Welcome to the first chapter of Dark Temptation!

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Logan

"Will I see you again?"

"Sera, please answer me,"

"I want to touch you so bad. I want to hold you in my arms one last time and feel your pulse, but I've got these fucking cuffs on me."

The monster inside my head was screaming for me to touch her. To grab hold of her and pull her into my arms. To break my own wrists just so that I could escape the handcuffs and reach her.

The feeling of control slipping from my fingertips warned me to calm down. The fast racing of my heart was solely an indication that my body was working overdrive to remain calm against the raging storm in my mind telling me otherwise.

But something else was lingering in my chest. Something that felt almost like anguish. Was this heartbreak? Or was it regret? I'd assume it was both, even though I rarely ever felt emotions as such. I deduced that it was regret for what I'd done to Sera, and heartbreak because I was slowly losing her.

Regret and heartbreak were not things that a psychopath could feel... So what was it?

"Please follow the rules, I don't want you to stay any longer than necessary." Her soft voice was angelic and healing. Calming to the heart and soul, but at the same time like a punch in the gut. She was so close, yet so far. Part of me was convinced that I was hallucinating and that I'd just dreamt up the last five months.

"You didn't answer my question, Sweetheart. Please," My voice sounded strange to my own ears. My hands were shackled by metal cuffs, securely attached to the metal bar on the table and making my skin itch with the need to break them.

"You won't see me again."

She was right.

It's been four months of confinement. Four months since I'd last seen Seraphina Muller.

Her eyes were haunting me. I'd see them at every turn I made. It would blind me and cause chaos in my mind. I struggled to take a hold of myself and at times, I would go into autopilot. A direct result of the chaos that I couldn't control.

I'd lasted four months without getting into a single fight. I kept to myself most times and didn't bother to fuel any unwanted feud between with my fellow inmates. I even maintained my animosity towards the familiar guards who mocked me since I came back in.

My face was painted a blank canvas and I was sure that not a single soul could tell what I was thinking or feeling.

My resolve was going strong. My motivation was to stay out of trouble and bare patience as much as I could. The thought of seeing Sera again kept me going to the point I was considered well-behaved for four months.

Most the scum in this place were here because they deserved to be. I'd overheard multiple conversations between inmates or even the guards about why certain prisoners were here. They'd done some horrible shit. They were scum and deserved to be here. The lowest of the low, and I belonged in the same group.

My eyes closed on their own accord and I clenched my fists, feeling my blood boiling. I looked at my bunkmate, the urge to get rid of him having manifested since I'd first gotten here. He was a brawny asshole who pissed me off just by breathing. I resisted the urge to off him every night. To suffocate him to his demise and relish in the joy of seeing the life slip from his eyes.

The thought of his head rolling down the corridor set my body afire. The feeling of adrenaline and rage would pump through me, an all too familiar experience of emotions I felt whenever I was overwhelmed with urge. Urge that was created by my desire for chaos and destruction.

After four months, I prided myself for how much I'd mastered my self-control. I was doing great. If I went on for the rest of my time in this manner, I'd get through my sentence much easier and quicker than I thought.

It was until I overheard him talking with another inmate that completely ruined all the progress I'd made.

They were talking about me and the reason that I was put in here. It was typical for inmates to do this as they had fuck all else to do with their time. I didn't give a shit until they spoke about someone that caused me to stop dead in my tracks.

Sera.

"Yo, that dude that you share a cell with, what the fuck is his deal?" Some other scum brought up the conversation.

It was when I was just about to round the corner of the yard when I stopped, the broom that I was using to clean halting in my hands with me.

"You mean Logan Rivera? He's fucking crazy is what's up. Dude was labelled a psychopath in court for beating up his bitch almost to death. This is his second time here."

That's not what happened.

Sera is not a bitch.

"No shit? I knew he was crazy."

Crazier than someone who murders old ladies?

"Apparently she's the daughter of some extremely rich asshole. Heard she was like fifteen or something. So young and already fishing for dick that's years older than her."

"What a little whore," his nasty laugh made my blood boil to levels I didn't think it had ever reached. "I wonder if she'd still want some more after what that little shit did to her."

