Title: The Devil's Favorite Lie
Genre: Dark Romance | Psychological | Thriller | Obsession | Contemporary
POV: Dual (Female + Male alternating for depth)
Tone: Intense, emotional, sensual, and morally grey.
🌹 MAIN CHARACTERS
Elara Quinn (Ela)
Age: 24
Occupation: Forensic journalist
Appearance: Pale skin, piercing grey-blue eyes, waist-length black hair, a scar across her left wrist.
Personality: Smart, fearless, emotionally fractured. Skilled in manipulation when cornered.
Past: Survived a violent kidnapping 3 years ago. Since then, she investigates missing women cases — unknowingly crossing paths with her predator's successor.
Goal: Uncover truth behind a chain of disappearances connected to a shadow syndicate.
Weakness: Haunted by guilt and sexual fear, but drawn to danger.
Damen Vale
Age: 31
Occupation: Unknown (criminal network leader — runs "The Vale Syndicate")
Appearance: 6'3", sharp jawline, tattooed forearm, cold blue eyes, commanding aura.
Personality: Calm, predatory, strategic. Sees people as puzzles.
Twist: He was the one who rescued Elara years ago — or did he orchestrate it?
Goal: Own her — body, mind, and soul.
Weakness: His obsession with Elara is consuming him; she mirrors everything he hides.
⚠️Disclaimer
This novel contains mature, dark, and psychological themes including violence, obsession, manipulation, and sexual content meant for 18+ readers. It explores real-world emotional trauma and moral ambiguity — reader discretion is advised.
Author's Note
This story isn't about perfect love — it's about survival, scars, and surrendering to the darkness we fear most.
Welcome to The Devil's Favorite Lie — where love and cruelty are indistinguishable.
Prologue 💀
Rain hits the window like a thousand whispered confessions.
The city doesn't sleep it hunts. Neon bleeds across wet streets, sirens hum like lullabies for the broken, and somewhere in the chaos, Elara Quinn writes another story that feels too familiar.
She presses her pen against the notepad, her wrist trembling.
The movement makes her sleeve slide up just enough to expose the thin scar running along her left wrist — pale against her skin, a reminder carved in silence.
She doesn't flinch anymore.
Pain is an old friend that no longer asks for permission to visit.
Her small apartment in the London's East end felts colder than usual.
The sound of the rain drowns everything except the static inside her chest. On the table: a stack of unsent letters, a mug gone cold, and crime photos — all women. All gone.
Elara's latest case is titled The Waverly Street Disappearances.
Five women in two months. No leads. No witnesses. Only rumors of a black car and the scent of burnt cologne left behind.
She knows that smell.
It used to cling to her hair for days expensive, masculine, intoxicating.
Her phone vibrates.
Once. Twice.
Unknown number.
She hesitates before opening it.
But curiosity is the only drug she's never been able to quit.
Unknown: "You're looking for me again, little liar?"
For a second, her lungs forget how to work.
Every sound fades except her heartbeat — slow, thunderous, alive with dread.
The last time someone called her little liar, she was nineteen and covered in bruises.
The last time she heard that voice, it whispered things that still haunt her dreams.
Her fingers tremble over the phone, but she forces herself to type.
Elara: "Who is this?"
Unknown: "You already know."
Her stomach knots.
She stands, pacing, the floorboards creaking like old bones.
No one should know this number. It's new. Private. The one she never gave to anyone except her editor.
A drop of rain slips through the half-open window, landing on her desk right on a photograph of one of the missing girls. The ink smears, the girl's face dissolving into nothing.
Elara exhales shakily.
It's starting again.
Three years ago.
A basement. A locked door.
The metallic scent of blood and rust.
She remembers his voice — low, commanding, patient.
She never saw his face fully, but she remembers his words.
"You lie so beautifully, Elara. I almost believe you."
He had saved her, or so she thought. Pulled her from the edge, given her a second chance at life.
