A world in which Reina existed.

After that, I decided to leave, because I didn’t want to be in such a world either. I didn’t want to see her fucking breathing when my only family lay six feet under.

Alexander doesn’t count. For me, he was only a sperm donor, never a father. Writing checks made him a sponsor, not a parent.

Actually, he was a parent to Reina more than to his real children. She’s his precious partner’s daughter and a source of income. We were a fucking liability he had to spend his money on.

When I left for England, I promised I’d put everything behind me.

Back then, Reina knew exactly what I thought about her, and I wanted her to suffer until the day she dies. I wanted the guilt to eat her from the inside out, until she’s old and gray and still living in Blackwood.

And she accepted her punishment. Our punishment.

But she broke the rules that night.

She wanted to escape.

Fuck that. Fuck my patience for seeing her decimated little by little.

I’m done watching, done trying to stay away.

Reina will pay, and she’ll do it my way. She’ll do it while hanging off the edge of a rooftop, bound and tied and begging for help that won’t come.

“Her grave will be next to yours and mine, Ari.”

My sister was my purpose in life. The day she died, I died with her.

The thing that rose from the ashes was a demon thirsty for blood.

Reina’s blood.

The moment Alexander steps into the cemetery, I take my leave.

He gives me the stink eye and I’m tempted to fight him, but I’d never do that in front of Ari’s grave.

I wonder if his assistant reminded him that today is the anniversary of his daughter’s death. I wonder if he’s only doing this for the appearance of it or if he actually remembers just how much Ari loved him despite his uselessness.

The drive home is similar to riding straight back to hell. Blackwood’s buildings extend as far as the eye can see—all majestic, and so fucking empty like the people inside them.

In this town, people like Ari never fit in. The quiet nerds, the shy people who don’t dress for fashion or socialize—those are the outcasts, the ones no one cares about or notices the absence of.

In this godforsaken town, people like Reina and me rule—popular and beautiful and fucking monstrous.

We were born to be at the top of the food chain while Ari was always destined to be at the very bottom where anyone could step on her.

Three years ago, I left and never looked back. The hypocrisy and…something else suffocated me. I had to stay the fuck away from Blackwood.

Until I didn’t.

Until I returned like I’d never left.

It’s funny how three years can seem too long and yet too short at the same time.

On the surface, nothing’s changed. Blackwood is still filled with hollow souls and faceless people. Deep down, it’s almost unrecognizable.

I park in front of the house and stride toward the entrance. No idea what the fuck I’m doing here. This is the last place I want to be on Ari’s death anniversary.

This is where she first met Reina, and I smiled when they became friends.

Like a fucking idiot.

I loosen my tie; the thing restricts my breathing. My movements pause when the door to the pool house opens. Jason comes out first and hops over the step then offers his hand with a smile.

Pale soft fingers latch onto his, and my grip on the tie turns deadly.

I know who it is before she steps outside. Those fingers. That fucking hand.

All the pent-up energy that’s been plaguing me since the morning translates into a red mist that covers my eyes and strangles my breathing. The need to cut off his hand and feed it to the dogs overwhelms me.

How fucking dare he touch what’s mine?

How dare she fucking let him?

My murderous gaze flits from her to him. My demons whisper at me to go over, punch Jason in the goddamn face, and take back what’s mine.

Reina is mine. Fucking mine.

And I’ll screw the world so she’ll remain that way.

What I have planned for her doesn’t contradict that fact. Just because I gave her freedom doesn’t mean she can parade around with another man as if she has every right to.

What were they doing in the pool house anyway?

I only stop my murderous plans when Jason waves at her and heads toward the small house he shares with Elizabeth. Reina barely acknowledges him as her feet carry her in my direction.

She doesn’t lift her head so she can’t see me watching the slight tremble in her full lips, the way her blond hair falls to her shoulder with abandonment. Her shorts ride up her pale thighs with every step she takes as if enticing me with what’s beneath, with what I tasted last night.

The moment I had her, the moment I buried myself into her warmth and looked into her ocean blue eyes, I felt a strange energy.

It’s like the ocean’s pull when it’s drowning you, or the sirens’ song when they’re luring you to nothingness.

Reina has that effect on people.

She lures then traps.

She manipulates then strikes.

She’s the devil dressed as an angel.

For three years, that’s what I believed, and I still do—in some way.

It’s just that she came up with this fucking amnesia thing that keeps shuffling my cards. She keeps acting in sporadic ways that mess with my fucking head.

She’s not supposed to get into my head, let alone mess with it.

My plan was simple: torture then kill her. Make her suffer then finish her miserable life.

Make her mine one final time then toss her aside.

Now the lines are blurring with every word out of her fucking mouth, with the way she got on her knees for me, the way she submitted to me, the way she opened her mouth and legs as if they’ve always belonged to me. They do.

She hasn’t only done it with me. I’ve noticed the way she treats her cheerleaders, how she laughs and talks back, how she fucking smiles.

Reina doesn’t smile.

She stopped smiling around her sixteenth birthday.

When she does, they’re filled with contempt and malice.

Fake.

Since the hospital, I’ve caught her smiling and laughing from the bottom of her heart more times than I can count.

I took pictures of those smiles while she wasn’t watching and studied them later to see if she was putting on a front again.

She wasn’t.

They were almost as genuine as when we were pre-teens.

She’s not smiling now, though. Her shoulders strain with tension and her head appears lost elsewhere. She passes beside me without as much as a glance.

I doubt she even notices I’m there.

Her steps are heavy and slow as she takes the stairs, clutching the railings for balance.

I release the tie with a jerk.

Since waking up in the hospital, this is the first time Reina hasn’t acknowledged my existence. She’d usually sense me a mile away and lock gazes with me with defiance and spikiness that makes my cock hard.

She’d light this thing inside me, a fire, an inkling, a fucking connection I thought I’d never feel to a human being again.

The Reina from today is different. She’s so fucking similar to her old self.

But isn’t that what I want? Old Reina is someone I can deal with, someone I can torture and kill. She’d deserve it. That’s why I demanded she go back to her old ways.