Page 104 of Twisted Little Game

In my room, there is an envelope, bright white against the navy blue sheets, standing out even in the low light of the bedside table lamp.

“Someone sent you a love letter,” Tate jokes, picking up the small envelope and turning it over in his hand. I pause when I see three letters scrawled on the other side of it.

TDL.

“What’s TDL?”

“Oh,” Tate says, frowning. “I mean, it could be Tate Dylan Landrey, my initials? Nevermind. Someone sent me a love letter, I guess.”

I finish pulling off my damp shirt and I toss it aside, glancing back at Tate.

I frown as I look at the envelope in his hands.

“Who is aware you’ve been sleeping in my bed?” I ask. “How did this get here?”

“Maybe it’s from one of the guys?”

He tears open the edge and pulls out the contents.

“Jesus,” I say, grimacing down at a very explicit picture of a man’s hard cock. Alongside it is a note, scrawled in an ugly handwriting style:

Think I haven’t already found you, Tate?

Dead wrong.

You’re mine soon.

And fear cracks through my heart in an instant.

This isn’t just a text message.

Someone had to physically put this here, in my room.

“Nope. Fuck this,” I mutter.

I move to the side and immediately throw open a drawer on his desk.

I reach toward the back of the drawer, where I lift out a piece of wood that reveals a black safe with a number pad on the front of it.

Tate is watching.

He sees my safe, and might even see the code.

But I don’t care right now.

This has to end.

I push in the code and my safe opens up, revealing the small stash I have here. Half a dozen guns, multiple knives, my mother’s jewelry that was previously stolen from the Malettis. More things I never fucking wanted Tate to see.

My heart lurches in my chest when I turn around and see the look on Tate’s face.

He’s afraid. He reaches for one of my bed posts and leans against it, staggering in place.

I know that he doesn’t like weapons, and he just saw that he’s been sleeping right next to many of them.

“What the fuck, Roman?” he whispers. “What are you doing?”

I examine my Makarov pistol. “Preparing.”