Finding out you’re the daughter of a millionaire true crime novelist isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
When I was two, I was kidnapped. Kidnapped by a loving family, sure, but still kidnapped.
Now, my biological mom wants me to live with her on the opposite side of the country.
Her … and my new stepdad and his jerk of a son: Parrish.
Wannabe tattoo artist, languorous rich boy, pouty mouth.
Starting a new life on the West Coast sucks, especially when there’s no love lost between me and my new family.
Oh, and my biological father? Did I mention that he’s a serial killer who wants me to play his games?
Find the right clues, follow the right trail, or someone I love gets hurt.
But what if he’s just kidnapped someone I hate instead?
Parrish Vanguard is a royal asshole.
The question is: does he deserve to die?
With the help of Parrish’s best friends—Maxx and Chasm—I have to risk everything to save a boy who considers himself my sworn enemy. Even if I save his ass, he’ll never thank me.
Lucky for him that our love-hate relationship isn’t a deal breaker.
I’ll play, Dad.
Start the game.
Table of Contents Table of Contents
Front Matter Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
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Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
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Stolen Crush
Stolen Crush © C.M. Stunich 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
For information address Sarian Royal Indie Publishing, 89365 Old Mohawk Rd, Springfield, OR 97478.
www.cmstunich.com
Cover art and design © Amanda Carroll and Sarian Royal
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, businesses, or locales is coincidental and is not intended by the author.
this book is dedicated to the following kick-ass humans:
(in no particular order)
Charlotte, if you’re going through hell, keep going
Jordan, for the phrase ‘question mark’ (did I just say ‘question mark’ aloud?!)
Sara, the strongest and most honest human alive
as well as Alyssa, Abby (the pupper), Jane, and Bailey.
thank you.
also, goodbye RMF.
break the cycle, please.
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There’s always a sense of dread in me when I think about the box.
I try not to think of the box very often.
“Don’t do it,” Chasm warns, his shadow falling long across me and the old wooden box, the one that smells curiously like old pennies. That was the same day I realized that I was into more than one boy, that my crushes were multiplying as quickly as the secrets coming down on me like rain. Sometimes, often enough, that memory is obscured when I recall the contents of the box. “Dakota.”
I should’ve listened to Chasm, the boy whose name wasn’t really his name at all. The boy calling me by a name that wasn’t really mine at all. My second crush, just weeks before I realized who my third was. Murders and crushes. I think that’s how I’ll always remember high school.
Gamer Girl versus Serial Killer.
There’s a creak as I lift the lid up, a smell that’s almost a taste, like metal, like copper. Like blood. At the bottom of the box, there she is. The Vanguard’s maid. It might’ve been cliché if it weren’t so sad.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Chasm murmurs, just before throwing up into the bushes. I almost envy him for his ability to react in that moment, to let his emotions overwhelm him. He acts like an asshole, but really, he’s a sweetheart. Parrish is the asshole. Parrish. The boy who’s missing. The boy who became family then lover then stolen, in what felt like an instant.
The lid slams shut, just barely missing my gloved fingers.
“I told you not to open it! Are you goddamn insane?!”
Why does each breath after that have to taste like blood? What does my father want? What need is he fulfilling by ensuring that I’ll corrupt myself with every step, that I’ll sink lower and lower, that I’ll do the unthinkable? Wow, Dakota, are you seriously considering going through with this crap?
I’d never hated myself more than I did in that one moment.
“Help me move this,” I deadpan, even as Chasm is pacing and cursing at me in Korean.
“What the hell is wrong with you? I’m not fucking touching that thing.” He points to the wooden box with his own gloved hand. “You really want to drop a dead body on someone’s doorstep? You think that’s a good idea?”
There’s only a breath of hesitation between his question and my answer.
“Yes,” I tell him, and I mean it. “Yes, I do.”
Love.
I am so in love. I also hate Parrish. Somehow, both of those things are true simultaneously.
And that’s the long and short of it, right? Love … is a double-edged sword.
Three months earlier …
Today is undoubtedly the worst day of my life.
I thought the day I found out that I’d been kidnapped as a child would qualify for the top spot. Instead, it’s today, the first day at my new house in Washington state, about as far away from my home in Catskills, New York as geographically possible.
The black Mercedes we’re riding in pulls up to a gate outside of a towering three-story mansion. It looks like a white cube with too many eyes, its numerous windows overlooking Lake Washington. With its flat roof and starkly modern aesthetic, it’s the exact opposite of the 1830s farmhouse that I grew up in.
It’s also surrounded by reporters.
I shrink down in the back seat, taking comfort in the tinted windows and doing my best to avoid the flash of cameras, the waving of cell phones, and the raucous chatter that’s haunted me for the better part of the last six weeks. Six weeks of pure, unadulterated hell.
