The cicadas are emerging. So is she.
For sixteen years, Kiera Hawthorne has been planning a funeral, all while playing the dutiful daughter. She orchestrates her father’s charity galas by day. By night, she’s the shadow tormenting him with haunting reminders of the wife he slaughtered. Promising to get her mother’s revenge, she’s so close to the grave she can taste it. She didn’t count on a distraction.
Sterling Wraith is methodical, obsessive, and broken in all the ways that matter. Hired by Wade Hawthorne to find the shadow haunting him, Sterling never thought he’d meet someone who is as damaged as he is. Infiltrating Kiera’s life, his focus is slipping from the job to the thorn that is spreading an infection through him. A voice echoing through his mind: No one will ever love you.
Their collision is violent, an obsession colliding with a mission they both set out for. And when the truth about Cicada surfaces, they’re left with one question:
Were their souls always meant to match… or built to burn everything around them?
Trigger warnings include, but are not limited to:
- Dub-con
- Knife Play
- Gun Play
- Breath Play
- Gun Violence
- Arson
- Death (multiple deaths, not MCs / side characters. Sorry, not sorry)
- Parental Murder
- Torture (on page, and flashbacks)
- Blood (lots of blood)
- Stalking
- Blackmail
- Child neglect
- Child abuse (flashbacks)
- Body mutilation (consented)
- Miscarriage (off page but mentioned)
- Child trafficking (not sex related, more for experiments)
- Domestic Violence (past but told through flashbacks, and explanation to MMC)
- Kidnapping (not MCs)
- Gaslighting / manipulation
- Memory manipulation
- Betrayal of trusted figures
- PTSD
- Medical trauma
