Yes, Masters (Book 2 of Desire's Den)

The stalker

First, I'll tell you the backstory, and then reveal who it is x

I planned that in between the gifts, and in the middle of the drama the stalker caused with the men in their lives, they needed a break—especially Emma. So, they went to none other than Emma's parents (Emma finally broke to her parents about her relationship with the three men, after her mother had begged for Emma to come visit with Gideon seeing as they hadn't seen each other for a long time). Emma could hardly hide the other two men from her parents if she wanted anything serious with her men, and she did.

At home, Emma went to the attic to find baby photos of her (order from her masters) and while there, she found adoption papers with her name on it, and her parents had never told her. Mateo found her crying, and they left to stay at a hotel while she calmed down. They were all there for her while she found out about the truth her parents had hid from her. The men gives her perspective enough to make her realize that her being adopted does not change that they are her parents and they loved her (they would know how important that is, more than anyone). She goes back to her parents, and she finds out that they adopted her when she was eleven months. They didn't know anything about her biological parents. 

So, how does this connect to the stalker?

Her stalker is her brother. He was four when his mother decided to put her up for adoption, unable and couldn't be bothered to take care of two kids. The mother kept her brother because it was useful for her to have him carrying her drugs, to boss around, to beg strangers for money, and later, when he got older, to take care of her while she was rotting away in a drugging haze. The only thing her brother had left of Emma was a photo of them lying side by side on the dirty carpet, clumsily taken with his mother's old polaroid camera. The four-year-old stretched his arm to include both of their smiling faces as he took the photo. 

Once Emma was taken away from him, and he was left in a loveless home, be held on to the hope that she was alright, and that she was alive. As the years went by, he grew obsessed with finding her, because in his mind, she was the light to his dark—she was made for him to hold, to protect, to ease and heal his pain. 

When he was thirteen, his mother overdosed, and he was put in foster care and later adopted to a couple in New York. His adoptive father worked in cyber security, and bonded with him through teaching him all he knew about technology. During all the years, he never stopped trying to look for his sister. In college, he hacked into the local adoption agency from his hometown, and found her name and her adoptive parents' address. Further findings showed that she'd been under his nose for the last couple of years, she was studying in New York...

And so, he watched her from afar. It was enough for him, until it wasn't. He needed to be closer. So he infiltrated her life, through her friend, Kevin. He became his boyfriend (?!) 

Thomas was finally getting a more intimate look into his sister's life, and again, he was satisfied, until he learned what the men she was with was doing to her. She let them put their dirty hands on her, hurting her. But he could handle it, he thought. But then the men put the last nail in the coffin when they made her cry and broke her spirit. He couldn't let them be around her then, so he did what any brothers would've done (not), he continued his stalking and sent her a warning. 

The warning was his shell breaking. This was the first time he contacted her as him, and not a role he was playing as her best friend's boyfriend. So he couldn't stop himself from contacting her further, making a connection with her...through birthday gifts he never got to give her. 

(And yes, Thomas was crazy enough to beat himself up to hide his suspicion at the nightclub that never happened because I never got to editing and writing it in)

However, the more Emma fought against Thomas's threats, the more frustrated he became. He needed her to listen, for her own safety; the men weren't good for her—they didn't deserve her. He hated it, but he needed to scare her to listen to him. It was for her own good, after all. In a last desperate attempt to separate Emma from the men now that she lives with them, he drugs Kevin with sleeping pills and then send a photo to Emma, warning her to come alone to Kevin's flat. She does, terrified of risking Kevin. Once there, she forget about everything as she runs to Kevin to make sure he was breathing. Just as she gets to him, Thomas sneaks up behind her and stab a needle in her neck, drugging her too. 

Half-drugged, Thomas forces her to walk out to the car with her, and drives to a secret property he rented. The house looked normal, until he got her to the basement. It contained his computer equipments, along with all the photos and souvenirs he had collected of Emma, from his own personal stalking, and through the internet. There was the heart lolly she had handed him a year ago on Valentine's day at Euphoria, a teddy bear he'd gotten from her room at her parents' place while they were out, cut outs of news papers stating her accomplishments as a kid, copies of photos of her growing up, and photos he'd personally taken. In the middle of his wall of pride was the photo he'd taken of them as kids, when he was four and she was almost one. 

There, he lays her in bed and lets her sleep off the drugs. Once she comes to it, she startles as she sees Thomas and remember the sting of a needle as she'd run to Kevin. The rest was fuzzy, but she remembers seeing Thomas's face before they left Kevin's apartment. 

Once awake, Thomas tells her the truth, sure that once she knew it, she would not be scared of him anymore, and she would feel the same connection between them that he felt. She didn't, and her fear angers him, sure that the men were the cause of her fear. Without them, he wouldn't have had to take such drastic measures. 

Then, as she tricks Thomas to loosen the ties on her hand just a little so she can drink water, an alarm on his computer goes off. Callan, always the one prepared, had gifted Emma with a necklace that had a tracker installed in it (they never knew if it could be useful when their women was  being stalked). And now, her men was at the property, creeping in through the living room.

Horrified, she sees Thomas reach for a gun and goes out to meet them. Frantically, she begins pulling at the partly loosened ties, but she can't make it before she hears a gunshot, and then another, and a last one.

A couple of minutes go by while she sits frozen on the bed, and then the door opens, and Mateo comes running. He has blood on his hand, but he forgets it as he quickly unties her and checks her for injuries. Gideon comes next, and then Callan, with his hand holding his shoulder, blood dripping from between his fingers, but alive. All of Emma's men were alive. 

Thomas had managed one shot before Gideon shot back, one in Thomas's arm, and the next one right in his heart, killing him instantly.

They call the cops to the address, and an ambulance for Kevin (Kevin would have no physical lasting damage, but he would gain trust issues from what his boyfriend had done)

Without the threat hanging over Emma and her men, their bonds grow even closer, and she is theirs, and they are hers.

And that was my plan for this current plot, but I have to say, when I began writing it, it did not feel authentic to the first book. I thought at first it was my own creativity that was making it hard to write, and it was most definitely a huge part of it, but after a lot of thinking, I know this storyline did not suit Emma's and the guys' story.

I will be back. When, I don't know, but at one point in time, I will finish the series and give Emma and the guys the ending they deserve, and an ending you guys deserve. 

I'll leave the sequel up till August the 31st, and then archive it. 

Again, thank you so much for following me on this journey, and I hope to see you again xx