“He’s out.”
That’s all my best friend said. Just two words. But it made my stomach twist.
Rafe. Her older brother. The one who went to prison when we were still in high school. Seven years. No calls. No letters. Just stories—whispers about what he did. What he became.
I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know.
But now… he’s out. And worse—he’s moving in. With them. With us.
Her parents said it was just temporary. Just until he “gets back on his feet.”
But I knew better.
Rafe was the kind of man who didn’t “get back.” He took. Claimed. Dominated.
I still remembered the way he looked at me that night before he got locked up. He was already dangerous then—and I was only sixteen.
Now I’m twenty-three.
Living under the same roof.
And I’m sleeping in his old room.
That night, the house was
