The Unknown

The high of walking away with Zane Miller lasted exactly forty-two minutes. It died the second I reached my locker in the junior wing of Northcrest Academy.

I was still smiling at a joke Zane had made—something about the school cafeteria’s "organic, hand-picked kale" being a front for a money-laundering scheme—when I twisted the combination lock. The metallic click echoed in the hallway, which was starting to thin out as students headed to their elective blocks. I pulled the heavy locker door open, expecting to find my history textbook and perhaps a stray script for my upcoming table read.

Instead, a single slip of glossy paper fluttered out from the vents of the locker door, dancing through the air before landing face-down on the linoleum.

I reached down, my brow furrowing. I expected a flyer for the winter formal or maybe a handwritten note from a fan—the kind of thing my manager, Chloe, usually intercepted before it reached my hands. But Chloe wasn't here. I was alone in a hallway that suddenly felt ten degrees colder.

I flipped the paper over. My heart didn't just stop; it turned to lead in my chest.

It was a photo. A high-resolution, crystal-clear shot of Roman and me in the library stacks from less than an hour ago. In the picture, his hand was buried in the hair at the nape of my neck, his thumb grazing my jawline. My eyes were half-closed, my lips parted in a way that looked less like a sister arguing with a brother and more like a woman losing her mind. It captured the exact second the air between us had turned combustible.

I flipped it over with trembling fingers. Scrawled in jagged, black ink that looked like it had been applied with a shaking hand were the words:

“A star shouldn’t play with fire in the dark. I’m watching you, Angel. He doesn’t deserve to touch what belongs to the world.”

The hallway tilted. The distant chatter of elite students became a dull, underwater roar. Someone had been in the library. Someone had been standing in the shadows, documenting the one thing I was supposed to keep hidden to save my career. The "pure" image Chloe had spent years building—the innocent, rising starlet who didn't even have a boyfriend—was one "Post" button away from being incinerated.

I didn't think. I couldn't afford to. I shoved the photo into the pocket of my blazer and ran.

I knew exactly where he’d be. Roman Reed didn't do "mandatory assemblies" or "peer-led seminars." He spent his afternoons in the one place where the shadows were deep enough to swallow a man who hated the light: the school theater.

I burst through the heavy, padded double doors of the Northcrest Auditorium. The space was cavernous, smelling of floor wax and old stage makeup. It was dark, save for a single, stark spotlight hitting the stage where two drama students were woodenly rehearsing a scene from Macbeth.

"Roman!" I hissed, my voice echoing up into the fly gallery.

"Row J, Scarlett. Stop screaming like the building is on fire," a voice drawled from the darkness of the tenth row.

I stomped down the carpeted aisle, my breath coming in jagged, panicked gasps. Roman was slouched in a velvet seat, his heavy combat boots kicked up on the row in front of him. He looked like a king in a graveyard, completely unbothered by the world outside. I reached his row and slapped the photo onto his lap, my hand stinging from the impact.

"You’re sick, Roman," I whispered, my voice thick with a mixture of rage and terror. "Is this your game? Is the 'Social Blackout' not enough? Do you have to take creepy photos of me just to prove you can ruin me whenever you feel like it?"

Roman didn't answer immediately. He picked up the photo, holding it between two fingers, his eyes tracking over every detail. He didn't flinch. He didn't even blink. But then, his boots hit the floor with a heavy thud that made me jump. He stood up, and even in the dim light of the auditorium, I saw the shift. The bored, arrogant mask didn't just slip—it shattered into something sharp and jagged.

His jaw went rigid, a muscle pulsing in his cheek. "I didn't take this, Scarlett."

"Liar! You were the only one there! You pinned me to the shelf to scare me!"

He reached out and grabbed my wrist, his grip like a steel cuff. He didn't say another word as he pulled me toward the back of the theater, through a side door that led to the costume storage wing. He slammed the heavy soundproof door shut, plunging us into a world of velvet capes, lace-trimmed gowns, and the suffocating smell of dust.

