He didn’t give me time to answer before he stormed out of the room. Sometime later, I heard angry yells from their bedroom and Gabriella’s dramatic crying and pleading.
I kept the note. It’s scrunched in my hand still, the ink staining my skin red. The only reminder I have that it was real. That it really happened.
Breathing out with frustration, Dr. Fraud shifts in her seat, knowing I won’t talk. She then prescribes me medication that won’t work.
Nothing will. Because my nightmares are real. Just like the monsters are.
Chapter Three
My room in Stonehill is bare. A single metal-framed bed with gray sheets and a brown throw is shoved against the wall. A tiny television and blank journal sit on a cheap wooden desk with a matching chair. The only window I have is small and has no curtains. None of them do after a girl used them to hang herself a few months back.
My muscles are tense and have been since last night. He got into Lawrence’s home. Got past security without being seen or heard. Surely this place would be a walk in the park for him?
I know he’ll find a way to get in. To get to me.
Pulling my knees to my chest, I uncrumple the note he left for me, reading the words a few more times to torture myself some more. I don’t know why I do. It’s not as if the letters are going to change.
He found out about the baby, somehow. A mistake must have been made.
Gabriella had Lawrence take care of it. It isn’t in any record, and the hospital staff who dealt with me were paid off. But this is Blake Santos. He’s always made it his business to know everything about me.
A harsh knock on the door snaps me from my thoughts. I’m used to the noises here—the screams, shouting, and banging of minds losing sanity. But I’m not used to someone knocking. That’s a privilege girls at Stonehill don’t have, and I immediately think of Blake’s games, knowing he would do something like this for effect.
Knock, knock, Heidi, baby. Let me in.
Doing this in broad daylight is new. Careless. Then again, haven’t I always conjured something insane in him?
I wait for a nurse to barge in, but the door remains shut, the person on the other side waiting for an invitation. Shooting a quick glance at the clock, I realize the nurses are doing their rounds and don’t usually arrive at this section until half an hour—
Bang, bang, bang.
My frown deepens. This isn’t Blake’s style. He at least lets the threat linger for more than a few days before unleashing fury. But if it isn’t him, who is it?
Slipping off my bed, I take a step, seeing the shadow of someone looming beneath the door. My heart pounds against my chest as I reach out and grab the handle, knowing Blake would be too impatient to wait like this.
I pull the door open slowly, and when I see who it is, my body freezes. Fuck.
A man stands in the place Blake should be. A man I believed to be dead and someone I thought I’d never see again. I shake my head, bewildered, in disbelief.
“You-You’re dead.”
As a smile tilts his lips, I realize how… different he looks. He isn’t the same as I remember, not at all, and for a moment, I think maybe I’ve made a mistake. But, then, there’s no way I would ever forget a face like his—the face of the man I had killed.
Swallowing is hard. My underarms and palms dampen with moisture as he stares down at me. When I was fifteen years old, the very night Blake stole everything from me, a man named Milton walked through the door and put a bullet into a man’s head who tried to attack me. To this day, I don’t know why, but he’d made a brutal impression, and Blake made him my reluctant bodyguard.
But this Milton isn’t the same as I remember.
Dark brown hair is now short at the sides and longer on top—handsomely styled instead of messy. Not like the times it was damp from the rain after he rode his motorcycle through the murky streets of Fair Haven doing Blake’s dirtiest deeds. Even the stubble on his chin and upper lip have been tamed. Shaped. He’s wearing a suit, one tailored to his tall, lean frame. Not the thick leather jacket that brandished Horn Hill MC’s slogan, Devil Horns.
No, he never looked like this before. Polished and clean. Even the way he carries himself is miles apart from the man he was when he was a club member. And I know I’m in trouble because if this is the same person, he’s probably seeking revenge.
“Heidi Adams?” I jerk back, unnerved. He’s British? There was always a twang of something I could never make out, but it wasn’t an accent, and certainly not someone from England.
My heart thumps in my chest fast, my stomach queasy with shock. “W-What? You know that’s my name?”
He ignores me. “I’m Milton Xavier Hood. Nice to meet you.”
Meet me?
He’s holding something in his hand. A brown folder Dr. Rogue had. My folder. Coldness slithers down my spine, not understanding what the fuck is going on. Is this a trick? A game?
“Now that we have that out of the way, may I?” Barging past me, he walks inside my room. My heart swells with discomfort when he shuts the door behind him. I move back. It’s too small in here to put space between us. Yet, he only observes the place, eventually making
