Little Stranger (The Web of Silence Duet, #1)

by Leigh Rivers

Tell me you’re in love with me, little sister.

Say you love me. Say you feel the fucking same way I do about you!

Because I can’t talk? Because I can’t tell you how fucking breathtaking you are every second of every day? Because I can’t breathe without being near you? Someone like me… I’m different—I can’t be normal for you. I can’t defend you without using my fists or my bat, and I can’t touch you at the same time as telling you that you’re everything to me. I can’t whisper sweet nothings into your mouth and I can’t fucking marry you because not only am I your brother, but I’m defective.

Believe me or don’t, but you’re the only person in my life, and you always have been. And when you take your last breath, or I take mine, that won’t fucking change. You. Are. Mine. My goddamn property, do you understand?

I know the depths of your depravity and the way your mind works. I know you more than you know yourself, you little fucking minx.

My foster sister’s touch is like a tattoo on my skin even now, all these years later.

I’m just biding my time. Waiting in the shadows and watching her receive all the gifts I leave her.

She hates chocolates and flowers and jewelry, so I shower her with them.

Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Fucking sorry. That damn word echoes in my psyche—a curse that won’t fuck off.

Sorry’s just a word to try to get out of something, to dodge trouble if you’ve been caught out. Sorry’s a five-letter disgrace that shouldn’t even need to be used. It should be abolished from the fucking dictionary. Actions do speak louder than words, and if she’s as sorry as she makes out in her voicemails, then why does she sometimes look happy? Why is she going out partying with her friends? Kissing guys who—shockingly—vanish days later?

Well, little sister, no need to look for me anymore. I’m right here, and I intend to stick around until I’ve broken you.

I mean, who wouldn’t find her fascinating?

Fuck that entire family. Except the daughter. She’s hot and kind of imprinted on my brain.

He interrupted my meal—maybe now he’ll know better than to take away my food, the fucking asshole.

I kind of love watching her putting music on and dancing around in her panties while she vacuums. One of my favorite pastimes with my cock in my hand.

If my girl is going out for Halloween, it looks like I am too.

That little shit took eight years from me. And this weekend, while she dresses up as a slutty bride, I’m going to make her pay.

I intentionally kick over her laundry basket and leave the toilet seat up,

she’s going to be fucking terrified while I chase her down and choke the life out of her.

She’s perfection on the outside—beautiful, stunning, a work of fucking art that was born to drive me more insane than I already am.

When the time comes, I will find it in me to tell her what I really think of her—how I feel when I look at her.

Ridiculous—I don’t want to kill her; I want to crush her. There’s a difference.

Why smile at someone when they walk past you? Why are you not smiling at me?

Wait. She’s heading straight for me. Fuck. My visor isn’t see-through, is it? No. I made sure it wasn’t. Can she see my tattoos? She has no idea I got one on my neck, right? Fuck, why am I sweating?

Seeing her up close, conscious and not through a screen, or in my goddamn dreams, knocks the air out of my lungs.

go away, Olivia, before I crush your windpipe. Or worse, fuck you in public with your stupid basket of fruit rolling down the street.

Can she fuck off? She’s ruining my plan.

But she was flirting with me, not knowing who I am. Why does that fuck me off so badly?

want to crack her skull open and feed her the gray matter of her brain, because what the fuck is she doing inviting a stranger out? She’s annoying me at the same time as making me nervous. She’s basically asked me—someone she’s never seen without a helmet—on a date. I could be an ugly motherfucker, a predator, or a murderer, and she’s just given me a free invitation to meet with her.

I don’t do relationships. I grimace at my own words. I sound like a knock-off Christian Grey, without the whips and red room of sexual pain.

Again, I’m annoyed, even though my dick is hard.

Her heels are too high—she still won’t be anywhere near as tall as me, but how will she run in them? The game will be over before it properly starts.

because that’s what Olivia Vize is, a piece of fucking art I want to own. I do own. She just doesn’t know it yet.

You see how good we are together, Olivia? We could’ve had the world, and you had to ruin it. I was going to give you everything you ever wanted. Now I need to take. I nearly have all of you. I have your mind. I have your body. I have your soul. The fear I instill in you. The pain I inflict when you defy me. You have a black heart, little sister, but I’ll own that soon too.

“Run, little stranger.” Run

She’s quite the masochist, and I love it, because I think I’m a sadistic bastard.

“You love pain,” I say perfectly, and I want to pat myself on the back. “I love pain.”

“You have no idea who you’re messing with. When he finds out where I am, because he will, he’ll come for you.” I smirk and tap her cheek. Stupid woman. Stupid, beautiful, smart woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.

Maybe I should kill her. Would the wedding still go ahead if the mother of the bride had been tragically ripped apart and fed to a pack of wolves? Knowing my family, probably.

I’m a hypocrite. I internally rain havoc on any warm thoughts of Olivia, but deep down, I fucking missed her too. Being separated from her was like being thrown into the sea when you can’t swim. Drowning—I was fucking drowning until I set eyes on my Olivia again.

I can’t help but smile at her. She’s beautiful—she

I always wanted to kiss her and laugh with her, to lie in her bed and watch her sleep, sniff her fucking hair like the drug it is.

“Scream louder,”

She’s tracing my facial features. I’m letting her. Instead of making her pay for ruining nearly a decade of my life, I’m letting her touch me so freely, and I love it. I’m all warm and tingly and I… like it.

“You can talk,” she says, her bottom lip trembling. “You can… You can talk, Malachi.”

Then she frowns and slaps my chest. “You put a damn spider on me, asshole!” She points at her body, the burned initials with raised brows. “Really? And what took you so long? You were released months ago.”

I’m not sorry for beating up Dad. He made my life hell for no reason. I do miss Mom, though, and I know we have a little sister. She seems nice, but I don’t plan on speaking to her.

“She is nice,” she says. “I think you’d like her. She’s quite talkative and full of energy.” Then I’d hate her.

She rolls her eyes. “You were the one leaving chocolates and flowers in my house?” Yes, I sign. I also fucked you while you were unconscious on your bathroom floor. “I’m...

“I want to know if anything was ever real for you. Any of it. If you tell me you love me, that I mean the world to you, then I’ll admit that I feel the exact same. Because I do, Malachi. I love you so much it hurts.”