CHAPTER FOUR
DRAKE
Cha Cha Min has no idea of how much danger she’s in because her fucking management team never told her.
I scrunch the letters that Shayne shoved into my hand as we departed the stadium and wish I could turn them into stalker confetti.
If we’re less than lucky, Cha Cha’s problem will develop from a stalker into something else.
The letters have all the markers of a darker mind.
Not just in the delivery, but the way her hate mail is structured. And from who. One person, specifically.
Cha Cha has many admirers, her fans who roam across the globe. Even the letters in my hand bear five different names I can research, though if I do, I'll only find three.
One is a copycat. One is obsessed.
And one is both.
Two are harmless, to my eyes. But the one that sticks out, the copycat that’s not a copycat at all, presents the greatest danger to my new client.
I cast aside the letters that detail both sexual fantasies that curdle my stomach despite not having eaten for hours.
I want to fuck you until your insides are on the outsides.
I’ll saw your tits off and keep them as trophies for my collection.
Your next show will be your last. I’m coming for you, bitch.
Those are standard. Two different voices written in two different hands.
Neither of them worry me, especially not that last, even the more creative threats.
But when it comes to Cha Cha, the concept of anyone touching her, even with their minds or twisted fantasies that will never be realized laid out on a piece of paper, leaves me close to shaking.
Perhaps getting so close was a mistake.
Tossing the rest of the letters aside, I focus on the one that bothers me most. Like the first few, it holds threats, personal details that could be generic—garnered from any press release or virtual tour of her dressing rooms or tour. But it’s the tone and verbiage that slices through me.
You sang pretty tonight, Miss Cha Cha. Such a sweet voice. Soft clothes for softer skin.
Skin that will part for my knife so easily. You sing for them but I heard you. Screaming in the silence between moments of their applause.
Only I understand your voice, your greatest fan. A sasaeng of your own. I will bring you silence. Soon your screaming will stop. You’ll be pretty again.
Sing for me, so I can make it stop.
Scream for me, Cha Cha.
The barb about silence and screaming settles in my chest like wire twisting about my heart. Whoever wrote this both adores and hates her at once. The letter was handwritten, then copied, as though the sender couldn’t bear to part with the original.
Crazy fucker.
My job is to keep her safe, not investigate the who and where-the-fuck-for.
But it looks as though this time around, that’s what I’d be doing.
I simply have to make sure I keep it in my pants and don't fall for my client just like her current array of stalkers, her self proclaimed sasaeng.
Shit, I had to look up the term just to get a handle on the idea of an obsessed fan that Cha Cha and her team let so close to her.
And there are more on the streets who mob every building she enters.
It might be fucking anyone who sent her the letters.
I want a whiskey, but I refuse to drink on the job.
Tomorrow I’ll show her the letters, and tomorrow we’ll talk about her security.
Right now, I have two hours until the sun rises, and that’s just enough to get a fraction of shut eye before I need to be awake before she starts demanding answers I’m not sure I can answer for her just yet
I place the letters on the coffee table and my phone on top, then tip my head back. From where I sit at this time of year, the rising sun will slap me in the face with the world’s worst tired hangover, but the best wakeup call I can ask for without actually having to set an alarm.
For the few hours of sleep, I’ll take that sun shiny, happy fucker of a glowy slap. My eyes drifted shut as I promised myself I'll analyze every letter in my sleep and what I need to do with Cha Cha tomorrow.
Trust the brain. The old adage has stayed with me for long enough, keeping me alive so far. It will work for one more night.
Fail.
I dream of a sweet voice calling my name, and soft, warm skin I can sink into, black hair wound around my fists like a custom designed noose I make for myself.