The gate slides open and the car rolls forward, leaving the flock of reporters and influencers behind a wall of stark metal pickets.
“Well, we’re here,” Tess Vanguard says, pulling into the four-car garage as I struggle to take in a shuddering breath. I suppose I should call her Mom, right?
Considering she gave birth to me. But then again, I was stolen from a daycare center when I was two years old, and I don’t remember anything about her except the smell of her perfume. The moment she walked into my grandparents’ house, and I took a deep breath, I felt it in my bones: she’s telling the truth.
When I was two, I was kidnapped, abducted, taken away from her.
I remember none of it.
All I know is that one day, my life in New York was perfect and easy and comfortable, and the next …
“I want you to think of this place as home,” Tess says, looking up at the rearview mirror and doing her best to smile at me. Her face says she’s exhausted, but then, so am I. And she’s the one that wanted this, for me to come and live with her, when I was perfectly happy where I was. She also pursed her lips and sighed when I refused to sit in the front seat, choosing to curl up in the back instead and watch the airport fade into the distance.
My last connection to home.
Tess can call the hulking multimillion-dollar mansion whatever she wants, but home will always be twenty-two-hundred square feet of wide plank floors, funny little built-ins, and a kitchen that always smelled like Grandpa’s cooking.
This is not home, and it never will be.
I’m trying not to be a bitter pill though, so I force a smile as I open the door and step out onto the shiny epoxied floors. My stomach lurches with nerves as I haul my backpack up my shoulder and wish with all my heart that I was at home helping my best friends Sally and Nevaeh pick out their outfits for Ryan’s party on Friday. Ryan was the boy I had a crush on before I was dragged into this mess. Likely, I’ll never see him again.
“Right this way, sweetie,” Tess tells me, heading for a side door and opening it for me. She stands aside, waiting for me to step onto the white marble floors in my hand-me-down sneakers. They used to belong to my older sister, Maxine. Well, the girl I thought was my older sister anyway. Learning that I was kidnapped as a child by some crazy woman and given to her parents to raise meant that I wasn’t actually Maxine’s little sister. That’s the part of this whole thing that hurts the most.
I move into the house and stop short in the cavernous entryway. Everything in this house is white. I mean, truly. It’s white-on-white-on-white. Sterile. Empty. And almost everything is square and sharp. My stomach lodges in my throat as I look up at the only organic shape in the room: the curving staircase with its metal bars, like a jail cell. That’s what it feels like in here: a gilded cage.
“Who the fuck are you?” a voice asks, drawing my attention away from the staircase and over to the doorway across from me. It seems to lead into a kitchen/living room area of some sort, but it’s impossible to take note of any of that because there’s a shirtless guy standing in front of me, covered in tattoos, and holding a half-gallon of milk at his side. The carton has a picture of a teenager on the side with the words MISSING CHILD printed above her head. That’s what I am. Me. A ‘missing child’. “And what are you doing in my house?”
“Parrish,” Tess warns, her tone maternal and familiar but harsh at the same time. “Knock it off. This is your sister … Dakota.” She chokes on that last word a bit, but I guess I can’t blame her. It’s the name my kidnapper gave me, not the one she did.
Parrish—apparently this is the hot shirtless guy’s name—has an expression on his face that tells me he couldn’t give two craps less what Tess has just said. He knows exactly who I am and why I’m here. His words are meant to inflict pain: I know who you are, and I don’t care; I don’t want you here.
I just stare back at him.
His eyes are almond-shaped, the color of hazelnuts with a splash of honey, and his mouth is full and lush, if not a little sharp at the edges, like he practices speaking cruel things on a regular basis. His hair is thick and wavy, a feast of dark chocolate, with a few naturally sun-bleached bits that tangle around his forehead. He looks mussy and tired and pissed all the way off.
As I watch, he lifts the milk carton to his lips and chugs it while Tess sighs.
“We do own glasses, Parrish,” she says, her heels clacking across the floor as she moves past me toward the stairs. “Please pour the rest of that down the sink, and next time you get milk, use a cup like a civilized person.”
Parrish smiles prettily, but that edge is still there, making the expression more like a smirk. Also, he isn’t looking at Tess; he’s looking at me. Actually, assessing might be a better word.
Reflexively, I find myself putting my hand over my stomach. There’s an ember in there, something hot and crafted of refined, undiluted rage. Oh my god, I hate this fucking guy. Two seconds in and I’m staring at someone that makes my skin hot, my muscles tight, and who even manages to draw a few beads of sweat from my forehead. That’s how intense and immediate my reaction to my new ‘brother’ is.
