**Chapter 1**
"I told you, Alfred—your daughter's been sneaking around with old men in the community. Go on, ask her what she was doing at the hotel entrance! It's nowhere near her school route!" My stepmother Monica's voice dripped with venom as she flung the accusation across the room.
Let me rewind. My name is Ashley. My biological mother died giving birth to me, and my father remarried her younger sister, Monica—a decision that fueled whispers in our small town. Rumor had it they'd been entangled long before he married my mother. But that's ancient history. Or so I thought.
This morning, Monica ordered me to collect money from one of her friends who worked at the Willow Creek Hotel. *"Be quick about it,"* she'd said, shoving me out the door. But when I arrived, her friend was nowhere to be found. Panicked, I asked a stranger—a middle-aged man in a suit—to help me call her. That's when Monica materialized like a storm, her eyes blazing.
Now, back in our cramped living room, my father stared at me, his brow furrowed. "Ashley, what's going on?"
"I did what she asked!" I choked out. "The man was just helping me—"
"Lies!" Monica cut in, her voice shrill. "You think I don't recognize one of your *boyfriends*? I was on my way to collect the money myself when I saw you two giggling like—"
"Enough!" My father's voice cracked like a whip. But Monica wasn't finished.
"Choose, Alfred," she hissed. "Either throw that little slut out, or I walk. You're not a man if you let her shame this family."
The silence that followed was suffocating. Then, slowly, my father turned to me. His eyes—once warm, now hollow—met mine. "Pack your things," he muttered.
"But I didn't—!"
"**Now**."
---
The rain came down in sheets as I stumbled down the driveway, still in my school uniform. No coat. No bag. Just the stinging slap of betrayal. Thunder growled overhead, mirroring the chaos in my chest.
*How could he believe her?*
I wandered for hours, my soaked blouse clinging to my skin. The town square was deserted, streetlights flickering like dying fireflies. I collapsed under the awning of a shuttered bakery, trembling too violently to cry.
Then—a screech of tires. A crash.
My head snapped up. Across the street, a black SUV had swerved into a lamppost. The driver's door flew open, and a figure lurched out, clutching his arm.
"Hey! You!" His voice boomed through the rain. "Help me!"
I froze. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with a jagged scar running down his cheek. Not someone you'd forget.
"I-I'm sorry," I stammered, scrambling backward. "I didn't see anything—"
"Wait!" He staggered closer, his piercing gaze locking onto mine. "You're… bleeding."
I glanced down. A gash on my knee—from the fall? From fleeing?—seeped crimson into my gray skirt.
Before I could react, he shrugged off his tailored coat and draped it over my shoulders. The fabric was still warm.
"Let's get you out of the rain," he said, softer now. "And then you'll tell me why a girl your age is out here, looking like the world's ended."
**Chapter 2: The Stranger's Shadow**
Rain lashed against the SUV's windows as Viktor drove, his profile sharp as a blade in the flickering streetlights. I huddled in the passenger seat, his oversized coat swallowing me whole. Every instinct screamed to run, but where? Home was a warzone. School was a rumor. And this man—this scarred, gun-carrying stranger—was the first person in years to look at me like I mattered.
*Don't trust him,* I warned myself. *He's using you.*
"Why a motel?" I asked, voice steadier than I felt.
Viktor's gloved hands tightened on the wheel. "Because hotels ask questions. Motels… don't." His gaze slid to me. "You'll sleep. I'll keep watch."
"Watch for *what*?"
"People who'd love to find you alone."
The implication hung in the air, heavier than the storm.
---
Room 7 smelled of mildew and regret. Viktor tossed his keys onto the sagging bed, then shrugged off his suit jacket, revealing a holstered knife strapped to his forearm. My face heated as I looked away.
"You're staring," he said, amused.
"I'm not—"
"Relax, *malyshka*. If I wanted to hurt you, you'd already be dead."
The Russian endearment—*little one*—sent an unwelcome shiver down my spine.
He threw a towel at me. "Dry off. You look like a drowned kitten."
I caught it, bristling. "Why do you care how I look?"
For a heartbeat, his icy composure cracked. "Because someone should," he muttered, turning toward the window.
---
Midnight bled into the walls. I lay rigid on the bed, listening to Viktor's quiet breaths as he leaned against the doorframe, eyes fixed on the parking lot. The knife glinted in his hand.
"You knew my mother," I whispered into the dark.
He stilled. "Yes."
"Were you… in love with her?"
A hollow laugh. "No. But I failed to save her." His voice roughened. "Monica paid off the doctor to overdose her during your birth. Made it look like a hemorrhage."
The revelation punched through me. *All these years, and Dad never…*
"Why tell me now?" My tears soaked the thin pillow.
Viktor shifted, shadows cloaking his face. "Because you deserve the truth. And because I need you."
"For what?"
"To destroy her."
---
His words should've terrified me. Instead, a reckless fire ignited in my chest. Monica stole my mother. My father. My *life*.
I sat up, meeting his storm-gray eyes. "How?"
Viktor crossed the room in three strides, crouching before me. His calloused thumb brushed a tear from my cheek, lingering too long. "We dig up the past. Expose her. But it's dangerous."
"I don't care."
A dangerous smile curved his lips. "Then we start tomorrow."
As he stood, his hand grazed mine—a fleeting, electric touch.
"Sleep, Ashley," he said, retreating to his post. "I'll be here."