Page 7 of Captive Audience

What the fuck? Was I going crazy? I couldn’t have imagined the person following me.

I wasn’t about to stick around to become an episode in someone else’s podcast. Time to get the hell out of here.

5

ROOK

In an alleyway with Tate shoved against a wall, I held my knife to his throat and a hand over his mouth. The passing train disguised our sounds.

Asha sped away, and only then did my shoulders relax. She was safe for now.

“Hey, Lorenzo. Remember me?”

Judging by the bastard’s wide eyes and rapid breaths, he did. Good. That meant I didn’t need to explain the level of shite he was in.

“Why were you following my woman?”

He shook his head frantically, mumbling something. I couldn’t understand him with my hand over his mouth, although to be honest, I wasn’t interested in anything Tate had to say.

But Ididwant him to know how he’d screwed up before he met his maker.

“Aye. She’s mine, and you just made the biggest mistake of your wretched fucking life.”

I slammed the blade into his neck and twisted, ripping through flesh and cartilage until I hit bone.

Tate made gurgling sounds. I took my hand away from his mouth. It opened and closed as he tried to speak, but his brain hadn’t caught up to the fact that his windpipe was severed.

“What’s that, mate?” I cocked my ear toward him. “Did you sayyou’re sorry for trying to hurt her? For scaring her? For even thinking about touching what doesn’t belong to you?”

Tate’s body shook, and he clutched at his neck. Blood spewed from the wound, spraying my hoodie. Shite. I liked this one. Now I’d have to burn it.

Not my cleanest kill but satisfying as hell. His eyes glazed over mid-spasm.

No onethreatened my Wildfire and got away with it. Least of all this vile excuse for a human. What would Tate have done to her if I hadn’t been here to end him?

I tossed him to the filthy ground, wiped my knife on his jacket, and returned it to my pocket.

Why would Tate come back here, knowing he had a death sentence hanging over his head? I crouched beside his body and patted him down until I found a phone. I held the screen to his lifeless face, and it unlocked.

He’d left an encrypted communication app open. It contained only one text message:

White. 20 to 30. Real breasts. Real red hair. Client will refuse fake.

For a moment, I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Just stared at the screen as Tate’s intent for Asha snapped into focus.

“You motherfucking sack of shite.”

He’d been about to pluck her from the street and sell her off to be some deranged bastard’s fuck toy.

Red-hot rage surged inside me. The phone creaked in my hand from how hard I gripped it.

I had the overwhelming urge to bring the corpse at my feet back to life so I could murder him all over again.

6

ASHA

The next evening, curled up on my lumpy secondhand couch, I went through my usual routine of trawling news sites. Local outlets first, then Reddit, then a few true-crime boards that updated faster than the mainstream stuff.