Severed Ties: A Dark Stalker Romance (Tainted Love Book 1)
Severed Ties: Prologue

It never should have gone this far. I never meant it to.

But the moment I laid eyes on her, everything changed, and obsession bloomed. It’s not like the others. Those were passing interests at best next to her. She set something on fire inside me, and I’ve been powerless against it since that very first day.

Maybe it would be different if she hadn’t been so afraid. That’s what hooked me, her fear. Because fear is more addictive than any drug on the market. I crave it. I need it. And as soon as Clara showed me her fear, I was addicted.

She walks down the snow-covered street, her high leather boots sinking into the fresh powder as she holds her coat around her tightly. She’s been walking to and from work this week, something that has my protective instincts on high alert, but I have no right to tell her what she should and shouldn’t be doing, especially seeing as she has no idea the devil is lurking in the shadows. Nor does she know he’s tracked every move she’s made for the last eight months.

It started innocently enough. I was just checking up on her to make sure she was okay after Angelo Russo and his asshole cousins hurt her. I thought perhaps she would be shaken, and for some reason, I needed to check on her. And then, the next day, I was pulled to check on her again, and then the day after that, the same thing until I found myself breaking into her apartment while she slept and installing surveillance equipment so I would always know if she was okay. A few days after that, I broke in again to install trackers on her phone and in every pair of shoes she owned. I wish I could say that stroke of genius was my own, but it came straight from the Everett Masters playbook. My best friend was a professional at stalking his now fiancée, and somewhere along the way, I’ve picked up some of those skills.

She stops on the sidewalk and rummages through her bag, looking for something before sighing and turning on her heel.

What have you forgotten, my sweet fawn?

I follow her back up the street, the hustle and bustle of a Tuesday morning in the middle of Chicago disguising me just the same way it does every morning. The work I do is mostly nocturnal, and as such, I try to only sleep when she’s at work, behind the walls of the Frost Industries security and the only people I trust with her safety.

Her nose is pink from the cool air, and despite my aversion to touch, I crave warming her. I crave taking care of her, protecting her, being her entire world the way she is mine. But I can’t darken her life with my presence. That’s why I forced myself to walk away the night I drove her home and got her settled in her apartment. I thought a big, tattooed man covered head to toe in scars in her space would frighten her, but she seemed almost at ease. I guess after coming face to face with the Russos, I looked like a teddy bear.

The thought makes me snort to myself as I shove my hands in my pockets. The people I pass try not to look at me, try to avoid the gaze of a man as dark as me, like I’m at risk of killing them where they stand. But I only kill people who deserve it, and although I’m sure most of them are cunts, killing them would bring me no gain and, therefore, wouldn’t give me the same satisfaction the blood of our enemies does.

Even at The Circle, there’s merit to making men bleed. I get a sick kind of satisfaction from beating the ones who underestimate me until they’re a breath from death’s door. I don’t look like a fighter, and that often works in my favor. That’s all a fighter can ask for, especially a capable one.

She stops in her tracks and looks around, her eyes scanning the street around her, the cars parked on the curb, the people walking around her, but she misses me entirely. She does this once every day or two, and she always looks right past me, but I’m never sure how to take her dismissal. It works in my favor in a lot of ways because while she’s clearly aware of my presence, she hasn’t noticed that I’ve been stalking her for months, but it goes against my need to be the center of her universe.

Once she’s scanned the street another three times, she lets out a frustrated breath and continues walking toward her apartment, which is only a few blocks from the Frost Industries building. As a personal assistant, she shouldn’t be able to afford a nice one-bedroom apartment in the heart of Chicago, but Wynter pays her well for what she does, especially now she’s handed over so much of her work to have the baby.

She disappears into the lobby of her apartment, and I manage to stay where I am across the street. Sometimes my skin crawls to the point of insanity when she’s out of my sight and I can’t stand it, but today isn’t one of those days.

I lean against the building directly across from hers and pull my phone from my jacket pocket. It’s fucking freezing this morning. I don’t normally feel the cold, but the bitter January air chills me to the bone.

I flick through a few messages of nonimportance, an asshole who owes the bookie side of the business a substantial amount of money and he’s begging for more time. A few messages from potential fighters and a couple from Rayne about a job he needs me to do later today, and by the time I look up, she’s stepping off the stoop of her building. She looks like an angel with a stream of sunlight illuminating her. Some days the light hits her so perfectly that I swear she isn’t real, that her deep-brown hair shines like that of an eternal being, and if I were to reach for her, if I were to stain her with my darkness, she would fall from heaven, and not even I can have that on my dark soul.

Her eyes scan the street again and I brace myself for her brown eyes to flit over me like nothing more than a shadowy presence in her life, but when they lock with mine, my stomach sinks and before I realize I’ve made the decision, I turn on my heel. I need to get the fuck out of here.

There’s an entrance to the old tunnels not far from here, and if I can just put enough distance between us, I’ll be able to slip away like a thief in the night. But the sound of screeching tires tears my attention from my retreat, and when I turn around, dread slams into me.

It happens in slow motion as I take off in a dead run back the way I came. The car losing control. Clara standing in the middle of the street with wide, scared eyes, the onlookers moving toward her, but none of them getting close enough to save her.

I’m the only one that can save my fawn, and maybe I’ve done us both a disservice by staying away for as long as I have. Maybe it’s time for me to claim her the way I’ve been fighting against since the first time I saw her.