Caught by the Yandere CEO

Start Reading

A silk tie cinches tight around my wrists. Callum pulls the knot double and ties me down to the bed.

Three years ago, I told him I was running out for strawberries.

Then I vanished from this world.

I thought I'd cured him. Fixed whatever had started coming loose behind his eyes.

I was wrong.

Now the system has dropped me right back at his feet.

There's no broken boy here anymore. Just the man who owns half this city, and everyone in it too smart to cross him.

His voice comes out low and rough. "Good girl. You still owe me those strawberries."

His thumb drags down the line of my throat, then lower.

"So tonight. Where do you want me to plant them." It isn't a question. "Here?"

Lower.

"Or here?"

Chapter 1

I was sent into a novel to fix a monster.

Not a figure of speech. An actual assignment: drop into a redemption story, gentle the villain before he turned feral, hand him back to the heroine, clock out. I did the job. It took me years. I made him soft. Then I left him at an airport with a lie about strawberries and disappeared clean.

For three years I thought that was the end of it.

Then the system yanked me back by the collar and dropped me here, in the middle of a five-star ballroom, under a hundred camera flashes, at the annual gala of the empire he built.

Because the boy I cured didn't stay cured.

There's no broken kid here who needs saving. Not anymore. There's a man who runs this whole city, who would burn the rest of it to the ground to keep the one thing he's decided is his.

And the system just set me down inside his reach.

I closed my eyes. Opened them. Same ballroom.

Closed them again. Still there.

Cool. Great. Love that for me. I really did get dragged back in.

I crouched behind a pillar in the corner and refused to move.

The system's voice piped up in my skull. "Go find the male lead, host. Why are you squatting there like you're hatching an egg?"

The second it opened its mouth, I lost it.

"Hatching an egg? I'll hatch you, you glorified Tamagotchi. We had a deal. Job done, I'm free, that was the deal. I spent three years practically humiliating that man to his face so he'd let me walk, and now you want me to stroll back up to him and say hi? Why don't you just let me die?"

"And whose fault is that? Maybe if someone had done the job right the first time. You leave for three years and he goes off the deep end. Who else am I supposed to call in? Fix it, or forget the heroine, he burns this whole world down."

I had nothing.

Here's the short version.

A few years back I took a contract. Transmigrate into a redemption novel, cure the yandere male lead, raise him right, hand him to the heroine, and I'm done. My entire job was keeping him from growing into the kind of man who ends up with a body count.

I left three years ago, right on schedule, the second the heroine was due to walk on.

The system built me a clean exit. Fake identity, fake reason. My parents went bankrupt, I had to leave the country, very tragic, very final.

At the airport, he wouldn't let go of my hand. That was all he did. Held on, eyes red, asking the same thing over and over.

"How much. How much do your parents owe. Just give me a number."

I couldn't get loose, so I hugged him instead. And lied to his face.

"Just pretend I'm going on a long trip. To buy you strawberries. Okay?"

Back then, he wasn't crazy.

He was a boy crying at an airport over a girl who was lying to him.

"Host, look. Target's here."

I looked up.

The camera flashes swung toward the doors like water pulled downhill, and a man stepped out of a black car a white-gloved driver was holding open. Gunmetal suit, not one wrinkle in it. No expression at all. Tall enough, cold enough, that the noise in the room dropped half a register just to make space for him.

His assistant trailed behind him like she was walking a live wire.

Three years had grown him into his face. And every warm thing I'd spent years putting into that boy was gone.

Two women near me were whispering.

"That's the Ashford CEO? God, with a face like that, why isn't he modeling?"

"Don't be stupid. He came up a bastard. Word is he buried half the board to get that chair. Killed his way into it." A pause. "Model, my ass."

I pressed myself smaller against the pillar.

And then, across a room full of people all very carefully not looking at him, his eyes came up and found me.

He turned. Locked on. Held.

The whole ballroom seemed to hold its breath along with me.

"Something wrong, Mr. Ashford?" his assistant asked.

He looked at me a second too long. Two.

"It's nothing," he said.

