Chapter 17 Ashton
ASHTON
Istand at the window, staring out at the balloons. Bright, colorful, a constant reminder of the circus that’s creeping closer every damn day. The way they arrive—slowly, consistently—feels like a countdown, each one marking the seconds before something inevitable happens.
Lilith is closing in. I can feel it in my bones, like a predator watching its prey, waiting for the right moment to strike.
She knows I see her, knows that I feel the tension thickening between us.
What she doesn’t know is that I’m no longer sure I can control this situation.
Not with Dove so close, so fucking vulnerable.
Did Lilith know Dove was here? Is that why the balloons keep showing up, one after the other, like an endless parade of taunting reminders? Or is this all just part of the torment, her way of dragging me back into a past I’m trying to outrun?
Lilith. She’s always been an inconvenient piece of my past, someone I should’ve let go a long time ago, but I can’t.
There’s something about her that tethers me—her darkness, her strength, the way she saved me back in that damn children’s home.
She was my lifeline back then, and in some sick way, I thought I was hers.
But that was before I saw her for what she really was.
Before I realized the depth of her own sickness.
And now, here I am, staring out this damn window, counting the balloons, waiting for her to make her move. She doesn’t know what I’ve built here with Dove, but that doesn’t mean she won’t tear it all down the second she finds out.
Every second that Dove is here, it’s like I’m holding my breath, knowing that the next moment could be the one that shatters everything.
Maybe Dove’s right. Maybe I should let her go.
I can’t protect her from Lilith, and Lilith’s sick obsession with the asylum…
it’s too dangerous. Too many unanswered questions.
And Bentley James—fuck, I still haven’t gotten the damn files.
I need to know what the hell connects him to Dove, why she’s haunted by his shadow.
The thought of losing Dove, of letting her go, cuts me in a way I didn’t think I’d feel again. I’m so close to breaking her, to seeing the fear and the need in her eyes every time we’re near each other. But if I let her go now, I lose it all. I lose her.
And I can’t let that happen.
I know it’s dangerous, and yet I don’t care. This—her—has become my everything. I can’t risk it. I can’t risk her being taken from me. Not when I’m so close to making her mine.
My phone vibrates, snapping me out of my thoughts, and I grab it, already knowing what it is before I even check the screen.
It’s from the asylum.
I press open the email, every muscle in my body tensing as I skim the contents. The file on Bentley James is there.
But something doesn’t sit right.
I should feel a sense of relief, but instead, a cold chill sweeps over me.
This… this is worse than I thought.
I stare at the screen, my thoughts a blur. I know one thing for sure. Lilith is only the beginning of the storm I’ve let in. And now, with Bentley James connected to Dove in ways I can’t even fathom, I realize that I might’ve just brought the worst kind of chaos into our lives.
And there’s no way out. Not now. Not ever.
The tension in the air between Dove and I is thicker than ever, and it’s suffocating me.
Every time I look at her, I see the cracks in the porcelain mask she’s been wearing.
The remnants of pain, the flickering moments when she almost lets it slip—her fears, her trauma.
It’s been eight years since her parents were slaughtered in cold blood, but she still carries it like a curse.
And then there’s Bentley James. That name keeps circling back in my head, gnawing at me like a beast locked inside. She doesn’t talk about him, but the way she flinches when I bring him up—it tells me everything I need to know. She doesn’t just fear him. She remembers him.
I needed those files. I needed them to understand exactly what he did to her, to understand how he’s woven himself so tightly into the dark corners of her mind.
The silence is deafening as I sit at the desk, the file in my hands thick with the details I’ve been waiting for.
Every word, every piece of information, feels like a knife twisting deeper into my gut.
The more I read, the more my hatred for Bentley James burns hotter.
It doesn’t matter that he’s locked away.
What he did to Dove, what he took from her—it doesn’t get to be erased. Not for her, and certainly not for me.
I flip through his psych evaluations, his behavior—everything is a mess of violence, control, manipulation. The words are cold, clinical—unfeeling—but to me, they’re a story of a man who should never have been allowed to breathe, much less walk free. He was a predator, and Dove was his prey.
Bentley James had a history of targeting families, stalking them, waiting until the perfect moment to strike. He didn’t just kill. He tore families apart, devastated their lives before finishing what he started.
And then, the file hits me with something even darker: his fascination with Dove’s parents.
He’d been watching them for months before the attack.
He was meticulous, a predator in every sense, choosing Dove’s home as his next target.
And when it happened, when he came in like a storm, Dove’s parents had fought back.
They didn’t just die—they were brutalized, tortured.
My hands tighten around the file as I process the report.
It wasn’t just a massacre. Bentley enjoyed it.
He didn’t just kill Dove’s parents. He took his time, each minute more painful than the last, ensuring that the terror, the suffering, would sink deep into her memories.
And the worst part? He had planned to take her, too.
But something—something went wrong. He didn’t finish the job.
But why had he let her go? Why had he spared her when she was supposed to be just another victim in his sick game?
My fingers curl into fists, frustration and rage coiling in my chest. What had happened that night?
I know the basics, the police reports, the interviews—but it’s still a blur.
Dove doesn’t talk about that night. She doesn’t speak of the aftermath, the moments she must have lived through alone, in the dark, haunted by the blood, by the sounds.
Bentley James had a hold on her—had always had one, long before I ever entered the picture. And whatever he did, whatever twisted reason he had for sparing her, it’s left an indelible mark on her.
The file mentions that Bentley was obsessed with Dove for years, watching her from the shadows, manipulating her mind.
I remember the way her nightmares scream at her when she’s vulnerable, how her breath quickens when she remembers that night.
It’s not just the trauma of losing her parents, it’s the idea that she was chosen.
He wanted her. Not just to kill. He wanted to break her.
I lean back in my chair, the weight of it all pressing down on me. For a second, I let the darkness swirl inside of me—the same kind that has driven me, kept me cold and distant for so long. I don’t know why I’m doing this. I don’t know why I care so damn much.
But I do.
And I’ll burn this world to the ground if it means protecting her.
Dove’s past is tangled with Bentley’s madness, and I can’t undo what’s been done. But what I can do is take control of what comes next. He won’t touch her again. Not now. Not ever.
I pick up my phone and dial the asylum.
“Get me everything you have left on Bentley James. I want a full report. Any personal notes, any records, anything. I need answers. Now.”
I hang up, the weight of my decision heavy in the pit of my stomach. This obsession, this dark pull I have toward Dove—what I thought was merely attraction—has turned into something far more dangerous.
I don’t know how to save her from the past that haunts her, but I know I’ll burn everything to the ground until I do.
I don’t care what it costs me.
She’s mine now.
And I’ll protect what’s mine at any cost.