Page 28 of Desperate People

She doesn’t know I have it.

She’s going to be pissed.

But she’ll be safe.

I slip it in and shove the door open—and it hits me like a punch to the gut.

The smell.

Copper, sweat, rot, something rank and wrong.

My instincts flare hot and loud in my chest, dragging me back to every dark alley and every busted door I’ve ever kicked in.

I don’t go straight to her.

I need to see.

Need to know what he did to her space before I lay eyes on her.

The bedroom is—ruined. It’s destroyed.

Fucking hell.

Her drawers are yanked open, clothes shredded, scattered like confetti from a nightmare.

Her vanity table is overturned, glass glinting like broken teeth across the carpet.

Her perfumes spilled.

Her makeup crushed under boot prints.

And then—then, I see it.

There. On the bed.

A pile of human shit.

On her fucking bed.

My vision blacks out for a second.

The dragon in me—whatever fractured, feral thing lives beneath my skin—howls.

I don’t remember moving.

One second I’m standing in the doorway, the next I’m gripping the footboard, the whole frame shaking with the force of my rage.

This was intentional. Calculated.

Personal.

This sick fuck didn’t just break in—he violated her space.

Marked his territory like a fucking animal.

Left behind a message in filth, and then a note like it was romantic.

“For my Diablita.”

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