Then he walked in without looking back, and left me standing there with my pulse going off like a fire alarm. Because I knew that man. I built that stillness with my own two hands. And nothing about the way he'd just looked at me was nothing.

The boy I saved was gone.

And the thing wearing his face had just found me.

Chapter 2

Since the gossip already covered the basics.

Callum Ashford. The male lead of this story. A dynasty bastard.

His father was one of the oldest, dirtiest fortunes in the city. One affair with an assistant, one kid he never planned for. She didn't want a fight over it. She quit, took the pregnancy, and disappeared to raise him somewhere far away.

She died young. Some illness. And with her gone, the secret got out, and a boy nobody wanted was hauled back to the family that made him.

He's the lost heir from every soap opera. Dragged back into old money that would've paid good cash to make him disappear.

Except the lost heir usually gets a redemption arc. Callum got the Ashfords.

Not one person in that house could stand him. He wasn't allowed at the table. His so-called brothers made a hobby out of him. Even the housekeeper got her digs in, told him to go fight the dog for scraps if he was hungry.

So when I dropped into this world and found him, he was, well.

Being beaten into a snowbank by five older cousins.

I scared the little monsters off with a brick of firecrackers loud enough to wake the dead, and hauled him up out of the snow.

"Hey. Did that hurt?"

New scars over old ones on his face. A fistful of snow in one hand. He stared at the ground and said nothing.

He was maybe thirteen.

Dead of winter. His coat soaked through, snow melting cold down the back of his collar.

And he was calm. Unnaturally calm. The kind of calm no kid should ever have.

I thought about it, then tried again.

"I just moved in next door. My parents work with your dad. You want to come change at my place?"

Something in there landed. I don't know which word did it.

Slow, unhurried, he finally turned his head and looked at me.

His eyes were quiet and cold and a little bit dead. Like a knife somebody had left in a dark drawer.

I let go of him without meaning to.

"Get lost," he said.

And so began the longest walkthrough of my life.

Callum, if I'm honest, was a nightmare to raise.

To get close, I transferred into his school and put myself in his class, and that's when I clocked the truth. The soft, easy-to-kick kid he played at home was half an act. In real life he pulled top marks and threw a very efficient right hook. He could raise a following out of thin air and put anyone who came looking for trouble flat on their back.

Which I found comforting. "Good," I told the system. "He can protect himself."

"Good, nothing," it snapped. "Give it a few years and he'll be protecting himself with a body count."

Oh. Right. My actual job. Keep the boy from growing up into a textbook sociopath.

So I started trying to get through to him.

Teacher put us in study groups. He got left with no partner. I shot across the room and grabbed his hand. "I'll go with you. Right here."

Field trip, teacher says nobody wander off alone. He gets left alone again. I'm there in a heartbeat. "Buddy system, let's go. I can go three rounds with a kangaroo. You want me on your team."

For a while he just ignored me. Then I started to annoy him, and he began rationing out words. Generously. Things like:

"Get lost."

"Stop following me."

"Go find someone else to bother."

I didn't take it personally. You don't gentle a person in a day or two, and I had time. Piles of it. He was years out from taking back the company, meeting the heroine, and going all the way off the rails.

So the seasons turned, and turned, and I stayed. Stuck to him like a tail he couldn't shake.

With me around, his cousins stopped putting him face-down in the dirt.

Nobody left shoe prints on his face.

No teacher stood him up in front of the class again to call him a thief, a gutter-born nobody whose own mother didn't even stick around.

Later, when he started building the company, I steered him clear of the drink someone had dosed, the headline that would've buried him, the family that kept lining up to humiliate him.

He took the company back. The empire found its feet.

After that, all he had to do was end up with the heroine and coast into every kind of happily ever after there is.

So why.

Why was he still like this?

Chapter 3

Still crouched on the floor, still not getting it. But my legs had gone to sleep, and I was starving.

Fine. Food first.

I slipped into the gala. The Ashford Group's annual party, Callum up at the head table, the whole room lining up to toast him one after another. Now and then he touched his glass to theirs out of courtesy. Mostly he didn't drink.

