My stepfather is watching me.
Not in the way a normal person watches. Not a glance across a room or a check-in text to see how I'm doing.
Mark Callahan — billionaire, security mogul, my mother's ex-husband — has cameras in my apartment.
He knows what time I shower. He knows what I eat for dinner.
He knows things about my body that I haven't told anyone.
I should be terrified. I should call the police, change my locks, and run.
Instead, when he shows up at my door the one night everything falls apart, I let him in.
Here's the thing about being alone for so long that you forget what help looks like: when someone finally sees you — really sees you, down to the minute details of your daily routine — the word "stalker" starts to sound a lot like "the only person who noticed I was drowning."
Mark is eighteen years older than me. He married my mother. He is possessive, obsessive, and completely unapologetic about every line he's crossed to get to me.
He is also the first person who ever showed up without being asked.
I know this is wrong. I know what people would say. I know there isn't a single version of this story that sounds sane when I tell it out loud.
But his hands know exactly where I hurt, and his mouth knows exactly how to fix it, and when he tells me he wants to take me home and never let me go, the only word I have left is yes.
My name is Maura Sinclair. I'm twenty-one years old, and I'm about to fall for the most dangerous man I've ever met.
He just happens to be my stepfather.
