Prologue
Ryker
Four years ago
There was no excuse for the things I’d done. Nothing I could say to make them right. In the end, it would all be a lie anyway. I liked the feel of my knife slicing through skin and found beauty in the way blood poured onto the floor to spread like motor oil. I liked them too much to regret them, and I’d do them all over again.
To find her.
Despite all my crimes, and all my sins, I knew even then that nothing could compare to the crime of stalking Calla Latour. Following her husband came easy, even if it meant I had to work harder to stay hidden.
They frowned upon watching the police.
But stalking his innocent wife because he decided the simple life with white picket fence just wasn’t enough for him? That was a crime worthy of the death sentence. It was a crime I knew I could never justify to myself.
Especially since she quickly became an addiction. I felt her burning in my veins as if I'd shot her up like a drug.
A woman like Calla was all good, all sunshine and light. I lived my life in the shadows where I belonged. But somehow it felt like my shadows changed when I first set eyes on her. Like my shadows became her shadows. Calla was a guiding light in my otherwise bleak existence, and I couldn’t turn away.
It didn't matter that she spent most of her time in yoga pants, with her white blond hair in a ponytail, looking more and more exhausted with every hour that passed. Something about those big, dark blue eyes called to me in a way that I couldn’t explain.
But I kept my distance. Because if I got too close, I would take Calla for my own. I owed everything to the Bellandi family. Her husband Chad would be useful to Matteo if he proved himself.
Very useful.
It wasn't every day that a Police Lieutenant wanted to join the Bellandi payroll, intending to make evidence disappear or stop it from being collected.
So I watched her. I made sure she wasn't meeting with anyone on her husband's behalf. Even though I knew from the first moment I followed her that the only crooked thing she had going was her smile.
She walked through the park, pushing her two-year-old son Axel in the stroller and willing him to stay asleep. She looked pained doing it, as if the toddler just never slept or gave her a moment's peace. Judging from the look on her face and t
he way I’d watched her snuggle with him on the couch the entire night before, I suspected it might be true. Her husband had come home after dinner, greeted her briefly, and gone up to their bed to sleep peacefully under the covers while she handled Axel.
She was too good for him. Too good for both of us.
I stayed a few paces behind her, feigning disinterest as she made her way down the path in the park near their house. The fresh air seemed to help calm Axel, as it was already their second stroll through the park for the day.
The stroller veered to the right suddenly, something shifting, so it tilted to the side. She tried to put it right, but it woke Axel anyway. Groaning, she dropped her head for a moment before she bent down to inspect the wheel. I couldn't see what happened from my spot behind them, but the way Calla buried her face in her hands and took out her phone was sign enough that something was wrong. She typed a number in, putting it to her ear as she reached down and grabbed her son from the stroller.