I need a remote control when I’m with her. Or that’s what I told myself. Then I found myself sneaking into her room again.
It was a bit easier when I didn’t have her. Now that she’s mine, I can’t stay away. Not touching her has become equivalent to physical torture.
And now, I need to know what’s bothering her. No one fucks with her.
Or at least, no one but me.
Moving slowly, I retrieve her phone from the nightstand and use her forefinger’s print to unlock it.
She mumbles something, but then her breathing evens out again.
Her wallpaper is a picture of the four of us from the wedding. She’s hugging Sebastian’s waist and I’m s
tanding beside Mum.
I grind my teeth.
I know what she’s doing. She’s reminding herself every second of the day that the world sees us as siblings — even if she doesn’t.
We’ll see about that, my Butterfly.
I open her gallery and scroll through her recent photos. They’re mostly a few selfies she took with Summer and Veronica on their way to Ronan’s party.
Then I find a picture that makes me stop and click it.
It’s a shot of her out of the shower, wearing a towel, her wet blonde hair falling on either side of her. It’s a selfie, but her entire face isn’t visible — only from the nose down.
She’s trapping her lower lip under her teeth. Her towel is slightly loose around her tits to show the hickey — the same one I left above her right tit when I fucked her in the shower.
Silver took this picture right after I left. She wanted to memorise it, to store it for safekeeping.
I smile down at her. If hickeys are what she wants, I’ll bathe her body with them until the entire fucking world knows she’s taken. They might never know it’s me, but they’ll know she belongs to someone.
After sending the photo to my phone, I delete the text to myself and go to her messages, ignoring her group chat with her shallow friends. I don’t have to search long to find what I’m looking for. Unknown Number.
My muscles tense the more I read the texts. They started years ago — three, to be exact. It was around the time she became glued to her phone, sometimes smiling, other times frowning.
The number sends texts almost daily. In most of them, he tells her she’s beautiful, and in others, he’ll mention details about her daily life he wouldn’t know unless he watches her closely.
The Queens’ mansion has high security. No one but the family members and Sebastian’s team is allowed inside without supervision. And Cynthia. Somehow, Sebastian allows her free access to his house.
He hasn’t sent texts about her home clothes. They’re mostly about what she wears to go out. So this means he’s close, but not too close.
The last text he sent was on the day of the wedding.
Unknown Number: You look beautiful today, like a rose finally deflowered. Happy eighteenth birthday. You’re a woman now.
My grip tightens around the phone as my senses skyrocket to high alert.
I stare at Silver’s sleeping form, at the way her fingers are gripping me close, almost as if she’s afraid the same nightmare from earlier will repeat.
Her other hand clutches her butterfly necklace, the one I gave to her which she’s never removed.
Silver has someone who’s obsessed with her, watches her, probably masturbates to her pictures in the darkness of his room.
Someone who’s slowly but surely becoming threatening.
And she’s hiding it from the world.