Chapter 2
Vanessa didn't sleep. Her sheets were tangled around her like restraints, the air heavy with sweat and something unspoken. When the morning light bled through her blinds, she was already dressed, already pacing.
Something had changed.
And it wasn't just in her.
It was in the air around her—like electricity crackling just beneath the surface. Like the moment before a lightning strike. Like the ghost of a kiss she hadn't had in years but still felt on her skin.
The kiss that started everything.
•••
Flashback — Seven Years Ago
It was the night before her engagement party to Richard Simmons. She had wandered from the ballroom, restless, overwhelmed. The mansion was a cathedral of shadows and secrets. She stepped into the gallery wing, looking for quiet.
Instead, she found Negan.
He was leaning against a marble pillar, unlit cigarette in hand, eyes shadowed beneath low lashes. He wore black like a warning.
"You shouldn't be here," she'd whispered.
"You shouldn't be marrying my brother," he'd replied.
She remembered the way his voice slid over her skin. Not gentle. Never gentle. Just… undeniable.
"I don't know you," she'd said.
He took two steps closer. "But I know you. I've watched you dance. I've seen how you look when you think no one's watching."
"You watched me?"
"Every fucking chance I got."
And then he kissed her.
Hard. Deep. Possessive.
It wasn't romantic. It wasn't safe. It wasn't anything she should have wanted.
But God help her—she had.
•••
Now, Vanessa stood before her bathroom mirror, hands gripping the edge of the sink. Her face was flushed. Her pupils blown wide.
She felt him.
Not just in memory.
But now. Here.
Watching.
The doorbell rang.
Her stomach dropped.
When she opened it, no one was there. Just a box—black ribbon, white envelope.
Her name, handwritten.
She opened it with trembling fingers.
Inside: a velvet choker she hadn't seen in years.
And a note.
"Put it on."
She dropped the box like it burned her.
Because she remembered.
Negan had tied it around her neck that night—seven years ago. After the kiss. After the stairwell. After the way he'd made her cry out with nothing but his mouth and the words, "Mine. Say it."
And she had.
Back then.
She wasn't sure she wouldn't again.
•••
Across town, in a penthouse wired with more secrets than light switches, Negan stood shirtless, watching her through the hidden camera in her porch light.
He knew she saw the choker.
He knew what it would do to her.
She still wore him in the places no one could see.
And soon, he'd remind her.
He hadn't stalked her for six years just to lose her to time or reason or memory.
Negan didn't lose.
Especially not what was his.
And Vanessa?
She was carved into his soul.
•••
Meanwhile, Camille Simmons swirled a martini in a rooftop bar downtown, legs draped over the lap of her latest distraction. But her eyes were on the phone in her hand—the alert she'd coded herself had just pinged.
Negan had made contact.
Finally.
She sipped the drink like it was nothing.
But inside?
She smiled.
Because Camille had been the one to tell Vanessa to take that gallery detour seven years ago.
And she'd do it again.
Even if it destroyed them all.