This dude is a complete and utter tool, a tattooed Chad, a narrow-eyed, sulky, pouty, too-rich-for-his-own-good diva bastard. Great. Just fucking great. An Instagram model come to life with the personality of a pissed-off sloth. Slouchy, annoying, entitled.
I grit my teeth and force myself to exhale. Remaining calm is paramount; it’s essential. You can make it through this, Dakota. You’ve got this. And then, of course, Parrish speaks and has the audacity to wink at me which just enrages me even further. I’ve never had this reaction to another human being. Never. He’s got sketchy vibes for sure.
“There’s nothing about me that’s civilized, Mother,” Parrish drawls, sounding bored as he looks me over from head to toe, sizing me up with a single glance. As soon as he’s made his pass, he’s done, and I can see a hardening in his eyes: he’s dismissed me.
The thought is fucking infuriating.
But I promised my grandma that I would try. I promised Maxine. I promised myself.
“Nice to meet you, Parrish, I’m Dakota,” I grate out as pleasantly as I can, stepping forward and offering a hand. His are covered in tattoos, literally drenched with ink. There are matching sunbursts on the backs of either hand, letters decorating his knuckles. Both arms are covered, too, and much of his chest. I know he’s a bit older than me—seventeen as opposed to sixteen—but I can’t imagine how he got so much ink so fast.
He stares at my hand for a moment and then takes another swig of milk. I notice he doesn’t get a single drop of white stuck to his lips. My hatred for him doubles. Triples. Quadruples with each subsequent swallow.
“Chasm’s coming over in a few,” he tells Tess, and she bristles with irritation.
“Parrish, shake your sister’s hand,” she snaps, her voice stretched thin with fatigue from the long flight. We flew business class—of course we did—but she’s still tired, and so am I. Drained. Empty. Emotionally destroyed. “And tell Chasm he can spend a few nights at his own place. We have family stuff going on here.”
With another chug of milk, Parrish turns and shuffles back into the living room, barefoot and wearing plaid pajama pants and nothing else. Against my will, my eyes glide over the smooth muscles in his upper back, traveling down the curve of his spine and finding a taut, trim waist. A drip of lust mixes with my newfound fury and turns it into something … weird. Like my emotions weren’t already in a tangle from finding out that I’m a goddamn kidnap victim. As if he can sense me looking at him, Parrish throws a lazy, arrogant glance over his shoulder.
“As if, little sister. In your dreams.”
Parrish pads off, leaving me gaping, a violent, achy feeling shooting from my heart to my fingers and toes. What the … hell? My hands clench into fists at my sides, nails digging crescent marks into my palms. Did he really just say that? Really? Fucking really?!
I have to slow-blink away the shock of his casual insult before I can close my lips, turning back to look at Tess.
She’s now halfway up the stairs and doesn’t seem to have heard.
Loneliness spreads out from my chest, an icy balm to soothe away the fire of my frustration. It doesn’t make me feel any better though. Inste
ad, I hurt worse. There’s nothing more devastating than the cavernous chill of being lonely.
“Like I was even looking,” I murmur lamely, almost a whole minute too late, and far too quiet for Parrish to have heard anything at all. Parrish. When Tess and I first met—and she’d finally stopped kissing my forehead and crying—we sat at my grandparents’ kitchen table, and she told me all about her other children.
Parrish isn’t Tess’ biological kid. Instead, he’s the son of her husband, Doctor Paul Vanguard. She met Parrish when he was three, and I’d been gone for just a few months. She told me she threw herself into being his mother for want of missing me.
I’m not sure how to process that.
Apparently, I have four biological half-siblings living in this house, too, siblings that I share with Parrish.
Heaving a defeated sigh, I follow Tess up the stairs and find her waiting, wringing her hands in nervousness. The curved staircase deposits us in a bit of hallway floored with pale bamboo, a wall of windows facing toward the lake. On either side of us, the hallway continues. Tess gestures for me to follow her to the left.
“Your room is right across from Parrish’s,” she tells me as I struggle to rein in a groan. Fan-flipping-tastic, that’s exactly the restful, private space I need: one with a doorway that’s three feet from his. Tess glances over her shoulder to gauge my reaction, so I force a smile I don’t feel. Her hair is bouncy and dark like mine (before I dyed it anyway), thick espresso-colored curls pinned into a loose bun behind her head with several stray ringlets brushing against a pale freckled neck. My own hand strays to my neck, and I flush, hoping Tess won’t guess the direction of my thoughts.
“Look at those toes, kiddo. Long and curved, just like me and your mother. Your great-grandmother used to call them witch toes.” My grandfather’s voice sounds in my mind, and I choke a little on my feelings. I looked just like them, like my grandparents, like Maxine, like Saffron—the woman I thought was my mother, but was really just my … kidnapper.
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