help.
Instead, he’d abused his position in order to weaponize my vulnerabilities against me.
I should’ve known better. Or suspected something. After all, I knew how evil people could be—even the ones who were supposed to be caregivers.
But apparently I wasn’t as cynical as I thought. It hadn’t occurred to me that Derrick would use his training to manipulate me. He’d expertly toed the line, making sure to never cross it. That way if I reported him, he was just the concerned counselor and I was the troubled patient.
He’d messed up, though. He’d assumed I was weak enough—desperate enough—to fall for it.
He’d underestimated me.
I’d survived bitchier than a sad-eyed dickhead.
After telling him everything I suspected, Alexander had broken into Derrick’s house to find the spam mail templates, the ominous red stamps, and notes.
Detailed notes about triggers and weaknesses and what methods might work.
Not just for me, either.
For others. For Jenna.
Her crush hadn’t been on Jared, it’d been on Derrick. He’d pulled her strings like a marionette to make it happen. And then he’d thrown her away to move on to a new puppet.
Me.
I was certain that was why she’d texted so often to ask what I’d do, say, or wear—to get his attention back. He’d manipulated her into relying solely on his validation, and when she’d no longer gotten it, she’d fallen apart.
I was luckier, even though I wasn’t sure how much damage he’d caused me. How far he’d set my recovery back. And, honestly, I didn’t care. If I wasn’t fucked up, maybe I wouldn’t have started dating my stalker.
And that was an alternate timeline I never wanted to experience.
Weeks ago, I’d made Alexander promise he was done killing people.
Earlier, I’d asked him to break that promise by killing for me.
And for the others. For Jenna.
Mister halted suddenly, his hackles rising as a low growl rumbled from his body. A moment later, I heard a car come up the driveway. I walked around the house to see Alexander getting out. And then I kept walking until I was up in his arms with my limbs wrapped around him.
“It’s done, flower.”
I exhaled a shaky breath. “Everything went okay?”
“Quick and easy.”
“The…” Bile rose in my throat. “The body?”
“I called in a marker.”
I had no clue what that meant, and I didn’t want to know.
“Nothing can be tied to either of us,” he promised. “Made some anonymous complaints to the center before I unencrypted his hard drive and scrubbed any reference to you. A ninety-year-old nana could access his files. The cops will see, assume he’s in the wind.”
I would have to find a way to tell Aria before it all came out. I knew my sister. She’d feel guilty for pushing me into therapy with a predator. I needed to make sure she focused on the fact I was safe and not the fiction of what could’ve been.
That was a conversation for future-me. Right then, I wanted to savor the win.
My body practically melted into a puddle of goo. Warm and relaxed. “You’re my favorite.”
“I know.” He lowered me down his body. “But I’m still willing to bribe you.”
At the feel of his hardness, I was no longer warm and relaxed. I was hot and needy.
And happily alive.
Epilogue
Two weeks later
Briar
For boxes
“I HAVE A surprise for you.”
Uh-oh.
Or maybe yay.
With Alexander, I was never sure.
Glancing up from the couch, I asked, “Is it alive? Because if so, we might need a bigger house.”
We were the proud pet parents of seven chickens, one pit bull, and, as of the week before, two ornery cats.
Alexander had claimed he was running out for milkshakes. Instead, he’d come home with the milkshakes… and Statler and Waldorf from the shelter.
The chicks.
Mister.
Statler.
Waldorf.
And me.
My handsome stalker had a thing for rescuing the damaged and the unwanted.
“Not alive.” He kept one hand behind his back as he sat on the coffee table in front of me.
“Is it edible?”
“Anything is edible if you’re determined enough.”
I scrunched my nose and rolled my eyes. “What is it?”
He brought his arm forward and opened his hand to reveal a little rectangular box.
Not a jewelry box.
Handing it to me, he prompted, “Open it.”
I did as he ordered. And then I burst out laughing.
Business cards.
He actually got me business cards.
Not just any business cards. Sleek and matte black, there was an embossed flower emblem.
