

Description
Detective Theo Vance has spent seven years hunting Atlas Kenneth, the unhinged crime boss who's been obsessively stalking him since the day Theo arrested him. For months, Atlas has flooded Theo's phone with explicit messages, surveillance photos from inside his apartment, and increasingly unhinged declarations of obsession. Theo's ignored every single one, too focused on his career and his father's cold case to engage with a psychopath. Then Atlas destroys everything. His one chance at redemption: solve his father's murder, get his badge back. But Atlas holds all the cards. And he's willing to trade that information, one piece of evidence at a time for a special cost. He wants Theo on his knees-and in love.
Chapter 1
Sep 22, 2026
Theo’s POV
I'm sitting across from my date at a kind of Italian place that probably cost my mother a small fortune in guilt points to secure the reservation when first messages arrive.
DO NOT ANSWER: Why waste your precious time with that boring chick, sitting in that boring place, when you could be sitting on my cock instead?
DO NOT ANSWER: Our date would be way more fun… I've got toys that would look perfect on you, kitten.
This infuriating, sick, stalking piece of shit… Again.
The one who’d been harassing my phone for over a year now. The one who can’t seem to have enough toying with me via texts. The one who’s enjoying watching me go mad with him. The one I can’t catch for too damn long.
"You're so pretty when you're angry, Detective Vance. Almost like a big spicy kitten… so fucking adorable."
Atlas fucking Kenneth.
I finally got him arrested for the first time two years ago in a warehouse raid in Red Hook. And his lawyer had him out in four hours.
Charges didn't stick—they never stick with men like him, but I've been hunting him ever since. Chasing leads that go nowhere, following trails that dead-end in legal red tape and convenient witness amnesia.
I keep my face neutral while Emily tilts her wine glass at an angle that genuinely concerns me. She's mid-story about a kindergartner named Aiden and a penguin, and she's doing the thing people do when they're trying very hard to be charming and can feel it not quite landing.
"And then he started crying, and I had to explain that penguins actually like the cold, and he said…"
My phone buzzes again. Then again. I pocket it in despite that with a loud sigh while Emily continues, but more cautiously now, like I might bolt mid-appetizer.
Which, to be fair, I've considered. Twice. Maybe more.
A few more buzzes of my phone in quick succession and I grit my teeth, barely holding the irritation away from my expression. Frustrated, already distracted and guessing what I’ll find there, I pull it back out mid-sentence anyway.
My mother would kill me if she saw me doing this on a date.
The second I open the chat with him, ready to message him to fuck off, a dickpic appear on my screen in full size. The next second I’m slamming my phone screen down on the table hard enough to rattle the glasses on it.
Emily stops talking immediately and her smile freezes in place. "Are you… Everything’s fine?"
"Um, yeah… Sorry about that." I lock the screen without looking and shove it back in my pocket. Did she see that? Please, God, tell me she didn’t… "Work stuff. Continue, please."
"Oh, I see. I know your work at NYPD must be demanding, so it’s okay." Emily stands with a soft smile, setting her napkin on the table carefully. "Excuse me, I'm going to run to the ladies' room for just one second."
I shortly smile back and nod, but the moment she's out of sight, I yank my phone back out.
For God’s sake… A fucking dickpic! Is he for real? Isn’t he too old for that kind of shit?
Okay, maybe thirty-six is not that old, he’s less than a decade older than me, but still… Isn’t the head of the Kenneth crime family at his age supposed to be more mature and cold headed?
His unhingedness sometimes makes my inability to catch him even more infuriating.
The first photo is only a large tattooed hand wrapped around the base of the massive cock. It seems achingly hard, thick and with veins along the shaft that as if leading to an angry-red head. Shit, is that size even real?
But it’s the second picture that makes my blood pressure spike when I open it. A wider shot of the room he took the first one in.