That was the moment that I lost it and realised that I wasn't getting better. I realised that for the last four months, it was all an act and a tense show of self-control due to the desperate need to see Sera.

Before I knew it, I'd broken the broom stick in half. Using the sharp end of where it broke, I found myself shoving it straight in the side of my cellmate's back. The broomstick ended up getting lodged into him and he howled out in pain before collapsing to the ground.

His friend tried to help him, but I'd hit the second half of the broom so hard against his head, he ended up on the ground and bleeding.

It didn't stop there.

The monster inside of me, after being locked away for four months, reared its ugly head and took full control of my body. Any hope for self control was lost.

I pulled the stick from my cellmate's back and kicked him harshly in the stomach till he was kneeling over and spitting blood. I then slammed the bloody stick onto the other scum's head.

It still didn't stop there.

Alarms went off in the distance of the court yard and my little bloody show had caught the attention of other inmates and the guards.

I wasn't sure how long it took for them to reach us, but the two men who were talking badly about Sera, was unconscious when I was finally contained.

By the time night had reached, I was still in the solitary confinement cell that they shoved me in after I politely interacted with my two fellow inmates earlier in the courtyard. My clothes were still bloody from the events that took place. My knuckles were also bloody for some reason, even though I barely recall using them to beat those clowns up. 

I stared down at my hands in the dark cell, every fibre of my skin on fire. My hands were shaking and my skin itching.

This feeling... I had it the first time when I was fifteen. I couldn't describe it or why I felt it, but it was hollow and empty while at the same time burning with flames. It urged me to cause destruction... And the destruction always involved people. Some were deserving like the two shits whom I nearly killed earlier that day, while others were just innocent and poor souls who were unlucky enough to cross paths with me. 

Like my Sera. 

And that little shit of a friend of hers that she called Parker. As annoying as he was, I had enough decency to know that he didn't deserve what I'd done to him.

I grew up hating people. Perhaps that's why I was so fucked up and felt no sympathy or care for other people. Or why I cared nothing about doing them harm.

My father was the same, devoid of basic human emotions like sympathy and kindness. He viewed the world through a negative lens, convinced that everyone only cared about themselves and would betray him at the first opportunity. To him, the world operated on a hunter–prey system, where only the ruthless and strong could avoid becoming the prey.

For years I had this way of thinking, despite everything my mom had taught me otherwise.

I believed that people were inherently bad and time and time again I was proven right. Dads were beating up their kids. Moms were selling their bodies for money. A prostitute would let you have her until she was unconscious just for thirty bucks. She'd let you lick drugs off of her for less. These people were plain scum.

However, they weren't the only kinds of people. There were people out there living normal and decent lives, disguised as honest when really, they were snakes. Greedy, jealous, pretentious, arrogant, and the list went on. They inhibited qualities that rendered them weak and stupid, and unashamed to be trash.

Gabriel was the first person, besides my mother, to show me that kindness still existed. He helped me see people in a different light and made me realize—even for a moment—that not everyone was a selfish and greedy asshole.

Yet it wasn't enough. I was too deep into my own fucked up, self-hating and cunning mind for Gabe's kindness to be enough to bring me into the light.

But her...

"Inmate," a hand slammed onto the metal door from outside my cell to alert me. I barely flinched. "You'll be in solitary confinement for two weeks. Your sentence will be assessed and you'll be striked with a level three warning. The harsh and brutal nature of the violence you inflicted on your fellow inmates could add time to your sentence. That was assault with a weapon too. You have no warnings left before you'll be staying here longer. Damn animal."

He was right. I was an animal. I sometimes thought like one too, which made living as a normal person in society much harder. If you constantly went around with a mindset of survival and kill or be killed, you would end up as messed up and maniacal as me.

"I hope you got that." He mumbled before walking away.

I sighed and rested back onto the cold and hard wall, unable to see anything except the light shining from the little opening on the door. There was no bed in here so I had to sleep on the floor. Not that it mattered. Father used to lock me in our cold basement and there was no bed in there either. I guess I should've thanked him for preparing me for this.