Across the crowd I caught the hard line of his jaw. Smooth. Cold. Somewhere else entirely.

"He got the company back," I said. "Nobody can touch him now. So why does he still look like that?"

"How would I know," said the system. "Go ask him."

I did not go ask him.

But I watched an intern try.

She crept up, timid, a glass of red wine held in both hands. "Mr. Ashford? I'm one of this year's interns. Uncle Langley's youngest. Do you remember me? I wanted to toast you."

Callum, chin propped on one hand, paused. Then turned his head.

His eyes were very deep and had nothing warm in them. "Uncle Langley."

"Yes, we met last year, at the birthday"

"Don't remember." He didn't let her finish. "I don't hold on to ugly faces."

The girl stood there with a face caught right between crying and not.

I shook my head. Three years, and his mouth was still a war crime.

But.

Where was the heroine? Why wasn't he with her?

The system said nothing.

A second later the Langley girl lost her footing, stumbled, and sent her wine straight at him.

Callum's hand snapped up and shielded his left wrist.

The room sucked in a breath.

His assistant hauled the girl back, careful, quiet. "Mr. Ashford, are you all right? She didn't mean it. Let me take you to change."

His eyes moved over the intern. Something in his face went dark. But he didn't go off. He said nothing at all, and left with the assistant.

Only then did the room start breathing again.

"Why'd he cover his hand like that?" I said.

A guy passing by heard me and helpfully leaned in.

"Oh, that? Bracelet his wife gave him. Little beaded thing. He never takes it off, won't let a soul touch it. His old assistant didn't know any better, got a few drops of water on it once." He dropped his voice. "He nearly put her in the ground over it."

I stood there with a cake halfway to my mouth.

Wife?

But that little beaded bracelet on his wrist.

That was. That was the one I gave him.

Okay. Two options. Either the guy had his facts crossed.

Or the bracelet Callum guarded like a live grenade wasn't mine at all.

I sat back down, put away ten strawberry cakes out of pure spite, and thought about it.

Then I flagged down a random employee by his lanyard. "Hey. Does your company have a girl named Elodie? Elodie Sinclair?"

The name did something to his face.

"Never seen her." Three words, and he was gone.

I caught a second one. Same question.

He opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again, and shook his head like it cost him something. "No. Nope."

Five people. Five nos.

Which made zero sense. Elodie was the heroine. The future Mrs. Ashford. Three years ago she was supposed to have met Callum, locked eyes, and fallen headfirst in love inside of a week.

So how did nobody know her name?

I was still chewing on it, and on my eleventh strawberry cake, when the lights dropped.

The host bounced up onstage. "Mr. Ashford's in a generous mood tonight, so we're going to play a little game. Everyone, eyes closed. Go on. I'll count to fifteen, and then you can open them again."

The room went dim. I had no idea what he was selling.

Around me, the women started closing their eyes anyway.

Every instinct I owned said do not, under any circumstances, close your eyes in this man's house.

I closed my eyes.

Chapter 4

A second later, something familiar and enormous came to a stop right beside me.

A big hand clamped down around my wrist.

"Wren."

He said it slow, one piece at a time, his breath hot against my ear.

"Is it you. Did you come back."

My stomach dropped. My body knew him before my brain caught up, and every part of me said run.

"I'm not" I didn't get loose.

Both his arms came down around my waist and locked.

Cedar. Everywhere, all at once.

His chin settled onto my shoulder, warm.

"Wren."

In the dark his voice went low and rough, shaking so faintly I almost missed it. "Don't move. Just let me hold you a second."

My brain whited out. I panicked and shoved at him.

"Callum. Callum, pull it together, your girlfriend is standing right there."

Never mind that I had no idea where Elodie, the girlfriend he was supposed to have, actually was.

Then his mouth was at the bare skin above my collar.

He pulled it aside and kissed my throat.

And bit down. Small. Sharp. Something straight out of a vampire movie.

"Wren." Every trace of that shake was gone now.

"Nobody says the word girlfriend in front of me anymore. The whole company knows I have exactly one wife." A pause. "And that her whereabouts are currently unknown."

