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Even though I know I’m alone, I slink through the house, terrified with every step of what I’ll find, what I’ll stumble upon.A woman locked away in his basement? A dismembered body in his bathroom?
When I sneak upstairs and flick on the light in a small dark room, I know I’ve found what I’m looking for: his office.
His desk is the only part of his home that isn’t pristine—the complete opposite of the cluttered chaos of my house. His desk is littered with old coffee mugs, small plates with crumbs, sticky notes with illegible scribblings, and open notebooks with bulleted lists. All signs of a writer hard at work.
I open his laptop, and while I wait for his computer to stir to life, I pull on his desk drawer.
What lies inside makes me gasp.
With gentle hands, I lift S.T. Nicholson’s infamous mask from Saint’s desk.
I would recognize this mask anywhere. The same mask S.T. Nicholson wears in all of his author photos, to each of his signings, in all of his interviews.
A black mask with red flames licking up to the right eye socket, a jagged crimson line crossing over the other down to the bottom of his cheek. Black mesh to disguise his eyes and a haunting, white crescent moon to mimic a smile.
Before, when S.T. Nicholson was little more than the author of my favorite books, I fantasized about meeting him. About him taking me back to his hotel and fucking me with this mask on. Of being the only person for whom he would remove the mask, to see what truth lay beneath.
Now, my heart pounds for an entirely different reason, and I drop the mask like a hot coal.
There’s no doubt in my mind now. Saint de Haas is bestselling author S.T. Nicholson.
I thought meeting my favorite author would be one of the best moments of my life. I never could’ve predicted this is how meeting him would pan out.
Turning back to Saint’s laptop, I hiss when the screen prompts me for a password.Shit. I couldn’t expect him to be that dumb.
Then it dawns on me. I probably know the password to every one of his devices.
I type inBriar. But the password is rejected.
I try my full name, my birthday,muse. All rejected.
My jaw clenches. I have one more option, and it better not be right. I typeBriar de Haas.
I’m in.
My stomach churns. He already thinks of me as his wife. His.
I force myself to ignore the nausea and keep digging. Luckily, Saint has kept his most recent apps and tabs open.
In his internet browser, he has a tab open to search for synonyms ofbloodyand another for his email. His inbox is open to correspondence with Zayden Kingsley.
Their messages are innocuous—discussing drafts, character arcs, and delayed editorial notes.
When I finally recover from being momentarily starstruck, I glance through the rest of his inbox. Most of the emails are from Derrik at Prose Media, his literary agent.
I click on Saint’s word processor and find a manuscript sitting at twenty thousand words saved asFor My Muse.
Panic spikes, but the document isn’t some lengthy epistolary novel or a detailed account of every interaction he’s ever had with me. This is clearly fiction, and I have to continuously force myself to skim the words when the story repeatedly threatens to suck me in.
But it’s obvious this is his fanfiction of me. Ofus.
In this scene, the protagonist gives the villain a lethal dose of laced cocaine.
My heart hammers so hard, I’m genuinely worried it’s going to explode.
Maybe the murders in S.T. Nicholson’s books aren’t fictional at all.
“Are you enjoying my latest work?”