I closed my eyes that night in peace, feeling far lighter than I did earlier on. My mind then swarmed with the image of blue eyes, framed by long strands of light golden hair, and the pinkest lips attached to the prettiest smile I'd ever seen.

My lips curved up into a small smile.

Two years and eight months to go before she was mine again. Once I got her back, I would never let her go.

Sleep tight, my sweet angel.

***

My two weeks in solitary confinement finally ended. I learned that my cellmate was still hospitalised and I would have felt imminent joy if it weren't for the heavy internal disappointed I felt for myself.

I wasn't disappointed that I beat the crap out of the scum that spoke shit about my most beloved. The disappointment stemmed towards my lack of self-control, after I'd prided myself for four months straight of good behaviour.

I could have punched those two scumbags and left it at that. Instead, I ended up with a bloody broomstick broken in half and bloody fists that I had no idea how I'd gotten. Being blinded by fury and becoming a different person was not something I was new to.

When they finally told me my visiting penalties were lifted, I almost wanted to sock the guard in his face for his smugness, knowing full well that no one ever visited me. Imagine my surprise when he said I had a visitor.

Could it be Gabriel? Or... Sera?

The mere thought that it could be Sera sent me into overdrive. I wanted to see her so badly; it would bring me joy and motivate me to get better. But seeing her like this would be fucking embarrassing. She was the only person whose opinion about me mattered.

This prison outfit was so ugly, and I hadn't shaved in five months—not for two weeks before being locked up, nor during my time inside. My overgrown beard made me look like a different person. Sera wouldn't even recognize me; she'd be disgusted. I'd look like a train wreck next to her radiant, angelic beauty, without a flaw in sight.

Was I feeling insecure? Fuck, she really humanised me and made me feel all types of shit I'd never felt in a long time.

These thoughts were spiralling in my mind while I followed the guard towards the visiting room. When we entered, my eyes scanned the entire place filled with tables and benches. Inmates sat in the visiting room with their wives and family, talking and chatting up the area.

I couldn't find golden blonde hair anywhere and disappointment filled me. Sera wasn't my visitor, nor was Gabriel by the looks of things. 

I almost laughed at myself for how ridiculous I was for thinking they'd visit me—my best friend since I was eleven and his little sister. The girl who had stolen whatever heart I had left in my chest. Who infiltrated my thoughts and my dreams everyday since I met her. The girl whom I never wanted to stop looking at for the rest of my life. Whom I wanted to protect and cherish forever.

"Table number fifteen, there is a woman looking to see you." The guard pointed towards a table where a woman with black hair tied up in a bun was sitting. Her back was toward me but she looked extremely familiar regardless. 

"Who is she?" I asked.

"I have no idea, go see for yourself. You know the visitor rules, Rivera. Or do I have to repeat them?"

I stared at him blankly for a few seconds before turning my attention back to my visitor. Without bothering to respond, I walked towards where she was sitting. I moved towards her slowly, my eyes never leaving the back of her head. My mind knew who she was but the stupid organ in my chest that Sera revitalised was somewhat holding me back from that thought. 

"Mother," I said as I approached, taking the seat on the bench opposite to her. I placed my cuffed hands on the the table and took in the petite woman sitting in front of me. The woman who was once my best friend and mother. Now a stranger. 

She looked up from where her hands were nervously fidgeting with itself and froze as soon as her eyes met mine. "Logan," she breathed out, swallowing hard.

"What do you want?" I cut straight to the point, not wanting to sit here and look at her any longer.

"Logan," She said again, this time wetness welling up at her eyes at a fast rate.

I sighed and relaxed in my seat, deciding to be a good person today and have patience with her. I couldn't deny that my heart rate picked up due to surprise, and that the emotions I thought I'd buried at fifteen flooded back to me.

Childhood memories came rushing in, but I forced them into a vague and void part of my mind. During my last prison stay, I had become an expert at shoving feelings and memories away, which helped me prepare for the possibility of seeing this woman again.

