A Pretty Kind of Violence

Content levels

Trigger warnings

Positive tags

Tropes

Themes

Synopsis

Reth Killing is easy. Being owned is the real nightmare. I’m controlled. Broken down and rebuilt into something lethal. I don’t feel. Don’t hesitate. Don’t want. I survive by staying empty. Sophia Sinclair is everything I was never meant to touch. Soft, bright… good. For years I stayed in the shadows. Watching her. Memorizing her. Every routine. Every habit. Every detail — from the O negative in her veins to the shade of red she paints across her lips. I convinced myself watching was harmless. Safe. Distant. But nothing I want can ever be mine when I’m leashed by an evil far worse than me. So I did what every villain would do. I took her. Sophia One moment I’m helping traumatized kids. The next I’m locked inside a house that looks exactly like my dreams with a captor who bakes my favorite pastry. Who turns up the heat when I shiver. Leaves heart-shaped candy around like it means something. Like I mean something. I tell myself he’s a monster. But I’ve spent years studying broken people, and Reth Hale doesn’t feel like evil. He feels like damage. And that might be worse. When an open door offers freedom, I hesitate. I've dedicated my life to fixing wounded things — and Reth might just be the most broken of all… …or the fracture that breaks me instead. TROPES: - Stalker - Obsessive anti-hero / Obsessive love - Captive romance / Forced proximity - Protective masked killer - He falls first (and harder) - Trauma-bond - Broken / damaged hero - Sunshine / soft heroine - Slowburn