Sweet Doe (Wrecked #4)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

SLOAN

My vision tilts sideways, and for a moment I think I'm stuck in a terrible dream. But the icy winter breeze swirling through the room is real. The ache between my thighs is real. And the man standing before me—God help me—he's real too.

My body goes ice cold, every drop of blood draining from my face as reality crashes over me like an avalanche.

The golden flecks in his eyes that I'd glimpsed through the mask.

The subtle differences I'd ignored in my lust-drunk haze.

The way his voice carried a rougher edge, a darkness that Alex has never possessed.

This isn't Alex.

This has never been Alex.

My heart slams against my ribs so violently that I'm sure it's going to break through any second. Every nerve ending in my body screams in panic, but I can't move. I can't breathe. And I definitely can’t process what's happening right now.

"Who are you?" The words tear from my throat, raw and desperate, while I scramble backward, tripping over the leg of a pew before falling to the ground. My bare skin scrapes against the cold floor, but I barely feel it through the terror overwhelming me.

He watches me with those dark eyes, completely calm while my world implodes. There's satisfaction in his gaze—sick, twisted satisfaction that makes my stomach lurch.

He's enjoying this.

He’s fucking loving this.

Enjoying my horror, my complete and utter helplessness in this moment.

When he speaks, his voice is low and throaty. "I'm his twin brother." A slow, predatory smile spreads across his lips, the kind of smile that lives in nightmares. "His better half."

His twin brother.

The words explode through my mind like fireworks. Alex has a twin brother? He has a fucking twin brother, and I've been... Oh God.

Oh God, what have I done?

My mind races frantically through every moment of tonight. Every touch, every kiss, every time I moaned Alex's name while this stranger's hands violated my body. The alley. The gingerbread house. The tree farm where I let him fuck me against the bark while snow fell around us.

It all makes sense now. The sudden change in Alex's behavior. The way he seemed like a completely different person. The darkness that felt so foreign yet so intoxicating. Because it wasn't Alex at all. It wasn’t him.

"You're sick," I whisper, my voice breaking. "You're fucking sick."

His laugh is low and rich, like fine wine gone bad. "Am I? Because you seemed to enjoy every second of it, sweet doe."

The pet name he's been using all night makes me feel immediately ill. He's been playing with me like a cat with a wounded bird, and I fell for every fucking second of it.

"It was so obvious in your eyes. The curiosity.

The suspicion," he continues, circling me slowly while I’m laid across the floor.

"When you wondered why Alex was suddenly so.

.. intense. So hungry. So willing to break the precious rules that dictated his perfect little life.

" He crouches down beside me, so close that I can smell the musk of sex and sweat on his skin.

"It's all coming together now, isn't it? "

It is. Every moment, every fleeting doubt I'd pushed aside in favor of my fucked up fantasy. The way his eyes looked different in the moonlight. The roughness of his touch.

I was too fucking stupid to recognize that the pastor's proper son would never become something this feral and dangerous.

"Where is he?" I demand, though my voice is unsteady. "Where's Alex?"

Something flickers across his face, dark and vicious, instantly forming ice in my veins.

But before I can process it fully, he's reaching for something.

A black box I hadn't noticed, elegant and ominous, tied with ribbon the color of spilled blood. Similar to the box he’d left in the cabin, only slightly larger.

"Here," he says, holding it out to me with false gentleness. "Open it."

Every instinct I have is screaming at me not to touch that box. Not to take anything this psychopath is offering. But my hands move of their own accord, trembling as they reach for it. Because if they don’t, there’s no telling what he’ll do.

There’s a sparkle in his eyes as he watches me take the box.

The ribbon slides away easily, as if it wants to be opened. I lift the lid with shaking fingers, and—

The scream that tears from my throat echoes off the vaulted ceiling like the cry of a dying animal. The box tumbles from my fingers, its contents spilling across the marble.

A hand.

A severed fucking human hand, pale and lifeless, with a note tucked between the stiff fingers.

My stomach churns violently, and I barely manage to turn my head before I'm retching onto the church floor. Bile burns my throat as my body purges itself, as if it can somehow expel the horror of what I'm seeing.

But I can't unsee it. I know exactly what that severed hand means.

Alex is dead.

The man I thought I loved, the man I came here with, the man whose parents run this fucking church—he's dead. And this monster, this sinister reflection of him, killed him.

"You're going to be sick," he observes with a detached tone, like he's commenting on the weather. "That's normal. The shock will pass."

I want to run. I want to scream. I need to claw at his face until I draw blood and rip his fucking eyes out. But my body won't obey me. I'm frozen in place, staring at that pale hand while my heart shatters into a thousand pieces.

"Why?" The word comes out as a broken sob. "Why did you kill him?"

"Because he didn't deserve you." His voice is matter-of-fact, like he's explaining something so blatantly obvious to a child. "Because he hit you, and I couldn't let that slide. Because he was weak, and you need someone strong enough to handle all that fire inside you."

He moves closer, and I flinch away instinctively. But there's nowhere to go. Nowhere to run.

"You felt it tonight, didn't you?" His fingers trail along my cheek, and I have to force myself not to vomit again. "The difference. The way your body responded to me instead of him. You came alive under my touch in ways you never did with Alex."

"Stop." The word is barely audible, but he hears it.

"You can't stop the truth, baby. Everything between us tonight was real. Every orgasm, every moment of ecstasy, every time you begged for more—that was real."

His thumb brushes across my bottom lip, the same gesture that had made me melt just hours ago. Now it makes my skin crawl.

"You're insane," I whisper. "You're completely fucking insane."