"It's really you. You have grown so, so much." The tears were now visibly sliding down her cheeks and she clutched the area of her heart tightly.

Oh, please.

"Why are you here, Mother? I assume I made headlines for the reason that I'm in here, but that was four months ago. This is a very random and odd time for you to decide to torment your son with your presence." I mocked.

"How are you? How have you been doing?" She asked, too consumed by emotions to pay attention to my little comment at the end. Or perhaps she noticed, but thought to ignore it.

"How have I been doing?" I repeated lowly. I decided to be honest with her, not caring what she thought about me. "A lot shitter than I look to be honest. I recently lost the only meaningful people in my life because of something I did, and I almost killed two inmates two weeks ago. That's what happens when I'm having a shitty day. So yeah, those type of events mess with a person, ya know? Regardless of whether they're a psychopath or not. Other than that, and if you forget the last ten years, I've just been peachy."

He shook her head and wiped her tears away but they wouldn't stop. "You're not a psychopath, Logan."

"Did you not hear what I did? And that's mild compared to my history of doing unspeakable things." I chuckled, half amused and half annoyed. It was as if my residual anger at her for leaving me was doing all of the talking, wanting to show her that she took part in raising an animal of a son. I was a walking reflection of her failure.

She shook her head and tried to maintain herself—wiping at her eyes and nose with a tissue. I finally took a real good look at my mother and felt like someone just stepped on my dick with a crowbar.

She looked the same but older and more tired, with blue bags under her eyes that looked permanent. I remember my mother being radiant and the most beautiful lady under the sun, but now she just looked exhausted.

I couldn't help myself when the next words blurted out of my mouth, "Are you okay?"

A surprised smile formed at her lips when she focused on me again, her blotchy face now clean of tears. "I'm okay. I'm sorry for crying, I promised myself I would control my emotions before I came here. But seeing you so grown up, so healthy and handsome, I couldn't help it. You look so much like your father."

"Don't you dare mention that pile of trash to me ever again. I look nothing like him." I said through gritted teeth, anger flooding my system and my fists clenching.

She noticed my visible signs of anger and swallowed, her clear nervousness showing. She had reservations about me just as everyone else and her fear showed. Why wouldn't she? Everyone feared me after knowing what I'd done. Expecting this stranger who I hadn't seen in eight years to treat me differently was stupid.

"I'm sorry," She apologized. "I didn't mean to upset you. I hated him too, you know? I hated him but was too blind to realise it."

"Well, it's too late for any of that shit." I spat. "Your hatred came too late, and do you know what it caused, Mother? It caused an abomination. Me— a walking piece of trash that hasn't caught a break since you brought that monster back into our lives and then left me. Right under your nose, you let the devil turn an innocent boy into his own kind. I'm glad that you managed to get away unscathed and turn your life around, but I'm not gonna pretend to give a shit about you. I don't care about people easily and in fact, I find it really fucking hard to care. So whatever it is you have to say to me, you can keep it to yourself."

"I'm so sorry, I never meant for any of that to happen." She sniffled, her hazel eyes sad and haunted. Regret shone in her expression and her body was shaking. I wanted to care but I wasn't lying when I told her that it was hard for me to develop that feeling of giving a shit. 

Even towards her.

"Well, too bad. We can't go back in time and change the past. We have to live with the consequences. And I've suffered every single day since that monster came back into my life because of your choices. So thanks for nothing, Mother. And thanks for leaving me." I couldn't help the way a slight bit of emotion leaked from my tone. I stood up from my seat and without sparing her a glance, a proceeded to walk away.

I was a coward because my empty prison cell sounded more appealing than confronting my mother.

Before I could get any further, hands grabbed onto the bottom of my tshirt. I looked down at my mom and narrowed my eyes, having half the mind to shove her away from me. Her presence burned and it took massive self-control just to be there.

"Get your hands off of me." I warned in a low tone.

"Logan, please sit down. I have something to say."

"Then say it. Don't try to apologise about events that can't be changed and just get to the fucking point." I said in annoyance.

She nodded and looked at the empty seat ahead of her. I sighed in annoyance and sat down back where I was.

