Scarlett
The island pretends to be gentle in the daylight.
That’s the first lie it tells me. The first fucking deception.
Morning pours itself over the resort in warm, honeyed light, turning everything gold and forgiving—white stone glowing like bone polished clean, water so blue it looks unreal, palm leaves casting lazy shadows that sway like nothing bad has ever happened beneath them.
The air smells sweet this early, all citrus and salt and expensive flowers that bloom for tourists and die the moment they’re bored of.
It should feel peaceful.
It doesn’t. It feels like a shroud.
I wake already braced for impact, my body tight with the memory of hands that may or may not have been real—hands that felt like a promise and a threat all at once.
My mind flickers between what I know and what I refuse to name.
My skin feels too close to my bones, raw and buzzing.
My heartbeat is wrong—too loud, too fast, like it’s trying to outrun something that’s already caught up and sunk its teeth in.
Kai.
The thought arrives uninvited, unannounced, slipping into me the way he always did—quiet, invasive, undeniable. Like a blade sliding between my ribs.
I don’t move.
I lie there listening to the villa breathe around me: the hum of the air conditioning, the distant rush of the ocean far below, the muted clink of glass somewhere down the hill where people are already drinking and pretending this place doesn’t rot when you dig your fingers into it.
Pretending they aren’t standing on a goddamn graveyard.
I’m still staring at the ceiling when Noah speaks.
“Get dressed.”
No warmth. No greeting. No fucking pretence of affection.
I turn my head slowly.
He’s already showered, already immaculate—linen trousers, open-collared shirt, watch clasped snug against his wrist like time itself answers to him.
He doesn’t look at me the way someone looks at a woman they love.
He looks at me the way you look at something you’re assessing for damage. Like a car he’s about to trade in.
“We’re going out,” he adds. “I want you seen today.”
Something inside my chest tightens, a knot of pure dread.
“Seen where?” I ask, keeping my voice level, calm, careful. Every word with Noah is a negotiation I don’t remember agreeing to enter. Every sentence is a landmine.
He buttons his cuff with deliberate, agonising precision. Click. Click.
“There’s a market inland,” he says. “Not the tourist one. The old one. I want to show you something authentic.”
The word makes my stomach twist.
Authentic.
Nothing Noah touches ever is. He’s a plastic king in a glass castle.
I nod anyway.
Because nodding is safer than asking why. Because nodding keeps his hands off me for a few more minutes.
The drive takes us away from the water.
That’s how I know this isn’t for pleasure. This is a funeral procession.
The road narrows as we leave the manicured resort behind, the scenery changing almost immediately—less glass, less white stone, more green.
Dense. Uncontrolled. The jungle presses closer here, branches leaning over the road like they’re listening, roots cracking through old concrete, vines strangling rusted signs written in a language I don’t understand.
The air changes too.
Heavier. Damp. Alive.
I roll the window down despite the heat, needing to feel something real against my skin, even if it burns. The scent hits me instantly—earth, decay, sweetness gone sour. Rot hidden beneath growth.
Kai would love this, a traitorous, filthy voice in my head whispers. He’d thrive in this rot. He’d hide in this dark and wait for the blood to spill.
The thought makes my fingers curl in my lap. I can almost feel his breath on my neck, hot and ruined.
Noah glances at me, his eyes cold.
“Close the window,” he says. “You’ll ruin your hair.”
I obey. I always fucking obey.
The car keeps moving, deeper into the throat of the island.
“This island wasn’t always a playground,” he continues, tone conversational, as if we’re discussing wine instead of the theft of a world. “Before investors. Before resorts. Before people like us decided it had potential.”
People like us. Predators.
“There were villages here,” he says. “Families. Traditions. Superstitions.” A faint, ugly smile curves his mouth. “Most of them were relocated. Progress is never painless.”
My throat tightens.
“What happened to them?” I ask.
He shrugs, the indifference of it more violent than a slap. “Some adapted. Some didn’t.” His eyes flick to mine, sharp as a razor. “That’s how the world works, Scarlett. You either bend until you’re broken, or you just… break.”
The jungle thickens, a wall of emerald madness.
The road dips.
And something cold slides down my spine—a physical chill in the humid heat—because I know this isn’t a lesson about the island.
It’s a warning about what he’s going to do to me if I don’t submit.
The market sits in a hollow between hills, half-swallowed by trees.
