Reth
Killing is easy. Being owned is the real nightmare. I'm controlled. Broken down and rebuilt into something lethal. I don't feel. Don't hesitate. Don't want. I survive by staying empty. Sophia Sinclair is everything I was never meant to touch. Soft, bright… good. For years I stayed in the shadows. Watching her. Memorizing her. Every routine. Every habit. Every detail—from the O negative in her veins to the shade of red she paints across her lips. I convinced myself watching was harmless. Safe. Distant. But nothing I want can ever be mine when I'm leashed by an evil far worse than me. So I did what every villain would do. I took her. Sophia One moment I'm helping traumatized kids. The next I'm locked inside a house that looks exactly like my dreams with a captor who bakes my favorite pastry. Who turns up the heat when I shiver. Leaves heart-shaped candy around like it means something. Like I mean something. I tell myself he's a monster. But I've spent years studying broken people, and Reth Hale doesn't feel like evil. He feels like damage. And that might be worse. When an open door offers freedom, I hesitate. I've dedicated my life to fixing wounded things—and Reth might just be the most broken of all… or the fracture that breaks me instead. Tropes: stalker romance; obsessive anti-hero and obsessive love; captive/forced proximity; protective masked killer; he falls first (and harder); trauma-bond; broken/damaged hero; sunshine/soft heroine; slow burn.