"What do you want?"

"I want to help you."

"Help me? Will you reduce my sentence? Like how, flirt and seduce the judge who put me in here?" I asked sarcastically, my tone dry and bored even though her statement piqued my interest.

She sighed and a look of hurt flashed across her face. I felt my heart soften a bit, but I shoved any feelings away.

"Actually, I can't help reduce your sentence. You're just going to have to stay till it's over and pay for what you've done." She said softly.

My fists clenched slightly in annoyance. I hated how she said 'pay for what you've done'. It was rich coming from her. The woman with an award for 'the most useless mother to grace the planet'.

"But I'm concerned about the after. When you're released again. I want to help you get back onto your feet. And I think I know how."

My eyes narrowed. "How?"

"Tell me that you're in and I'll tell you how."

"Fuck that. I'm not agreeing to shit if you don't tell me what you're planning. I don't trust you at all."

"I understand that you don't trust me anymore. But please," her voice dropped with sadness. "Let me help you."

"The last woman who said 'let me help you' didn't end up well. In fact, she ended up traumatised by me. Do you want to end up the same? Like I said, I'm an abomination and I can't help it." I shrugged, although my heart clenched in the slightest bit as I thought about Sera.

"You're my son. I care more about you more than myself," I scoffed and let out a laugh at her claim. "And I'm finally ready to help you. Please let me."

"No can do. You're wasting my time. I was busy counting the amount of stains on the ceiling in my cell until you disrupted me. I found it more entertaining than talking to you." I moved to stand up again when her next words had me frozen in place.

"What about Seraphina?"

"What did you just say?" I asked lowly, my eyes narrowing.

"Seraphina? Or Sera, for short. A lovely girl. I met her." She smiled warmly.

"If you touched her or hurt her in any single way, I do not fucking care that I'm already locked up or that you're my mother, you'll regret it."

A flicker of worry flashed in her eyes, but it left almost instantly. "I wanted to say that I met her and that she's absolutely lovely. I can see why you fell so deeply in love with her."

I gulped and rested back onto my seat, my hands shaking. I didn't mean to threaten my mother in such an ugly manner, but as usual, Sera triggered my most protective and ugly side.

I stared at the star tattoo on my hand that I recently got, and tried controlling my breathing.

"She's my everything, and I lost her." I mumbled softly, the anger in me suddenly washing away and both regret and the annoying feeling of sadness settling inside me.

"Logan, if you let me help you, I'll help you win her back too."

My hands froze in place. "How will you help me then?"

"If you trust me, I'll help you leave your negative lifestyle behind. There are doctors, therapists, and professionals across the world who specialise and have experience in helping young men like you get better. I can give you access to all of it. I can give you ways to turn your life around. Sera is a good girl, and she deserves a good guy who would only love and cherish her, not hurt her. Don't you want to be that guy?"

I gulped and looked at my mom, and for the first time since she got here, my guard completely shattered as my protective walls came down. No one other than Sera has seen my vulnerable side in years.

"I know you can heal, Logan. I believe in you." Sera's words of months ago echoed in my head, her naive smile etched into my brain.

She was still too young and naive to deal with someone like me, and half the time the things she said stemmed from the happy and thoughtless dreaming of an optimistic teenage girl. But she was kind. And she always believed in me. She always had.

And I let her down.

"So what do you say?" My mother's optimistic voice reached my ears and I snapped out if my trance. I hadn't even noticed that she held my hands in hers. When did that happen and why didn't I immediately pull away?

I swallowed, my throat feeling dry. "I don't know how you'll do it, but I'm in."

Her smile brightened and she squeezed my hands. "I won't let you down, my son. My beautiful boy."

I didn't fully believe her and as someone who always expected disappointment, I let her hold my hands for seconds too long.

But I couldn't pull away. Because for the first time in a long time, I had hope again.

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A/n. Please vote, comment and let me know what you thought about this chapter!

- Ciao🌸

(Note: I'll be batch posting the original story of 'Dark Love' (book 1) for free on Inkitt. I'll also post a rewritten version on Wattpad so stay tuned!)