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)
I jerked off to that story twice a day for two months straight.
I could not get it out of my mind.
The beastly nature of Helix, his absolute certainty that Lyra belonged to him. How much bigger he was than her, how he filled her so completely that there was no room left for anything except him. How Lyra ran from it, fought it, and then took it and loved it with a desperation that made my hand move faster on my cock every single time.
God, I was obsessed.
Looking back, I recognize that I was out of control during that period.
The surveillance escalated beyond anything I'd done with previous targets. The fantasies grew more elaborate, more consuming, bleeding into my waking hours until I could barely focus on MacLeay Capital, or The Scales, or anything that wasn't Scarletta's face on my monitors, Scarletta's words on my screen, Scarletta's soft moans when she touched herself to her own stories without knowing I was watching.
That's what really spurred the whole Derek situation.
I was just… out of control.
When I discovered what he'd done to her—reading her frantic, tearful journal entries through her hacked hard drive, watching her curl into a ball on her bed and sob for hours—something in me snapped with an almost audible crack.
The methodical patience I usually brought to Scales operations evaporated entirely. I tracked Derek down within seventy-two hours, and what I did to him had nothing to do with justice, or balance, or making the world safer for innocents.
It was personal.
It was emotional.
It was the most satisfying kill I've ever made.
I've dialed it back since then—forced myself to regain the control that defines everything I am, everything I've built.
But only because I found a healthier outlet for the obsession.
I recreated the Helix maze here, on Story Island.
The construction took three months and cost more than most people's houses. Custom bamboo walls grown to specification. Portal archways with concealed and nearly silent hydraulics that create the illusion of teleportation. A wireless sound system and custom earbuds to replicate the way Scarletta described Helix's telepathy in Lyra's head.
And the costumes.
Fuck, the costumes for my attendants are out of this world good.
Horns. Claws. Voice modulators that transform human speech into something inhuman and predatory. Every detail pulled directly from her manuscript, recreated with obsessive precision because I need her to believe she's stepped inside her own death-spiral imagination.
The maze has been ready for five weeks now.
And I've been planning to put my good little slut inside it since the day the final camera was installed.
I lean in, almost pressing my nose to the screen as Scarletta comes into view on the monitor. She's approaching the entrance…
Chapter 14
Scarletta
The maze entrance rises before me like something that shouldn't exist outside my own head.
Bamboo walls stretch fifteen feet high, woven so tightly I can't see through them, can't cheat by glimpsing what waits inside. The archway is exactly how I described it in the story—rough-hewn wood covered in carved symbols that look ancient and vaguely threatening.
He built this.
The thought won't settle properly in my brain.
He read my unpublished nightmare fantasy and built it into physical reality.
I stop walking. The earth below my feet is smooth, powdery, and deep. Like here, on this island, even the dirt is controlled by the unmasked man's obsessions.
Torches flicker in iron sconces on either side of the entrance, casting dancing shadows across the bamboo. The air smells like smoke, and jungle rot, and citronella—reminding me that this isn't real. This is theatre.
Very expensive theater.
Insanely expensive theater.
For me.
The archway seems to breathe in the firelight, and I notice speakers hidden in the carved wood, positioned exactly where I imagined Helix's telepathic voice would originate from. A small basket sits on a pedestal just inside the entrance, containing what looks like wireless earbuds.
My pussy clenches at the sight of them.
He's going to be inside my head.
The Call of the Labyrinth comes back to me like an old friend…
I stumble, falling. My chest hits the hard dirt and the air flows out of me in a loud breath. For a moment, I can't breathe. I just lie there, unsure what just happened. The claws, the teeth, the horns!
He was a monster!
Touching me, groping me!
His fingers between my legs and… oh, God.
The throbbing is back. the wetness pouring out of me like—
Trees rustle somewhere behind me.
I shake myself out of the ridiculous fantasy inside my sick head, pull myself up, and find… a maze?
What the fuck! I want to screams this, but I don't dare. He'll hear me. Capture me.
And then what will he do, Lyra?
Fuck me…
Stop it! You're a sick piece of shit! It's not even human! It's an animal walking on two legs, nothing more!
And he's going to rape you if you don't snap the fuck out of what's happening here and pull yourself together!