Chapter Four
Adrian
I was already deep into my phone, fingers tapping through screens and codes like a pianist on a grand stage.
I knew who she was—Isla ‘Belleflower’ Hills, the pastel angel with a brush and a camera, painting her world in soft hues and light.
Her posts were a breath of fresh air in the chaos I thrived in, a curated escape that somehow pulled me in deeper than I expected.
I sprawled across my industrial mansion’s leather couch, laptop balanced on my chest, phone in hand, a second monitor pulled close enough to scroll through without sitting up.
Finding her had been laughably easy.
One name, one city, and ten minutes of code breaking through traffic cameras. The Uber had taken her to a trendy apartment building downtown, and from there, facial recognition did the rest.
@IslaBelleflower. 314k followers. Content creator, artist, "aesthetic living enthusiast."
I scrolled through her perfectly curated feed, something hungry curling in my chest .
Her entire profile was a masterclass in softness—vintage dresses, watercolor paintings, sunshine filtering through lace curtains.
It was the polar opposite of my blood-and-chaotic existence. Yet there was something in her eyes, something hiding beneath the filters and careful staging. A hunger that matched my own.
The same hunger I'd seen last night when she'd tilted her head back, baring her throat to me like an offering. When she'd whimpered my name and melted into my touch like she was made for it.
I found her makeup tutorials first.
Isla, sitting in perfect lighting, those delicate fingers working brushes across her eyelids. The first one I watched was about some peachy eyeshadow palette thing.
She narrated each step with a softness that felt intimate, like she was telling me a secret.
I downloaded three of those videos, studying the little dip of concentration between her brows and how her full lips parted slightly when she applied the makeup.
Sometimes she’d bite her lip, unconsciously submissive in a way that made my cock hungry. The same way she'd bitten it that night before kissing me, like she needed permission but was too desperate to wait for it.
I wanted to see those flushed cheeks up close again, wanted to watch her eyes go dark and hazy as I dragged my hands down her body, wanted to see her arch for me like she had against that pillar.
"I like a girl who knows how to work with her hands," I murmured to the screen, tapping my knife against my thigh. Her application technique was meticulous, the same careful patience I used when planning where to cut someone for maximum agony.
The try-on videos were a special kind of torture. Isla in soft rompers, lace skirts, and dresses that swirled around her thighs.
She'd twirl for the camera, giving little reviews of each piece. "This one's so comfy!" or "The fabric is buttery soft."
I ended up growling at the screen during one haul where she showed off a backless summer dress, imagining my hands spanning that exposed skin, my fingers tracing the soft freckles across her shoulders.
She had the kind of figure that made women need to be worshipped.
Her waist was soft and cinched, and her hips flared out wide, round with softness. Her lush thighs pressed together, making me feral to bury my face there.
Her breasts kept catching my gaze at the club; full, heavy breasts that bounced softly with every spin, barely contained by the delicate fabrics she favored.
She’d tug at the neckline to show a detail, and I’d catch myself gripping the couch, hard, imagining how those tits would feel in my hands, how they’d look splayed across my sheets, marked up with my teeth.
I watched those videos twelve times. Then downloaded them. Then organized them into a special folder.
Her painting videos were a glimpse beneath her exterior. Time-lapses of watercolor landscapes emerging under her brush, her hands dancing across the canvas.
One that caught me off guard, a painting of the skyline at dusk, something dark and moody lurking beneath the golden lights. I paused it halfway through, studying the intensity in her eyes.
"There you are," I whispered. "That's the girl who kissed me first."
The same girl who'd looked at me like I was both salvation and damnation, who'd surrendered to my touch with a desperation that matched my own.
The cooking videos tightened something in my chest and still somehow made me hard. Isla in a frilly apron, baking cookies, stirring bowls, slicing fruit with a dull kitchen knife that I immediately wanted to replace with something worthy of her little hands.
She’d taste something off her finger, lips glossy and pink, and I'd remember how those same lips had felt against mine. She'd opened for me so sweetly when I licked into her mouth.