But later, she learned the truth — that monsters sometimes rescue you just to watch you run again.
And now, he was back. Or maybe he never left.
A sudden knock echoes through her apartment.
Once.
Twice.
Elara freezes.
Her body reacts before her mind does — reaching for the small pistol tucked beneath her desk drawer.
She walks slowly to the door, every step a heartbeat.
"Who's there?" she calls, voice steady despite the fear clawing at her ribs.
No answer.
Only the hum of the rain.
She peeks through the peephole.
Nothing. Empty hallway.
She exhales. "Get a grip, Ela," she mutters. "He's not here. He's just—"
Her phone buzzes again.
Unknown: "You shouldn't open doors without checking. Bad habits die hard."
Her throat tightens. She drops the phone.
The message is only five seconds old. Whoever he is… he's close.
Across the city, high above the skyline, Damen Vale watches from his penthouse window.
He's dressed in a black shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, cigarette smoke curling around his fingers like temptation. His reflection stares back from the glass — sharp, cold, and unreadable.
Below him, the city sprawls like a living organism pulsing lights, murmuring streets, endless hunger.
He inhales, slow and deliberate.
There's a smirk tugging at his lips, not joy, but recognition.
On the nearby table lies a single photograph — Elara Quinn, smiling faintly in an old press badge photo. Next to it, a silver lighter engraved with a serpent, and a note scrawled in neat cursive:
Find her. Protect her. Or destroy her.
Damen's hand tightens around the lighter. He doesn't remember writing the note. Or maybe he does — in a version of himself he buried long ago.
He turns toward the screen where her apartment feed flickers in grainy detail.
She's pacing. Talking to herself. Beautiful even in fear.
"Still fearless," he murmurs. "Still mine."
He sets the glass down, watching the rain streak the window like veins of light.
Every storm feels like the night he first saw her — bound, terrified, lying about everything except the fear in her eyes.
And still, she lied beautifully.
Back in Elara's apartment, she locks the door, double-checking every bolt. Her breathing steadies just enough to think.
Maybe it's a prank. Maybe her past is catching up through someone else's hands.
But deep down, she knows better.
Because the air feels heavier now — like he's already in the room.
She walks back to her desk, picks up her recorder, and whispers into it:
"If I disappear, his name is Damen Vale."
It's the first time she's said it aloud in years. The sound of it tastes like sin.
Midnight.
The storm outside has quieted to a steady drizzle.
Elara sits cross-legged on her bed, laptop open, researching.
Every record of Damen Vale is buried or falsified. No birth record. No tax files. Only whispers — the kind criminals trade in dark corners.
The Vale Syndicate. Private arms deals. Smuggling. Missing women.
Her screen flickers. Static. Then—black.
Her reflection stares back at her from the dead screen.
Behind her reflection, for a split second, another figure moves — tall, blurred, close.
She whirls around.
Nothing.
The fear rushes back, raw and alive. She clutches her wrist, the scar burning like a warning.
Somewhere in the night, Damen watches from the shadows near her street.
No bodyguards. No car. Just him.
He leans against the hood of his black Aston Martin, cigarette between his lips, watching the faint light from her apartment.
The city hums around him — unaware that a predator stands among them, waiting for a prey that once begged to be saved.
"You lied to me once, Elara," he whispers.
"Let's see how many times you can lie again."
He drops the cigarette into a puddle. The ember dies instantly.
But his hunger doesn't.
Because this time, it's not just about control.
It's about revenge. About truth.
And about the one woman who could ruin him — again.
Elara doesn't sleep that night.
Every sound feels amplified — the clock ticking, the city sighing, her heart remembering.
By dawn, she's already typing her next article. The headline reads:
"The Devil Who Never Left."
She doesn't know why she wrote it. Or who she wrote it for.
But somewhere across the city, Damen smiles as he reads it first — hours before anyone else.
Because he always finds her words.
He always finds her.
And this time, he's not planning to let her run.
💀 End of Prologue