Page 61 (1/2)

Chapter 1

Jay

“Black dress, black hair, fake tits, drinking a cosmo by the bar”

Jay leaned back and watched his security guard walk through the throngs on the dance floor, toward the woman he’d described

He hated the ghost that haunted him in thisover what he’d lost What’d he’d throay Even though he’d never had her Not really She’d loved an idea of hilimpses of who he truly was, the wickedness inside of him And she’d loved those parts Because she could love wicked things Or at least, she’d thought she could Jay was an intelligent h to know that Stella would never be able to love the core of him

He’d been reckless, selfish and dangerous even thinking that he could’ve ed the cold, calculated, powerful and deadly life he’d created with the warht

She would have hated him

Eventually

He would have hated hi apart all of the drea on all of the futures she may have had with another man

Jay’s fist clenched Theskin he’d marked, skin he owned, turned his blood hot The need to hurt—to end—any ht to as his was overwhel

The entire point of hi her what she deserved, but Jay could not be sure if she found soht control in every facet of his life, but he could not control himself when it came to Stella

He could control himself even less in her absence

He knew that people were talking That his eitimate businesses feared him even more than they had before

Jay wasn’t sleeping As soon as he left his offices don, he caht held the deepest shadows, he went to do things that could only be done in the dark Things that he’d hid fros that would’ve eaten away at her love for him like erosion on rock