Page 225 of Craving Venom

“What do you think…” My thumb trails her jawline through the screen. “What stage am I at?”

“Love.”

That one-word hits harder than any punch I’ve ever taken.

It shouldn’t surprise me. I’ve tasted every stage. Chewed through attraction, burned alive in addiction, branded her name into my fucking ribs with possession. Love was inevitable.

But hearing it out loud?

From someone else’s mouth?

It rips a hole straight through the part of me that still pretended I had control.

And then Terry says the part I already know but can’t admit.

“And you’re in love with a girl you can never have.”

That part does hit. Somewhere ugly.

Because he’s right.

I’ve already swallowed every part of her that she’ll never willingly give. Her moans, her fear, her fight, her silence. I’ve memorized the way her breath catches when she thinks I’m going to hurt her and the way she falls apart when I don’t. I’ve made a home inside her fucking pain.

But I’ll never have her heart.

She’ll never hand it to me in that gentle, breakable way the good ones get. She’ll never lace her fingers through mine and say I make her feel safe. She’ll never say my name like it means home instead of threat.

Because I’m the reason she can’t sleep without locking the door, the shadow she checks twice for, the burn she likes toomuch to stop, and the bruise she can’t explain to anyone else, and that’s all I’ll ever fucking be.

She might come in my arms. She might fall asleep in my scent. She might even cry with her head on my shoulder.

But love?

That soft, pure, red-ribboned thing?

She’ll never give it to me.

Because I don’t inspire love.

Iconsumeit.

So yeah, maybe I’m in love.

But it’s not the kind of love that writes vows.

It’s the kind that digs graves.

Something slides across the counter breaking me out of my reverie.

I look down. It’s the newspaper.

The one with the black-and-white photo and a smudged headline that reads:

MARCUS LEISTER, 19, FOUND DEAD IN PRISON CELL.

“Might want to tell me why you lied and said that the kid was in danger from Frank.”

I don’t answer right away, just stare at the grainy grayscale image of the suicide note before tapping it once.

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