I WOULD KILL FOR YOU

Chapter 4: Red Flags, Red Hands

People started disappearing.

At first, it felt like coincidence. A cruel one, maybe, but still just that—coincidence. That’s what I told myself the night my ex sent a drunk text at two in the morning. “I miss you. Let’s talk,” it read. I stared at it until the screen dimmed and then locked it without replying.

By sunrise, the news said a car had gone off the road near the river and caught fire. The body inside was barely recognizable. Dental records had to be used. When they said the name, I felt my stomach sink. My ex. The one who never took a hint. The one who kept calling and texting, showing up at my job, leaving flowers like that made anything okay.

Still, it was just… strange. Horrible, but strange.

Until it happened again.

This time, it was someone from work. My coworker, Josh. He always stood too close. Always smiled just a little too long. He made me uncomfortable, but I never said anything. I didn’t want to cause drama. We were all supposed to be “one big team,” and HR only ever acted when things got public.

Then one weekend, he went hiking with a few friends. Or that’s what the plan was, anyway. He never made it to the campsite. They found his car parked by the trailhead, but the rest of him? Gone. The search went on for a week before people stopped talking about it.

I started to notice the pattern.

Every time someone touched me too long, stared at me too hard, said something that made me shrink into myself, they vanished. Sometimes fast. Sometimes without a trace. But always after Dario noticed.

And Dario always noticed.

It was like he had a radar built just for me. His eyes would follow anyone who stepped too far into my space, calculating, cold, quiet. He never made a scene. Never said a word about them. But I could feel it building in him. The silence before the storm.

And then they’d disappear.

It should have scared me. Part of me thinks maybe it did, deep down. But deeper than that—something darker stirred. A part of me that felt safe. A part that liked being protected so fiercely, even if it was wrong. Especially because it was wrong.

Dario was violent, obsessive, unpredictable. But with me, he was soft in his own twisted way.

Not gentle like flowers and love notes.

His kind of gentle was different. It was the way he always walked on the outside of the sidewalk when we were out. The way his eyes scanned every room before I entered it. The way he made sure my fridge was full, my door was locked, my world was quiet.

One night, he came into my room without knocking. The door creaked open, and I was already awake. I don’t know why. Maybe I sensed him. Maybe I just knew he would come.

He stood in the doorway, a shadow wrapped in quiet rage. His knuckles were red. There was something under his nails. I didn’t ask what. I didn’t need to.

“You’re mine,” he said, voice low and rough like gravel. “Say it.”

I sat up slowly, heart thudding but not from fear. Not exactly. His eyes locked on mine, intense and waiting. The air felt too heavy to breathe.

“I’m yours,” I said.

Not because he scared me.

But because I meant it.

And maybe that was the scariest part of all.

Because I wasn’t stupid. I knew what was happening. I knew what he was capable of. And I should have run. I should have packed a bag and left the second I saw that look in his eyes, the one that promised he’d burn the world down just to keep me warm.

But I didn’t run.

I stayed.

And every time someone got too close to me, Dario got closer to them.

Closer, until they were gone.

Red flags. Red hands. And me, sitting right in the middle of it, pretending not to see the blood. Or maybe I did see it. Maybe I just liked how it felt to be wanted that much.

Maybe I liked it too much.