Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 54871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
ScarletSins
Check here if you agree to be hunted. Yes.
Check here if you agree to be caught. Hell yes.
I told myself the first time was desperation. The second time is just... follow-up. Fact-checking. Character development. Research.
Why am I doing this again?
Story fodder.
That's what I keep telling myself.
The auction starts in three hours and I've already checked the box I swore I wouldn't.
Run.
Watcher
Check here if you've been counting the days. Every single one.
Check here if you let her think this was her idea. Obviously.
She came back. Told herself it was for the writing. Told herself she's gathering material. She has no idea what I'm gathering.
Why am I doing this?
Because watching isn't enough anymore.
The auction starts in three hours and the hunt is already over.
She just hasn't stopped running yet.
This book a man who should be in prison, a woman who should know better, and scenes that will make you google "is this okay?" (It's not. Enjoy.)
Vibe
He watches. Always.
Your therapist will have questions.
Consent is... creative.
This is not a safe book. Neither is he.
Morally bankrupt MMC who is not sorry.
She runs. Not fast enough.
Prey/predator dynamics
The forest is not her friend.
"No" is a conversation starter.
He doesn't share. Ever.
Touch her and find out.
Safe words exist.
The game has rules
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter 1
Caleb
The world's worst men shake the most hands.
The movie star who violates children.
The CEO who traffics them.
The politician whose foundation supplies both.
The spotlight doesn't expose monsters—it blinds you to them.
Before me are two walls of monitors with two very different scenes.
On the left wall of monitors we have Dimitri Volkov. Friends and enemies alike call him Volk—Russian for wolf. I consider myself to be both friend and enemy, so I call him Volk as well. It suits him in ways he's never understood.
Our friend Volk is a philanthropist of the highest order.
An art collector specializing in Renaissance paintings.
A shipping magnate worth four-point-seven billion dollars according to Forbes—though the actual number, buried in shell companies and offshore accounts, is closer to seven.
Friends with senators, oligarchs, and A-list celebrities.
Married twenty-eight years to a former ballerina who pretends not to know what he is.
Three grandchildren he bounces on his knee at charity galas while photographers capture his grandfatherly smile.
Our enemy Volk… well, he's the architect of the largest child trafficking operation in Eastern Europe.
The orphanages he funds aren't orphanages. They're Recruitment centers.
Those art acquisition trips to Prague, Budapest, Kyiv are sourcing missions.
His shipping empire doesn't move luxury goods across borders, it moves flesh.
Currently, Volk is naked and blindfolded. Steel cuffs around his wrists have him locked to the cage floor in absolute darkness about three miles from here.
The night-vision feed shows him testing the restraints again. Pulling at them methodically, intelligently.
Still believing this situation is salvageable.
That his lawyers, his political connections, his billions will extract him from this.
They won't.
I'll deal with him later.
The right wall of monitors holds my attention now.
Scarletta stepping off the Gulfstream onto Story Island's tarmac. She's still wearing my old Harvard t-shirt and black sweat pants.
The February sun is turning her hair gold as the Caribbean wind catches it, blowing it across her face. Not in some romantic, photogenic way, either. The gusts are whipping those dirty blonde strands so violently that she has to hold both sides of her head with her hands just to see where the hell she's going. Walking almost sideways down the stairs, squinting against the brightness after hours in the plane's dim cabin.
To call the vibe radiating off her body language annoyed would be a dramatic understatement.
She's pissed.
Genuinely, visibly pissed.
I can't help it—I snicker.
Her trip has been anything but relaxing. The invitation to the hunt directed her to go downstairs immediately upon receiving it, so she did—of course she did, eager little thing.
But I left her waiting for the limousine for nearly an hour in her apartment lobby. Just sitting there in my clothes, probably wondering if I'd forgotten about her entirely.
It was necessary, though. Cruel, yes, but necessary. I needed to arrive in the Caribbean before she did. Needed to be here, waiting, watching, in complete control of the infrastructure before her plane ever touched down.
Once she finally got to the FBO terminal at Idaho Falls Regional Airport, I had her plane grounded for two hours under the pretense of 'mechanical issues.' Some vague problem with the hydraulics that required a full inspection.
She sat in the private lounge—I watched her on the security cameras—pretending to read a magazine while internally spiraling with anxiety. Wondering if this was part of it. If I was testing her. If she should leave.
She didn't leave.
Which set the perfect tone for the 'normal not-normal turbulence' she experienced during the entire seven-hour flight. Nothing dangerous, of course. Nothing the pilots couldn't handle easily. But enough chop, enough sudden drops and jarring bumps to keep her white-knuckled and nauseous the whole way.
I specifically instructed them to take a route through some rough weather patterns. Make it memorable. Make her arrive already off-balance, already questioning whether she's made a terrible mistake.
Small games. Necessary delays. Minor psychological adjustments to ensure she arrives exactly as unsteady as I need her to be.
Control, I've learned, isn't just in the grand gestures—it's in the minutiae. The orchestration of a thousand tiny details that add up to total dominance before she even realizes the game has started.
She thinks she understands what this 'hunt' entails—they all do when they first arrive here, armed with their fantasies and half-formed expectations culled from fiction and forum posts.
But it's never the same chase twice. Every woman brings different fears, different desires, different breaking points.
The island itself shifts the dynamic—weather patterns, wildlife sounds, the particular quality of moonlight filtering through jungle canopy. So many variables to account for on Story Island. So many opportunities for improvisation within the carefully constructed framework.
I allow myself a small breath of satisfaction, settling deeper into my chair as I scan the array of monitors before me. Very pleased with how meticulously this particular event has been choreographed. Every contingency planned for, every potential complication anticipated and neutralized before it could manifest.
Volk's presence on the sister island two miles south of here is a distraction I could do without. His scales weren't due to be balanced until next week.