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My family killed theirs.
And Mal fuckingknows it.
Before I can say anything, he turns and walks back toward the door, his voice floating over his shoulder like a dark promise.
“I’ll be seeing you soon, Freya.”
Then he’s gone, leaving me alone in the silence, my heart racing, pure toxic terror flooding my veins.
8
MAL
The ocean isthe only place I can really think.
It’s the only place where the screaming in my head quiets, where the constant pull of rage and the hunger for vengeance and violence fades into something manageable.
Holding the board, I dive through the waves, paddling further out, the icy water slicing over my bare skin like a blade. It’s definitely wetsuit season now, especially in the northeastern US. I don’t care.
The cold burns, numbing everything but the steady, rhythmic pull of the tide. My muscles strain as I paddle the surfboard out to wait for a bigger wave. But there’s a peace in the struggle, a calm that only comes when I’m pushing my body to its limits.
Finally satisfied that I’m in the right spot I angle back toward the shore, waiting and bobbing in the inky black Long Island surf. For a few blessed moments, it’s just me and the ocean.
No past. No future. Just the dark, swirling abyss below and the endless stretch of water ahead.
I turn and scan the horizon. The moon is a mere sliver in the sky, casting pale light over the churning waves. There’s no one out here. There never is. That’s why I come at night—the world is quiet, and the beach is deserted, and I can lose myself in the raw, untamed fury of the ocean.
But even out here in the cold embrace of the water, I can’t stop thinking about her.
Freya.
Her name is embedded in my mind, a dark whispered curse that refuses to leave. I close my eyes, bobbing in the waves, trying to send the thoughts down to the bottom of the sea. But they always resurface, emerging stronger, more insistent.
I should have killed her that night in the office. I should have ended it before she became a problem—before she started burrowing into my flesh like a splinter I can’t remove.
Before I knewwho she fucking was.
But I didn’t. And now she’s stuck in my head like a cancer I can’t cut out.
I should be furious with myself for allowing her to occupy so much of my mind. But instead all I feel is that same dark pull, that sick attraction that makes my blood run hot.
She’s…different. I saw it in her eyes back at that office the night I caught her—and then again tonight. Fear, yes, but also something else. Something dark. Something that matches the shadows inside me.
And now I know why.
Freya Holm doesn’t exist. She’s a mask she’s been wearing for years, hiding from the world and herself. But I see her for who she really is.
Freya Lindqvist.
The surname alone stirs something dark and vicious inside me.
Lindqvist.
The family that destroyed mine. The jackals that came in the night and killed everything I’d ever loved.
My mother. My sister. My uncle—all of them dead because of that family.
And now, here she is, the last of them. The daughter of the man who brought it all crashing down.
