Depraved (American Street Kings #1)

Prologue

Fair skin. Petite build. Beautifully delicate.

She wasn’t something that belonged in my world, but I loved watching her.

Every night she would be here, dancing under the stars. And I would be here too, hiding in the shadows, watching her. She was completely unaware of my presence, and I preferred it like that. This way I could see the real her. The girl she hid from the rest of the world.

But not from me.

She could never hide her true self from me. Not while I watched her in her most vulnerable moments—moments when she didn’t even know I was there.

This was our place. The one place she didn’t have to wear a mask in order to be what others wanted her to be. And the one place I could be the true me.

A man who desired a woman in the secret of night. A man who was fixated on a girl wearing a pair of pink ballerina slippers. A man who staked his claim over her even if she didn’t know it yet. A man who longed for the day when the object of his obsession was ready to be corrupted.

A depraved man.

I blew out a cloud of smoke. No one else was around. No one was ever around. Only us, and my body hummed with the thrill of knowing she was dancing just for me.

The way she lifted herself on her toes—perfect posture, perfect balance—she seemed weightless, like a feather, lost and drifting in the wind. Where would she land? Where would the breeze take my perfect ballerina girl?

She twirled, arching a leg behind her, and I knew her nightly routine was about to come to an end.

It was only for half an hour every night that she escaped to the farthest corner of her parents’ estate, the part covered with oak trees and lush grass.

What she didn’t know, the abandoned building across the road was the perfect spot for me to sit and watch the show.

I flicked the cigarette butt out the broken window. Tomorrow I’d continue to do what I’d been doing for years.

Watch her. Mark her. Protect her.

I wasn’t delusional. I wasn’t in denial. I knew my fascination with her was toxic, but she made it impossible for me to fight it.

She was mine. She had been mine from the first night our eyes met as she stared out her bedroom window.

Only thing was, she wasn’t ready yet.

She wasn’t ready for my world and for the ugly depths of my obsession.

But she would be.

Soon.