Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE: DEATH, YOU’RE LATE
The man standing in my apartment doesn’t look like death.
He looks like every bad decision I ever wanted to make—wrapped in a black jacket, rain dripping from the hem, holding a suppressed Glock the way most men hold a remote.
I don’t scream. I don’t run. I don’t even lower the half-finished glass of wine dangling from my fingers. The wet red ring on my counter is a stain I’ll never have to clean.
I just look at him.
He looks back.
For a long, breathless moment, the two of us hover in an impossible stillness—his presence a dark hum in the room, metallic on my tongue. Rain scent clings to his shoulders, seeping into the hardwood beneath his expensive shoes. He doesn’t belong in a studio apartment in Queens. Not a man like him. Not unless someone paid him very, very well.
And I know exactly why he’s here.
Three nights ago: a car. A trunk. A girl who could’ve been my sister in another life. Lips parted in a silent scream before the lid slammed shut.
I didn’t call the police.
Didn’t tell a soul.
Just came home, locked my door, poured my wine, and waited for the end to knock.
“You’re late,” I say.
His brow twitches—barely. Enough to show he caught the accusation, not the sarcasm.
“Late,” he repeats quietly, his voice more vibration than sound.
“I thought you’d come last night.”
A small shift—his weight settling, eyes narrowing, calculation flickering behind them.
“I had to make sure you were alone,” he says.
“Now I am.”
Efficient. Professional. And underneath it… something else. Something off.
He studies me. Not like prey. Like a card he didn’t expect to draw.
A scar cuts through one eyebrow. A thinner one slices his upper lip. His face is all hard lines and shadow. His eyes are so dark I can’t tell where iris ends and pupil begins.
A man who’s survived things.
A man who’s done worse.
“You were waiting for me,” he says.
Not a question.
“Yes.”
His jaw flexes—slow, controlled. The Glock hangs at his side, finger disciplined along the barrel instead of the trigger. A professional stance. But wrong. He should’ve raised it the moment he stepped inside.
“You’re not afraid.”
“No.”
“You should be.”
I set the wine down. My hand doesn’t shake. It hasn’t been steady in months—not inside where it matters—but tonight, I’m still as glass.
“I know,” I say simply.
He moves—three silent steps—and suddenly he’s close enough that a cold drip of rain slides from his coat onto my bare foot. Close enough that I smell leather and steel clinging to his skin. Close enough that I see the small fleck of dried blood on his collar.
Not his blood.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
I let out a humorless huff. “Does it matter?”
“I don’t know yet.”
The way he says it makes my pulse thud once, hard. Not fear. Something worse. Something like waking up after months of static.
“Evelyn.”
He tastes the name. “Evelyn. I’m going to ask you a question. You’re going to answer honestly.”
“All right.”
“Do you want to die?”
I don’t look away. “Yes.”
The air shifts—dense, electric. He doesn’t move, but something inside him does. A recalibration. A recognition.
If he expected fear, he doesn’t get it. If he expected pleading, he gets the opposite.
“Why?” he asks.
“What difference does it make?”
“Answer me.”
There’s command now—rough, edged, absolute. It coils low in my stomach, sparking something I should not feel in the presence of a killer.
“Because I’m tired,” I whisper. “Because I’ve been tired for so long I can’t remember anything else. Because I saw you put that girl in a trunk and thought—finally. Someone’s going to finish it for me.”
Silence. Thick. Total.
He studies me like a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit anywhere in his world. His shoulders tense—barely, but unmistakably. The reaction of a man who expected a script and got a scream he’s never heard before.
“You watched me,” he says. “Saw what I did. And you didn’t run. You didn’t call anyone. You just… went home.”
“Yes.”
“And waited.”
“Yes.”
“For me to come kill you.”
“Naturally.”
He lifts a hand—not the one with the gun. He reaches for my face, then stops. His fingers hover an inch from my jaw. Close enough that I feel the heat of him. Not close enough to claim.
He drops it, jaw tight.
“You’re fucking insane,” he says.
There’s no heat in it.
Only fascination.
“Probably.”
“I should’ve come in, put two in your chest, and walked out.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He doesn’t answer. He just stands there, breathing harder, as if my existence has thrown something off inside him. His jaw clenches. His eyes darken, conflicted, furious with himself.
Whatever he expected when he broke my lock and slipped inside—it wasn’t this.
It wasn’t me.
Standing here in a silk robe and bare feet, drinking wine and welcoming death like an old lover.
The apartment feels too quiet without the gunshot that never came.
I should speak.
I don’t.
He breaks first.
“Take off the robe.”
My hand tightens around the silk. “What?”
“You heard me.”
For the first time tonight, something close to fear spreads through me. Not of dying. Of this. Of him. Of the way he’s looking at me now—hungry and predatory and entirely too interested.
“Why?” I whisper.
His gaze sharpens.
Not at my defiance—
but at my curiosity.
“Asking you to beg or scream won’t tell me anything,” he says softly. “But this… this will show me what kind of creature you really are.”
Creature.
Not woman.
Not victim.
Something else.
A shiver crawls up my spine.
“And then what?” I ask.
“That’s for me to know,” he says, voice lowering into something dark enough to swallow me whole, “and for you to find out.”
I should refuse. I should do a hundred things other than slowly reaching for the tie and pulling it loose.
But I don’t.
I let the silk slide open. Fall. Pool at my feet. I stand in nothing but black lace and goosebumps, chest rising steady, while a killer drinks in the sight of me.
His pupils blow wide.
“You’re a little hellcat,” he mutters—half curse, half prayer, all hunger.
I lift my chin. “Still want to kill me?”
He moves so fast my breath catches. His hand fists in my hair, yanking my head back until I’m forced to meet his eyes. The gun presses cold and certain against my ribs.
“Yes,” he growls against my mouth, not kissing me—just breathing the word between us. “I really fucking do.”
But he doesn’t pull the trigger.
And I don’t pull away.
We stand locked together in my dark apartment, the city humming twenty floors below, something electric and terrible threading itself between us—something neither of us meant to give.
And I think:
This is it.
The moment everything changes.
I just don’t know yet
if I’m about to die—
or if I’m about to start living.
Hello everyone,
Thank you so much for reading the first chapter of my very first dark romance. It’s a new territory for me and I hope it pulls you in the way I intended.
Question: If a stranger broke into your apartment… what’s the first thing you’d do? (There’s no wrong answer)
Also this is a short story written for the Forbidden Ink contest, which means every reaction, comment, like, and review helps this unhinged little tale get seen by more readers. If you enjoy it, please show it a little love. It truly makes a difference.
Thank you for being here.
Warm hugs—
Actually, no. Dark hugs,
DQ 🖤