What they said made them even better.
How to contact me:
Don’t
“I know you got these as a joke, but jokes on you, I love them.” In fact, they were the best gift I’d ever received—and it wasn’t a close competition.
“Turn it over.”
I picked the top card off the stack and flipped it over. It took a moment for what I was reading to sink in.
Briar Flower Thornton
Not Dillon.
Thornton.
When I tore my gaze away from the card, Alexander was holding another box. That time, it was a jewelry one.
“Marry me.”
I didn’t think. I didn’t pause. I didn’t wait for my brain to twist thorny vines around my heart in an effort to tear it apart.
My answer was immediate and without a single shred of doubt or anxiety. “Yes.”
He slid a boulder of a ring onto my finger.
Then he stripped me down and slid his finger into me.
And then, when I was writhing and begging and out of my mind for him, he slid his cock into me.
No, I changed my mind.
This is the best gift I’ve ever gotten.
Alexander
One year later
“I NEED A trace.”
I’d figured as much.
Aside from us both being happily tied to a Dillon sister, Brando Vitale and I had a mutually beneficial working relationship. He called me when he needed a trace or information he couldn’t get elsewhere. In return, he made sure the right judge got the information when I inevitably found messed up shit on people’s computers.
Then we sat across from each other at dinners with our wives, as if we were a normal family.
We weren’t.
But that was the beauty of it.
Everyone was fucked up in their own way. We just owned it—secrets and all.
“Is there a time constraint?” I asked, seasoning the salmon for dinner.
“The next few days.”
My gaze went to my wife. I watched as she bent down, aiming her perky ass my way.
She was trying to distract me from the fact she was sneaking Mister extra sweet potato treats.
It didn’t work.
I knew what she was doing. I always knew because I paid attention to everything she did.
But I never called her on it. Partially because I wanted her to keep trying to distract me with her ass or tits. But mostly because I didn’t give a shit that she spoiled him. It made her happy. That was all I cared about.
Anxious to end the call so I could grab that ass she was taunting me with, I
said, “I’ll get it to you tomorrow.”
“Appreciated. See you Sunday.”
I’d lost my parents when I was young. Briar might as well not have had any parents to begin with. Now we had family dinners a couple times a month. Sometimes we went out, but usually Brand or I cooked.
Never Briar or Aria. The sisters had a lot going for them, but cooking skills? Not unless we liked our cereal flambéed.
Which Briar had done once when she’d accidentally turned on the burner while pouring a bowl.
We clicked off, but before I could round the island to go to her, Briar was already on her way to me.
And I wasn’t sure I liked the expression on her gorgeous face or the worry in her pretty blue eyes.
I liked it even less when her hand and voice both shook. “Can you put the salmon away?”
I opened the fridge and put it in—cutting board, knife, and all. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I… I want to give you something.” She brought her hand from behind her back and handed me something long and thin.
A straight razor.
Her straight razor.
The one she’d stolen from her father when she was a teenager.
The one she’d planned on killing herself with.
My brows lowered at the piece of steel in my hand.
I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d cut Briar. Couldn’t remember the last time she’d needed it. I still cuffed her throat with my hand or pulled her hair or fucked her like I was trying to fuse our souls together. That’d been more than enough release for us both. Or so I thought.
Studying her, I looked for any of her usual tells that she was upset or depressed or anxious. There were none.
But something was off. She was being cagey.
“What’s wrong, flower?” I repeated.
“I want you to get rid of it.”
Although the rest of her cut kit was long gone, Briar had held on to that razor. Not to use it, she’d sworn, but as a reminder that she was in control.
“Why now?” I asked, still lost.
“I don’t need it. And we don’t need it for, uh, release.”
Pocketing it, I didn’t try to hide how happy and proud I was.
“Plus…” She hesitated.
I braced, forcing myself to be patient.
I didn’t brace enough.
“Plus, I don’t think cutting will be good for our baby.” Her other hand came from behind her back and she handed me something else long and thin. It was the antithesis of the blade.