She was so eager to please, and I knew she'd melt for a little praise, a little roughness, a little command. The way she'd arched into me when I'd wrapped my hand around her throat proved it.
She moved through her sunny kitchen with grace, making my industrial mansion feel suddenly empty.
I pictured her in my space, painting in the light from my expansive windows, baking in my barely-used kitchen, her softness countering my edges.
I'd give her a special area for her makeup beside my knife collection, ‘I’d hang her paintings high on my walls.
The contradiction of her, so sweet and perfect online, yet with that private account full of tattoos and danger, made me hunger for her in a way that went beyond the physical.
She was playing a role, just like I was. And I couldn't wait to peel back every perfect, pastel layer until I found the real Isla underneath.
"You're not as innocent as you pretend to be," I hummed, zooming in on her latest post. A selfie from the night the angel met her devil.
Nothing explicit, nothing that would raise eyebrows, but there was an invitation in that vulnerability. A door left slightly ajar.
She blinked up at the camera like she was waiting for approval. I wanted to give it to her. I wanted to give her everything.
My cock ached against my jeans, the need so delicously painful. I palmed myself through the denim, not caring that it was barely past breakfast.
She did this to me. She made me fucking lose it just by existing, by being angelic and curvy and so goddamn pretty.
I switched to her website, studying the paintings she sold. They were pure art—delicate landscapes that hinted at depths her persona carefully avoided.
This was the real Isla. The one who'd kissed me first, who'd gasped when I'd bitten her lip, who'd dug her nails into my shoulders like she was trying to claw her way inside me.
The one who'd run.
I grinned, the memory of her wide-eyed panic as she'd backed away sending a thrill through me. She could run all she wanted. I'd already found her.
My phone pinged, the group chat:
Jax
Psycho. You’re late.
You coming or have you found a victim?
Adrian
Both. I found her, Jax. THE one.
Jax
??? What makes you think that?
Connor
***
I stared at Isla's profile picture, at the soft curve of her cheek, the slight upturn of her nose, the way her lips parted just enough to be inviting without being obvious.
What made her different? Everything.
Adrian
She ran.
They’d understand. The three of us were predators at heart, no matter how many designer suits or crop tops we hid behind.
Sierra and Estelle knew that, too. And look how it turned out—the girls tucked safely between Connor and Jax, protected and possessed in equal measure.
I pulled up more information on my second monitor. Isla's credit card statements, rideshare history, social media analytics.
Her patterns were easy to track: Coffee runs, art supplies ordered monthly, occasional brunches with the same two friends who'd dragged her away last night. A comfortable life, carefully maintained.
But there were anomalies. The private Instagram account that followed tattoo artists and men with muscles and danger in their eyes. Late-night searches for things her daytime persona would blush at. Small rebellions hidden behind the pastel facade.
I liked the contrast between her public face and private desires. It reminded me of my own cultivated personas: the boxing world's messy puppy versus the man who took pleasure in skinning people alive.
"I’m going to take such good care of you," I whispered to her profile picture, possession uncurling in my chest.
The sentence felt right on my tongue. The submission in her eyes, the way she'd melted when I'd gripped her hair, told me she'd respond to it too.
I needed to burn off this energy, this hunger that had settled deep in my bones since Isla's lips had touched mine.
I needed to feel the satisfying impact of flesh against flesh to remind myself I was still in control of this hunt.
Because that's what this was, a hunt, the hunt of my life. And Isla ‘Belleflower’ Hills, with her perfect world and secret desires, was my prey.
I cast one last look at her Instagram before standing, stretching until my spine popped.
I wondered what she'd think if she could see me now, shirtless in my home, tattoos mapping stories of violence across my skin, algorithms tracking her every digital move displayed across my monitors.
Would she run again? Or would she recognize the truth I'd seen in her eyes last night, that she was tired of running, hiding, of being the good girl everyone expected her to be?
Only one way to find out.
