Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 66993 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66993 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
“Maybe more. . .obsession. Sick fetish? The angle of the cuts, the way the ribbon is tied—same knot every time. Careful. Ritualistic. This isn’t just murder. It’s performance.”
I tapped my finger against the glass. “You think he’s in love with the feet?”
“I think he’s in love with what they represent. Femininity. Movement. Power. It’s not just mutilation. It is worship twisted inside out.”
I stared down at the club below, at the soft pink glow pulsing from the Floating Garden’s entrance like the mouth of a beast—beautiful, expensive, and hungry.
I wasn’t a good man but I had rules. And whoever sent those feet wanted to see if I would break them.
What this psycho didn’t understand was this—my rules were the only thing keeping me human. The only thing keeping this city from burning to ash beneath my feet.
Because when my father forced me to take this power, when I wrapped my claws around the throne I never asked for, I didn’t become a king.
I became the Dragon.
And like any true dragon, I guarded what was mine with fire and fury.
Every woman who stepped into my world—whether she danced behind glass, fucked for a fee, poured drinks at the bar, or simply wore my scent on her skin—was under my protection.
They were the treasure I kept beneath my wings.
The flames I burned for.
And anyone who dared to hurt any of these women. . .who dropped severed limbs at my doorstep like invitations to war...
Was already fucking dead.
He just didn’t know it yet.
I gritted my teeth. “Reo, you said he. Could it be a woman doing this?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“The psychology doesn’t align.” Reo stepped closer and I caught the scent of old books clinging to his jacket. “Female serial killers tend to kill for power, not artistry. Not often for pleasure, and rarely with this kind of pageantry. This man? He wants you to see. To feel something. To marvel at the beauty of what he’s destroyed and he wants to piss you off.”
A chill rolled up my spine.
Reo’s gaze cut to me. “He’s communicating. Each gift is a sentence. We’re just not fluent in his language yet.”
My hand curled into a fist.
Reo frowned. “And he’ll keep doing it. Until we understand the message… or give him a reason to stop.”
Then, Hiro spoke from across the room. “So this is personal?”
Reo nodded. “It is.”
I pressed my palm to the glass and looked through the window. I didn’t like the idea of someone creeping through my city, slicing women to pieces, and treating one of the doorsteps of my clubs like it was a sicko art gallery.
Hiro left the wall and came over to me. “Let me find and track this guy.”
I didn’t answer my brother right away.
Hiro was destruction incarnate. Beautiful, effective destruction—but he thrived in close-range war. In shadows and steel. His solutions were final, his methods bloody. He didn’t trace patterns or dance with madness.
He simply found the soft spot and drove in the blade.
Tempting as it was to let Hiro off leash—send him into the dark and wait for the blood-soaked results—this situation wasn’t about dragging a confession out of someone screaming in a basement or leaving bodies in alleys as warnings.
Hmmm.
This killer was clever—a theatrical mind with surgical hands and a psychotic artist’s obsession.
A man like that didn’t fear violence—he expected it. Probably got off on the idea that we’d come at him like hounds on a scent trail, snapping jaws and blind rage.
He wanted noise, mess, and chaos.
But what he wouldn’t expect?
Strategy and cold, meticulous logic.
He wouldn’t be ready for the kind of mind that peeled back layers like old wallpaper, that read people like books, spotted patterns like constellations, and had no interest in glory—only clear, accurate results.
This wasn’t Hiro’s hunt.
This problem needed patience, puzzles and an obsession that mirrored the killer’s own.
And there was only one man in my inner circle who’d ever fit that mold.
I shifted my gaze to Reo.
He was already watching me, waiting.
Reading me.
Of course he was.
He knew.
“Not you, Hiro.” I let my hand drop from the glass and turned toward them both.
Hiro’s jaw twitched. “I can find him for you.”
“I always have faith in you but this isn’t a matter of force. It’s a mind game. A conversation in corpses.”
Hiro frowned.
“I need him exposed, not erased.”
Reo’s expression remained unreadable but I caught the flicker in his eyes—the spark of challenge.
“Reo,” I stepped closer to him. “This is yours.”
No protest.
No hesitation.
He simply nodded once. “Understood.”
I added. “I want you to learn his language.”
“I’ve already started assessing,” he murmured. “The shape of the boxes. The type of ribbon. Even the brand of the heels. There’s meaning buried in every detail. I’ll figure it out soon.”
Satisfaction hit me.
This was why Reo was my Roar. Because where others heard chaos, he found code. Where others flinched, he leaned in.