Chapter 17 Scarletta
Scarletta
EPILOGUE
Sometimes it's really not about the journey.
Sometimes… it really is the arrival.
That's how I felt that day I killed Ryan.
Like I arrived somewhere after all that struggle.
All those grinding years of depression that felt like drowning in slow motion.
All the Lucky Charms eaten straight from the box at three in the morning.
All the blanket forts constructed out of fear of being seen.
All the stories with weird monster sex, and submission sex, and every other permutation of darkness I could dream up.
Prophetic and fantasy all wrapped into one sick existence.
My life before killing Ryan was the maze.
Something to be survived.
Life after was… my Helix.
My Caleb.
The monster I could live with.
Who will protect me from the literal darkness I swim in.
Sometimes I catch myself waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Old habit. Hard to kill.
I'll be standing in some gilded ballroom in Monaco, or Singapore, or wherever Caleb's latest charity gala happens to be, wearing a dress that blows my mind when I walk by a mirror, and my brain will whisper: You don't belong here.
They're going to figure it out. Someone's going to tap you on the shoulder and tell you there's been a mistake.
But nobody ever does.
Caleb watches me across the room during these events. I always know exactly where he is. Some primal GPS in my nervous system that never stops tracking him. He'll be talking to a hedge fund manager, or a tech billionaire, or whoever needs schmoozing, but his eyes find mine every few minutes.
Checking.
Claiming.
Mine.
I used to think that kind of possessiveness would feel suffocating.
Turns out it feels like oxygen.
My laptop comes everywhere now.
Caleb bought me a custom case—hand-stitched Italian leather with my initials embossed in gold. Ridiculous. Obscene. I love it.
I wrote three chapters of my new novel on a private jet somewhere over the Atlantic. Another two in a hotel suite overlooking the Eiffel Tower while Caleb was in meetings. Half a scene in the back of a limousine in Dubai because inspiration struck and I've learned to stop fighting it.
The words come easier now.
Not because my life is easier—it's actually more complicated than ever, filled with schedules, and obligations, and the exhausting performance of being Caleb MacLeay's partner in public—but because I'm not drowning anymore. I'm not writing to survive. I'm writing because I want to.
Because I finally have something worth saying.
I published my first novel on Christmas Day.
One year exactly from when Caleb drugged me and left me in my cleaned apartment with an SD card full of footage that should have destroyed me.
Poetic, right?
The book was called The Watcher—the same novel I'd been writing for him in those seven weeks after Christmas, back when I thought I was done with him forever. I changed the names. Added some plot. Cleaned up the prose. But it was us. Our story. Every dark, twisted, blood-soaked moment of it.
Caleb read the final draft before I uploaded it. I watched his face the whole time, terrified he'd be angry about me exposing our dynamic, even fictionalized.
He finished the last page, closed my laptop, and fucked me against the wall of his office until I couldn't remember my own name.
Then he told me to publish it.
So I did.
The one-star reviews came fast.
"Disgusting."
"This author needs therapy, not a publishing deal."
"I couldn't finish this. The 'hero' is literally a murderer. How is this romance?"
"Reported for glorifying abuse."
I read them all. Every single one. Caleb found me at two in the morning, curled up in bed with my laptop, laughing so hard tears streamed down my face.
"They hate it," I told him. "They really hate it."
"Let them," he said. "They don't deserve your brilliant mind."
My DarkDesires followers—the twelve thousand people who'd been asking where ScarletSins went for a whole year—found the book within hours.
'Someone' told them.
Who could that of been?
I'm looking at you, Masked Man.
The forum exploded. Then TikTok exploded. Then everything exploded.
BookTok creators posted videos defending The Watcher with the kind of unhinged passion usually reserved for religious cults.
They made edits set to dramatic music. They wrote essays analyzing the psychological complexity. They posted photos of the text with captions like, "He's a 10 but he fucked her so hard, she blacked out." (Which is kind of a selling point if you ask me.)
Rom Com authors said I was sick.
An unofficial Goodreads poll named me the "Author most likely to need medication".
That 'famous' traditional editor called me a PR disaster on her blog.
I call it seventy-five thousand copies sold in six weeks.
Caleb told me the New York Times bestseller list is curated, not real.
That publishers pay for placement. That the whole system is rigged toward certain types of books written by certain types of people, and dark romance erotica written by a nobody from Idaho was never going to make that cut regardless of sales.
I believed him because it made the rejection sting less.
Also because he showed me the receipts.
But here's the thing: I don't need their validation anymore.
The Smut Readers Sacramento Book Signing invited me as a featured author.
Me. Scarletta Desmond. ScarletSins. The girl who couldn't function in the real world, who hid in blanket forts, and ate Lucky Charms for dinner, and wrote filthy stories about being owned because she was too broken to ask for love in any normal way.
They want me to sign books and talk on panels and meet the readers who understand my darkness.
And I'm going to go.
With Caleb.
As my trophy husband.
We're getting married in ten days.
Valentine's Day.
One year exactly from when I walked into a maze of my own making and came out the other side holding a shotgun and a kill count.
One year from when I finally stopped running from the monster I craved and let him catch me.
The dress is obscene—white silk that clings to every curve, a slit up to my hip, a neckline that would make my mother weep.
The ceremony will be small. Private. Just us and a few people from his world who know what he really does and don't flinch.
No family on my side. Obviously.
But I have my DarkDesires followers sending virtual congratulations. I have my laptop with three more novels outlined. I have a man who sees every ugly, shameful, blood-soaked corner of my psyche and calls it beautiful.
I have a future.
Sometimes I think about the girl I was a year ago.
Drowning in her own patterns. Watching herself drown. Writing stories about being saved because she didn't believe it could happen in real life.
She was right, in a way.
This isn't being saved.
This is being claimed.
By someone just as broken. Just as dark. Just as hungry for the things nice people pretend don't exist.
I found my Helix.
My monster.
My Caleb.
We walk the darkness together now.
And yes, it's just as fucked-up as it sounds.
But it's honest.
And it's real.
And it's… ours.
READ MORE PITCH BLACK ROMANCE FROM JA HUSS
Their love story has always been impossible—ranch heiress and outlaw biker. They've been stealing moments since they were teenagers, burning for each other in a world that keeps demanding they choose sides.
Now it’s time.
Necessary reckoning.
Spectacular collision.
Brutal reality.
Time to burn it down, boys.
Purgatory is over.
GET DUST AND FLOWERS HERE