I closed her profiles, saving every single tab. I'd look at them later, study every detail, jack off to her six times, learn the map of her face until I could draw it from memory, then jack off again.
For now, I had a training session to get to and a hunt to continue.
Isla thought she'd escaped. But she'd only just begun to understand what it meant to be found by someone like me.
I bounced through the gym doors, my purple crop top declaring my entrance.
The heavy bag swayed slightly in greeting, and I could already hear the rhythmic thud of fists hitting pads from the main training area.
They were already here, given I was late.
I rounded the corner to find them in their usual spots—Jax already golden, shirtless, and glistening with sweat despite the early hour. Connor was brooding like his usual Batman self.
They'd been at it for at least thirty minutes, which meant they'd dragged themselves out of bed at some ungodly hour, leaving their girls warm and sleepy in expensive silk sheets.
But the best part? The matching iPads propped carefully on stools at the edge of the mats, both screens glowing with live camera feeds. Not FaceTime, just silent, crystal-clear windows into the girls’ worlds.
Estelle in their kitchen, sipping fancy coffee, ocean waves in the background. Sierra curled up reading with Toffee, my son and prince, stretched out beside her.
The feeds were private, encrypted, and absolutely stalker-level, but that was how we liked it. The girls knew, and they loved it.
They liked being watched, liked knowing we were always there, even when we weren’t.
“Too busy chasing after that girl?” Jax called out, not pausing his combination on the heavy bag. His designer sweatpants probably cost more than most people's entire gym wardrobes, already soaked through with sweat.
Connor grunted, continuing his shadowboxing in front of the mirror. Dark and grumpy as always, like someone had programmed him with exactly two expressions: murder and slightly-less-murder.
I dropped my duffel bag with a theatrical sigh. "Sorry I’m late. Some of us don’t have sweet girls to spy on while we train."
Jax smirked, glancing at Estelle’s feed as she shuffled around their fancy beach house kitchen in an oversized shirt. "Get yourself a girl worth watching, psycho."
Connor gave me a look, then flicked his gaze back to Sierra’s feed. She was still in bed, turning pages, oblivious to the world except for Toffee curled beside her and the camera.
"Don’t touch my iPad," he warned, voice low.
"So hostile in the morning," I clutched my chest in mock hurt. "Just admiring the setup. Very domestic. Very possessive. I love it."
Jax snorted. "You’re just jealous. Maybe if you stopped scaring them off, you’d have your own live feed to watch."
I started wrapping my hands. "Oh, you better believe I’ll be joining your iPad gang soon. Found her, remember? My own angel."
That got their attention. Both men paused, exchanging a look I knew all too well.
“You weren’t joking?" Jax asked, his eyes wide.
I grinned, bouncing on my toes. "Isla Hills. Artist. Soft. Looks at me like I’m both terrifying and exactly what she wants. She ran, but not for long."
Connor crossed his arms, the movement making the tattoos on his biceps flex impressively. “Seriously?”
“Duh,” I confirmed, switching to jumping jacks just to be annoying.
"She’s perfect. And she’s going to be on my screen soon enough. I’ll have her painting in the sunlight while I train, just like you two."
"Does she know of this plan?" Jax asked, a smirk tugging at his mouth.
"Not the specifics," I admitted cheerfully. "But she will. I’m very persuasive."
"Terrifying is the word you’re looking for," Connor muttered. But he knew. He'd been exactly where I was now.
"Same difference." I finished wrapping my hands and moved toward the heavy bag, energy buzzing through my veins.
"Now, are we training, or are you two just going to make eyes at your iPads all day? Because I have an angel to impress, which means I need to stay in fighting shape."
As we settled into our workout routines, I caught Connor and Jax exchanging another look—half exasperation, half understanding.
They'd been where I was, after all. They knew what it was like to find the one person who made the monster inside purr instead of rage.
Soon enough, there would be three iPads at the edge of the mat. Three fighters watching over their girls. Three monsters, tamed just enough to be dangerous in all the right ways.