His fingers slid lower. His voice barely there against my ear.

"Bring her up one more time. You trying to get yourself killed tonight?"

I went stiff in his arms. Corpse-stiff. Didn't dare move a single muscle.

Excuse me. What, exactly, was that supposed to mean.

Three years apart, and Callum was already back on his whole to-kill-or-not-to-kill thing.

Fifteen seconds has never lasted so long.

He held on like something feeding off my body heat, and only when he'd had his fill did he finally, slowly, let go.

The lights up front snapped on. A spotlight swung around and slammed down onto me.

"Surprise!"

The host was delighted. "Looks like our lucky guest of the evening has revealed herself. Mr. Ashford has personally walked all the way over to her seat to present tonight's grand prize."

"One, dinner with the CEO. Two, a private tour of the CEO's office. Three, a viewing of the CEO's personal glow-in-the-dark watch collection. At his home."

"Let's give her a hand!"

The room went up like a bonfire.

People turned to look at me with faces that said either pity or good luck out there.

I said nothing.

Then I said, to the room, "Sorry, quick question. Since when is a lucky guest not a raffle? Tell you what, I'll give up my spot. Somebody draw a ticket, keep it fun."

"Wow, our lucky lady is so thrilled she's talking nonsense already!"

The host rolled right over me. "Let's have our wonderful security team walk her somewhere to rest!"

He didn't wait for me to argue.

Four slabs of muscle in black suits came out of nowhere and had me out of the ballroom before my feet touched the floor.

Callum stayed where he was. In no hurry at all. He straightened his cuff.

Then, at last, he rose, gave his tie one cool tug, and said:

"Excuse me."

Chapter 5

Two bodyguards "escorted" me up to Callum's office and planted me in his desk chair.

I stood up. Two hands pressed my shoulders back down. I stood up again. Back down again.

Fine.

Why the whole production, though. Callum could have just kidnapped me. It wasn't like anyone here was going to argue.

I tried to explain. "There's been a misunderstanding. Your Mr. Ashford and I are not what you think."

"I'm actually his godmother. Or, you know what, easier if you just think of me as his mom."

I didn't get to finish.

A cold, expensive little laugh came from the doorway.

"My mother died when I was in grade school. Grass on her grave's five feet high by now." A beat. "You sure about that?"

My head snapped up. "Callum!"

His face gave away nothing. He nodded at the four bodyguards. "Out."

They dipped their heads like four double-door refrigerators and filed out in perfect sync.

Me: small, pitiful, entirely out of options.

I curled into the giant desk chair, didn't dare move, and watched Callum come toward me one slow step at a time.

The office was twenty-some floors up, the wall of glass behind him full of New York, all of it lit and glittering.

Callum took his time. He unbuttoned one cuff as he walked. Then the other. Shrugged off his jacket.

Started on his tie.

Then his watch.

Me: ???

Every alarm in my body went off at once. Callum, what are you doing.

Don't think I haven't read the source material. Every single time the male lead starts taking things off like this, it means he's about to get busy.

Then he stopped, right in front of me.

Both hands came down on the arms of the chair, caging me in, the veins standing up along his forearms.

"So it's Callum now." His voice was cold and clean. "Funny. Back in that ballroom, weren't you pretending you didn't know me?"

That clean, cold scent of him pressed down over me.

I shrank back as far as the chair would allow. "I wasn't I wasn't pretending. I was passing through. You look really rich now. I didn't dare claim you."

"Is that right." He didn't buy a word of it. "Stop hiding from me. Wren Calloway."

I went meek as a wet hen. "Mm."

"These past three years. Where did you go."

Where did I go.

After the airport, three years ago, I never surfaced again. The second I pulled out of this world, Elodie was supposed to wash Callum's memory of me clean.

So I'd spent three years lying on beaches, dancing in bars, and getting extremely well acquainted with a number of very nice abs.

I could not say that.

I mumbled. "I was... I've been on the run this whole time. A wanted woman. Thinking about you. Secretly."

Callum's hand went still.

The system suddenly screamed, "HOST. His corruption meter just dropped a point!"