"Maybe." He shrugs, unbothered by the accusation. "But I'm also right. You needed someone who could match that darkness you’re hiding, and Alex never could. He was too concerned with being perfect, with making mommy and daddy proud. Too weak to give you what you really wanted."

I try to pull away from his touch, but his hand moves to grip my chin, holding me in place. His fingers are strong, unforgiving, and I can feel bruises forming under his grip.

"But I can give you everything," he continues, his voice dropping to that hypnotic whisper that had seduced me so completely just moments ago. "I can be what you crave. I can break you apart and put you back together in ways that will make you forget Alex ever existed."

"Let me go." My voice is stronger now, fueled by my growing rage. "Let me go right now, and maybe I won't tell the police what you've done."

His laughter fills the church, bouncing off the walls like an unholy echo. "The police? Oh, my sweet, naive little doe. Who do you think they're going to believe? The grieving girlfriend of a missing man, or the evidence I left behind to frame Alex?"

The words make my breath catch in the back of my throat. Evidence. What evidence?

"That's right," he says, reading the comprehension in my eyes.

"Alex's phone, his DNA, his fingerprints—they'll all tell a very different story than the one you're imagining.

A story about a perfect pastor's son who finally snapped under the pressure.

Who killed in a jealous rage and then disappeared into the night. "

My blood turns to ice as I realize the magnitude of what he’s done. This was calculated. He's been thinking about this for who knows how long, setting up his own brother to take the fall for his sins.

"You're a monster," I breathe.

"I'm a realist." He releases my chin and stands, towering over me like some vengeful angel. "And you're coming with me. Now."

"Like hell I am." The words burst out of me with more courage than I feel. "I'm not going anywhere with you. I'm walking out of this church, and I'm calling for help, and—"

He moves faster than I thought possible. One second I'm on the floor, defiant and determined. The next, I'm pressed against the back of a pew with his body caging me in, his hand wrapped around my throat just tight enough to make breathing difficult.

"You misunderstand," he says, his voice calm and deadly. "This isn't a request. This isn't a negotiation. This is me telling you what's going to happen."

I try to struggle, but his grip tightens fractionally. Not enough to cut off my air completely, but enough to remind me how easily he could. How powerless I am against him.

"You're going to come with me quietly," he continues. "You're going to get in my car, and you're going to let me take you somewhere safe. Somewhere we can be alone while the world searches for poor, missing Alex."

"And if I refuse?" I manage to gasp out.

“Refuse?” His laugh is low and cruel, head cocked as he looks me over like he’s already claimed me. “That would imply you’ve got a choice.”

He steps closer, slow and deliberate, energy radiating off him like a storm about to break.

“You think I went through all this—risked everything, just to walk away if you say no?” His voice dips, rough and intimate. “Come on, Sloan. I know you’re smarter than that. You’re coming with me. Whether it’s willingly or kicking and sobbing is completely up to you.”

He leans in, mouth brushing my ear, sending chills across my skin.

“Just know, the more you scream, the harder my dick gets.”

His words hang in the air between us, heavy. He means it. I can see it in his eyes, in the casual way he holds my life in his hands. He's already killed tonight. He’ll do it again.

But even through the terror, even through the shock and horror of what's happening, a small part of my mind is working frantically, trying to find some way out of this nightmare.

I need to stay alive. I need to buy time and make him think I'm broken, compliant, no longer a threat.

Because the alternative?

The alternative is being dragged away by this psycho, against my will, and used for fuck knows what—whatever sick, vile obsession he’s been feeding all this time.

I’m not stupid. I’ve seen enough Dateline and read enough dark romance to know what this is.

I see it in his eyes. The need. The hunger.

The delusion that I belong to him now just because he’s decided it.

"Okay," I whisper, letting my body go limp against the pew. "Okay, I'll come with you."

His grip on my throat loosens slightly, but his eyes remain suspicious. "Such a compliant, good girl."

"What choice do I have?" I meet his gaze, trying to project some version of defeat rather than the rage burning in my chest. "You've made it clear what happens if I don't cooperate."

He studies my face for a long moment, searching for deception. I force myself to remain still, to let tears track down my cheeks and look like exactly what he wants to see: a broken, scared woman with no fight left.

Finally, he steps back, giving me room to breathe.

"Smart girl," he says approvingly. "I knew you were intelligent. That's one of the things that drew me to you."

Drew him to me.

Like I did it on purpose.

"We're leaving," he announces, moving to collect the scattered contents of the black box. "Now. Together."

I watch in horror as he carefully places the severed hand back in its gift box, wrapping it up like some precious treasure. The nonchalant way he handles what's left of his own brother tells me everything I need to know about the monster standing before me.

"Where are we going?" I ask.

"Somewhere special," he says, tying the ribbon easily. "Somewhere no one will think to look for us. Somewhere we can start fresh, just you and me."

He moves toward me again, and I have to fight every instinct not to run. His hand settles on the small of my back, possessive and warm, and it takes everything I have not to shudder with revulsion.

"Come along, my sweet doe," he murmurs against my ear, his breath hot and nauseating. "Our adventure is just beginning."

I let him guide me toward the back of the church, my legs moving mechanically while my mind races.

Deep down I know I'm not the same girl who walked into this church. That girl died along with Alex, somewhere in the snow outside.

But this version of me is not dead yet. And as long as I'm alive, I have a chance. A chance to escape. A chance to make him pay for what he's done.

I will survive. I have to.

The church doors close behind us, and I feel the grief settle in. The snow is still falling, soft and pristine, covering the world in a blanket. Somewhere out there, Alex's body is growing cold under that same snow.

But I'm still breathing. Still fighting.

And this psychopath has no idea who he’s dealing with.

Game over?

Not even close.

The real game is just beginning, and I will come out victorious.