Red leather restraints hanging from hooks. A St. Andrew's cross bolted to the wall and a leather bench. There’s hell of a toys I don't have names for arranged on a shelves like a fucking museum exhibit.
Clearly some fucked-up BDSM playroom.
No wonder he’s into something like that. Sick bastard.
I delete both messages, jaw tight, pulse hammering in my ears. Anger burns through my veins hot enough to leave scorch marks. My hands shake slightly as I shove the phone back in my pocket, but the memories hit before I can stop them.
Atlas in cuffs in the back of my squad car.
Grey eyes locked on mine through the rearview mirror, dark-blond hair disheveled. And that slow, mischievous smirk spreading across his face. Leaning forward as far as the cuffs would allow, voice low and amused in my ear when he whispered the words that I still can’t get out of my mind.
"You're so pretty when you're angry, Detective Vance. Almost like a big spicy kitten… so fucking adorable."
He'd laughed when I told him to shut the fuck up. Laughed even harder when I threatened to add resisting arrest to his charges, treating the whole thing like entertainment. Like I was the punchline to a joke only he understood. Like…
No, stop it.
That bastard doesn't deserve to occupy this much real estate in my head. Doesn't deserve any space at all, really. But here we are…
Emily returns, sliding back into her seat with a smile that's trying very hard to resurrect the evening. "So, as I was saying, little Aiden…"
"Right. The penguins." I force my attention back to her, to the date my mother orchestrated with maternal concern about my nonexistent personal life ‘because of my excessive workaholism.’ "He thought they were cold."
"Exactly! And then, and oh you'll love this one, then he asked if we could bring them home to live in his bathtub, and I had to explain that penguins need very specific environments, and he got this look on his face like I'd just told him Santa wasn't real, and…"
She keeps talking. Something about finger painting now, I think. Or maybe we've moved on to playground safety protocols. Not sure. I'm nodding at appropriate intervals, making vague affirming sounds, but my brain is still stuck in that squad car two years ago.
Atlas's voice. That smirk. The way he looked at me like he knew something I didn't.
I finish the date on autopilot. Pay the check while Emily talks about her summer vacation plans. Drive her home to her apartment in Brooklyn. She lives above a bakery, because of course she does. The whole building probably smells like cinnamon rolls and unrealized potential.
At her door, she touches my arm, fingers light and hopeful. "Do you want to come up?"
"Sorry," I step back, putting space between us that feels both necessary and cruel. "I have some business to take care of. But I'll call you."
We both know I won't. She kisses my cheek anyway, her disappointment polite and practiced. "It was really nice meeting you, Theo. Tell your mom I said thank you for setting this up."
I will not be telling my mother anything. Except maybe that Emily deserves better than a man who spent half the date thinking about the man he's been failing to catch.
Alone in my car, I sit in the dark for a long moment.
The street is quiet. Brooklyn at night is all brownstones and tree-lined sidewalks with people living normal lives behind lit windows. Lives that don't include stalker texts from mafia bosses.
Then my phone buzzes again.
DO NOT ANSWER: Finally you got rid of that chick. Was worried you'd decide to cheat on me and actually fuck her…
DO NOT ANSWER: It would’ve made me feel bad for you, actually. I know you’re not interested in pussies after all.
DO NOT ANSWER: That’s why you're still a virgin at 25, isn’t it, kitten?
DO NOT ANSWER: Saving yourself for my huge c…
I deleted that shit without even finishing reading. Fuck. Him. Sideways.
My hands shake where they grip the steering wheel. Pure, undiluted rage tastes like copper and feels like failure.
He’s playing games with my life like I'm some toy he picked up at a specialty shop. Sending dickpics while I'm on dates. Watching me somehow in real time. Always.
But it doesn’t matter. I'm going to catch that scumbag even if it's the last thing I do.
Because Atlas isn't just some mobster playing twisted games. He's involved in my father's murder, and I’m not letting him get away with that.

Nemesis in Love
30 Chapters
30
Contents

Save

My Passion
Copyright © 2026 Passion
XOLY LIMITED, 400 S. 4th Street, Suite 500, Las Vegas, NV 89101