Haunting-Adeline

“Make sure the men are watching over Addie while I’m gone,” I remind
Jay, ghtening the e around my neck.
It feels like a goddamn noose, and playing nice with these men tonight is
the proverbial bucket being kicked out from beneath my feet.
Socializing with some of the most depraved men to ever live certainly
feels like hanging myself from the ceiling ra ers. They deserve to die, and
instead I’ll be drinking expensive whiskey with them and imagining all the
ways I'm going to slaughter each and every one of them.
“Her house is being watched around the clock. Discreetly, of course,” Jay
assures from behind me.
Doesn’t feel good enough. Something I learned from when she was just
a girl ge ng undressed in her room, while I watched from afar through her
window. I knew her skin was as so as silk and that her pussy would feel
like fucking paradise. But being so far away and only just watching—it
wasn’t good enough.
And now, her safety feels precarious. I have the best men in the world
watching out for her, but if the Society were to send someone a er her—
they wouldn’t hire some low-life off the streets.
They’d hire someone just as trained to hunt and kill as the men circling
the perimeter of her house.
I spare a glance at Jay through the mirror, his shaggy black hair curled
around his pale face as he fiddles with the plas c red rose on my
nightstand. I don’t feel par cularly comfortable having him in my personal
space, but Jay decided he didn’t care and walked into my bedroom and sat
on the bed anyway.
Addie hasn’t even go en the chance to come here yet. I’ll have to rec fy
that soon.
I walk over to him and snatch the rose from his hand, his fingernails
painted black today. Every me I see them, they’re a different color.
Never one to shy away, Jay prods. “Is that personal? Where did you get
it?”
I cock a brow at him, but he just stares up at me with faux innocence in
his hazel eyes, pa ently wai ng.
Whatever.
“My mother gave it to me a long me ago. She loved roses and had
them all over the house. She gave this to me to always remember her by.”