"Listen to me," he growled, pinning me against a rack of heavy, Victorian-style coats. The fabric pressed into my back, muffled and soft. He held the photo inches from my face. "Look at the angle, Scarlett. Look at the grain. This wasn't taken from the floor. It was taken from the ventilation grate above the history section. I don't hide in vents to look at you. If I want to see you, I do it to your face."

The cold, hard reality of his words hit me like a bucket of ice water. He wasn't lying. Roman Reed was many things—cruel, possessive, vengeful—but he wasn't a coward. He didn't hide. If he wanted to destroy me, he’d do it in the middle of a press conference with a smirk on his face.

"Then who?" I whispered, my knees finally beginning to buckle. "Roman, someone was above us. They saw... everything."

"I don't know yet," he said, his voice dropping to a low, terrifying vibration that vibrated in my chest. He stepped into my space, his hands coming up to grip my shoulders, squeezing just hard enough to keep me upright. He looked like a predator that had just realized another wolf was hunting in his woods. "Did anyone else talk to you today? Did anyone get close to you?"

"Just Zane," I stammered, my mind racing. "He gave me the tour. He... he was nice."

"Zane," Roman spat the name like it was a mouthful of glass. He started checking my blazer, his hands moving with a frantic, rough energy that made my heart hammer. He reached into my pockets, dumping my lip gloss, my house keys, and my folded script onto a costume trunk. "He’s a flirt and a snake. He could have planted a tracker. He could be playing you just to get to me."

"Roman, stop! You’re being paranoid!"

He froze. His hands were flat against my ribs, splayed wide, just beneath the curve of my breasts. His chest was heaving, his eyes searching mine with a dark, possessive intensity that made the air in the storage room turn into liquid heat. The fear of the stalker was still there, but it was being drowned out by the sheer, overwhelming proximity of the man I was supposed to hate.

"You're not the world's 'Angel' anymore, Scarlett," he whispered, his thumbs grazing the thin fabric of my shirt, tracing the line of my ribs. "You’re a target. And that means you’re my responsibility. Whether you like it or not."

"I don't belong to you," I breathed, even as I arched my back into his touch, my body betraying every word of my protest.

"The hell you don't."

He leaned down, his forehead resting against mine for a heartbeat before he turned his head, his lips brushing against my jawline. His hands slid down to my waist, his fingers digging into my hips to pull me flush against him. The friction of his denim against my skirt was unbearable. The rows of silk and velvet gowns surrounding us acted as a silencer, swallowing the small, broken moan that escaped my lips as he claimed my mouth. It wasn't a gentle kiss. It was a reclamation—dark, desperate, and filled with a hunger that felt like it could swallow us both whole.

I felt the heavy velvet of a cape brush against my arm as he shifted, his tongue seeking mine with a ferocity that left me breathless. He was protecting me, yes, but it felt like being locked in a cage with a lion to stay safe from a shadow.

Suddenly, the vibration started.

It was my phone, tucked into the inner pocket of my blazer. The buzz felt like an electric shock against my side.

Roman pulled back, his eyes dark and dilated, his breathing as ragged as mine. He reached into my pocket and pulled the device out. A text message was glowing on the screen from an unknown number. There was no name, just a string of digits that looked like a code.

I looked over his shoulder, the blood draining from my face.

Unknown: "He’s touching you again, Scarlett. I can feel his hands on you from here. I don't like it when he touches what is supposed to be pure. He’s going to make me do something very bad to keep you clean, Angel. Look up."

Roman didn't hesitate. He looked up at the darkened ceiling of the costume wing, his grip on my phone so tight I thought the glass would shatter in his palm. He saw it before I did—the faint, red glint of a lens tucked behind a stack of prop crates on the mezzanine level.

"We're leaving," he said, his voice like a death knell. He grabbed my hand, his fingers interlacing with mine so tightly it hurt. "And you’re not going back to that house tonight."

"Roman, Marcus will—"

"I don't give a damn about Marcus," he growled, pulling me toward the exit. "I’m the only thing standing between you and whatever is in these walls. Move."