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PROLOGUE
MACE
It’s all the fucking daisy’s fault.
Not like I need something to blame for my obsession. I don’t. I know what I am, and I accept that I would’ve locked on my angel with or without the flower eventually. Something put her in my path, the perfect prey to my predator. The daisy just sealed the deal.
I’m a bad man. I do what I want—take what I want—and the whole damn world lets me because I have a badge.
It’s the perfect disguise, too. As much as cops get shit on, there’s a reason so many of us turn out to be garbage. Something about the job calls to a certain type of twisted soul, and I answered the call when I realized it gave me a cover to the darkness inside of me.
People see the uniform first. The gun next. Sometimes the cuffs, or the badge. Rarely do they pay attention to man instead of the symbol, and that’s exactly how I like it. I’m the one who gets to watch. To observe.
To judge.
Angela Havers thinks I’m a good guy. The friendly cop that patrols outside of Louise’s Florals, the small florist shop in the middle of my beat. You wouldn’t think flowers would be a big draw in the middle of such a rough-and-tumble neighborhood. You’d be wrong. People seem to appreciate the spot of brightness in the middle of a concrete jungle.
Me? I only give a shit about my pretty little florist.
Seven years younger than me, she has an innocence about her that makes her seem younger. At least until you get a good look at her lovely hazel eyes and see that they’re haunted. She’s seen some shit, but it didn’t break her. She’s still my angel. Sweet and tender and so utterly delicious, she makes my mouth water for a taste.
Kind, too. As a cop, I’m used to getting comped. Freebies are part and parcel of having the badge, especially when half the territory you’re patrolling is full of criminals, the other full of the good folk who like the facade that we’re here to protect them.
Maybe my fellow cops are. Me? From the moment she shyly flagged me down months ago, offering me a single daisy to brighten my day, I’ve only ever cared about keeping one soul safe.
My angel.
She needs the protection. Her innocence blinds her to just how dangerous Springfield can be. Slipping into her apartment building, going up to her floor, I was pleased to see that she had a good deadbolt lock on it. But what was the point when she didn’t lock her windows? Anyone with bad intentions could sneak up the fire escape and let themselves into the sanctuary of her bedroom.
That’s why I spend nearly every night watching her as she sleeps. Finding peace in her snuffling snores, and fury in her frequent nightmares. If anyone tries to harm her again, I’ll be there.
I don’t stay for long. A few hours—when the worst of the worthless criminals in Springfield are up to no good—before I begrudgingly head back to my apartment across town. I have a hunting cabin up in the hills for when the city life turns me feral, but I haven’t been back in a while. It’s too far from my angel. What would I do if she needed me and I was an hour away?
No. I stay nearby because, despite how good she is deep down, the wrong sort of man is attracted to women like her.
Ask me how I fucking know.
I’m vindicated the first week in October. After about three months of me getting as close to Angela as I can without scaring her off, I finally get a chance to show her that I’m not just Officer Burns, the cop who passes by her shop every damn time I’m on duty.
For once, I’m her avenging angel.
1
MACE
Most of my patrols are daytime shifts.
However, one upside to obsessively stalking a young twenty-five-year-old woman who lives on her own and doesn’t put her own safety first is that it’s easy to discover her routine.
Angela never wavers from it. A creature of habit, she goes to work, she goes home, she goes to the corner store… and that’s about it.
She has no friends; at least, not locally. Her only family lives four states away. She moved to Springfield about three weeks before she started working in the flower ship. I found her almost immediately, and there’s been no other man for her in that time.
No man, but me, that is.
She’s as much of a loner as I am, another point that proves she was meant for me. I’m drawn to her, like a moth to a flame, addicted to the sight of her light brown hair, her luscious curves, and those wary, guarded hazel eyes. I can find her anywhere, and with her schedules almost ingrained in me as my own, I know where she is at any given moment.
Whether I’m on duty or not, I stay in uniform whenever Angela has a closing shift. In October, it’s pitch black outside when the flower shop shuts up for the night. The bank where she makes the nightly deposit is five blocks away. I would never risk anything happening to her during those five blocks there, then the ten more blocks to her apartment. I’m there, always watching.