It’s nothing like the curated stalls near the resort.
This place hums with noise and heat and bodies packed too close together, voices overlapping, music blaring from battered speakers, the air thick with smoke, spice, and the heavy, metallic scent of sweat.
Bright fabrics hang from wooden frames like flayed skin, jewellery glinting dully in the shade, carved masks staring out with hollow, mocking eyes.
I step out of the car and the ground feels uneven beneath my sandals.
Unstable. Like a grave that hasn’t settled.
Noah’s hand finds the small of my back instantly.
Possessive. Guiding. Claiming. His fingers dig into my spine, a silent reminder that I am an object he bought and paid for.
People look at us.
Not with awe.
With curiosity.
With something darker—a hunger that matches the heat.
I feel exposed here in my silk dress and expensive skin, like I don’t belong and everyone knows it. I feel like a sacrificial lamb paraded through the streets. The locket presses cold against my chest, suddenly too visible, too heavy. It feels like a target.
Kai flashes through my mind again—him in the trees, in the dark, his hands covered in the same grime that coats this market, breathing this air like it belongs to him.
I wonder if he’s been here before.
I wonder if this is the kind of place he learned how to disappear. I wonder if he’s watching me right now, counting the seconds until he can rip Noah’s hand off my body.
Noah steers me toward a stall selling old knives and tools, their blades dulled with age but still sharp enough to draw blood, to gut a man from groin to chin. He picks one up, testing the weight, the balance, his eyes sparking with a sudden, sharp interest.
“See?” he says, holding it out to me. “Still useful. Still dangerous. Even after all this time.”
The implication settles in my gut like a stone. He’s talking about the violence he’s capable of.
“Do you like it?” he asks.
I swallow hard, the air suddenly too thick to breathe. “It’s… sharp.”
He smiles faintly. “Exactly.”
He pays without haggling, tucks the knife away like a souvenir.
A warning. A promise of what’s coming.
As we walk deeper into the market, his grip on me never loosens.
It’s a vice. Every time someone gets too close, he tightens it just enough to bruise, just enough to remind me where I’m meant to stand—under his heel.
I start to feel like I’m being paraded, displayed in a place that doesn’t care about appearances. A place that only understands power.
“People here believe in spirits,” Noah says casually, his voice dropping to a low, intimate crawl. “Old gods. Old debts.” His thumb presses into my spine, hard enough to hurt. “They believe some bonds can’t be broken. Only transferred through blood.”
My breath catches.
Kai.
The name beats against my skull now, a rhythmic, pulsing scream, loud enough that I’m afraid Noah can hear it.
I imagine Kai here—leaning against a post in the shade, his eyes dark and homicidal, watching me move through this crowd with Noah’s hand on me.
I imagine him cataloguing exits, planning the exact trajectory of the bullet, waiting for the moment he can reclaim what’s his.
The thought sends a shiver through me that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with a sick, twisted inevitability.
“You’re shaking,” Noah murmurs, leaning down so his mouth brushes my ear. It feels like a snake sliding over my skin. “Don’t.”
“I’m hot,” I lie. My voice is thin, pathetic.
He hums softly, unconvinced, his fingers twitching against my back.
“We’ll stop soon,” he says. “There’s something I want to show you. Something final.”
The words settle heavy between us, a death knell.
The jungle closes in as we leave the market behind, the noise fading, the path narrowing again. My pulse keeps time with the tires on gravel. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Whatever he’s taking me to—I know, deep in my bones, that it isn’t meant to make me feel safe. It’s meant to break the last of my spirit.
And the worst part? The most fucked up, terrifying part?
Somewhere between the rot and the heat and the cruel press of Noah’s hand on my back, I realise I’m not just thinking about Kai.
I’m waiting for him. I’m begging for him to come and destroy us both.
The road turns to dirt without warning.
One moment we’re still skirting the edges of civilisation—cracked pavement, the occasional rusted sign—and the next the tires crunch over gravel and mud, the jungle swallowing us whole.
The trees lean in closer here, thick and tangled, leaves slick and oversized like they’re hoarding water and secrets.
Sunlight barely reaches the ground, fractured into thin, jaundiced blades that don’t warm anything they touch.
It looks like light filtered through a bruise.
Noah drives like he knows exactly where he’s going. Like he’s driven this path to a burial a thousand times before.
That scares me more than if he didn’t.