Me: ???

Me: "Are you serious. I call you and you're gone, and NOW you show up?"

"Keep at it, host! You've got him!"

I would have loved to keep at it. The problem was, I couldn't read a single thing on Callum's face.

I tried, quiet. "Callum. Are you doing okay these days?"

His throat moved. Unreadable. "Mm."

"Good. That's good. So. Have you seen Elodie anywhere?"

Callum went dead silent.

"HOST. His corruption meter just jumped ten points!"

Me: !!!

Nope. We're done here.

I grabbed his sleeve, eyes brimming, and started babbling. "Elodie's my cousin. Distant cousin. Remember how my parents went bankrupt and moved abroad? Her side of the family stayed. So now that I'm back, I only wanted to ask whether you'd maybe seen her around."

Because here was the part that didn't add up. Elodie was the heroine. She was supposed to be the love of his life.

And every time I said her name, the meter didn't cool.

It detonated.

Chapter 6

"Cousin?" The corner of Callum's mouth ticked up. "You know this 'cousin' of yours worked at my company?"

"I know, I know." I nodded fast. "I'm the one who sent her. Told her you were a great guy, that if she stuck close you'd take good care of"

Callum's hand closed around my throat.

Not one degree of warmth in it. "Say that again."

"I I said you were a great" The word died.

Callum leaned down and bit my shoulder. Again.

Okay. Enough. "Were you a dog in a past life?"

He didn't answer the question. Just smiled, cold. "Wouldn't you like to know. Really, though. You vanish off the face of the earth, and you still made time to mail me a woman first."

Then he let go of the chair.

On reflex I got up to follow him. Didn't get my feet under me.

The room spun.

He caught me around the waist and hauled me up over his shoulder like I weighed nothing, like some kind of octopus, and the whole world flipped.

The system nearly got motion sick along with me.

I thrashed. "What are you doing!"

"You want to see Elodie."

"To to see her, yeah,"

His voice dropped, low and absolute. "You come back after three years, and the first word out of your mouth is another woman's name."

He didn't slow down. Didn't put me down.

"You'll see whoever you want. Later. But you are not walking out of my sight tonight." A beat, colder. "You vanished on me once, Wren. You don't get to do it twice."

Right. So. In the source novel, the male lead was a certified yandere. The kind who, when he got worked up, did completely unhinged things.

Ties. Belts. Handcuffs. That whole catalog.

The original heroine ran from him more than once. And every time he hauled her back, whatever waited for her got hotter, and rougher, and.

My face went red just thinking about it.

By the time I came back to myself, Callum had carried me all the way to his place.

An enormous house, every window blazing, built into a cliff over the water. Nowhere to run even if I found the nerve to try.

He disappeared into the shower without a word, and I lay in the middle of his enormous bed and sank into deep thought.

The thing he wanted from me. That would not be the thing my brain kept helpfully offering up. Right?

"I can see the garbage rattling around in your head," said the system. "There's no other play here anyway. Might as well try it?"

"Try it my ass. The male lead is devoted to the heroine, it's her or no one. If I misread this and he snaps and kills me, then what?"

"From where I'm sitting, you didn't misread anything, and he already wants to kill you."

"..."

"Host. What did you say to him in the car? His corruption meter climbed the whole ride."

"Uh."

In the car he'd been a statue. No expression, one arm pinning me down, not a word.

So naturally I'd filled the silence. For miles.

Things like:

"Did you and Elodie have a fight? Girls get moody, it happens, you just sweet-talk her a little."

"Why won't you say anything. Is it that you don't know how to sweet-talk?"

"Here, I'll teach you. Try saying 'good girl' for me. Let's hear it."

The system: "..."

The bathroom door clicked.

Callum stepped out with a towel slung low around his hips, his tall shadow thrown across the glass.

The system: "Host. You're on your own. Godspeed."

I shrieked, "Wait. Don't go! System!"

Callum killed the bathroom light.

One step at a time, he crossed the room to me.

I held my breath and shrank back.

The things I should say. The things I definitely should not.

This man's body was, frankly, a crime.

Chapter 7