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Chapter Five

Rafael

I watch as Mancini strokes her shoulder and fiery rage blooms in my veins. How dare he fucking touch her.

Then she smiles. At him.

That golden, glowing smile, aimed at Mancini’s slimy face. I could kill him, right here, right now.

I take a deep breath, loosening my tie. My heart pounds like a war drum in my chest, my breathing constricted. I imagine my hands wrapped around his throat, his face turning blue.

When did my rage re-direct from the waitress to Mancini? I wonder. I should be fantasizing about wrapping my hands around her throat, not his.

That image has the opposite effect on me, as rage slowly transforms into lust. My cock twitches and I groan. How the hell does she do this to me? Every time I think about her, my body turns into that of a middle-school boy discovering porn for the first time.

I’ve never been one for love, but I’ve been with my fair share of women. Some casual, some more long-term. The one-night stands never mattered to me. I never even bothered to ask their names—a quick fuck and I was out of there.

The long-term ones were less about emotion and more about business. Arm candy. There was always an understanding: they keep me satisfied; I keep them dripping in diamonds.

No woman, in the entirety of my life, has ever had this effect on me. This waitress— Lux Davis— has fully infiltrated my mind, claiming it as her own, living there rent-free twenty-four hours a day.

I wanted to know how it felt to have that smile aimed at me. I wanted to hear her voice, moaning my name. Her laugh, ringing in my ears. I needed to trace every single curve, every contour of her body, with my hands, my lips, my tongue.

My phone rings, pulling me out of my fantasies. I glance across the street, seeing her face drop as Mancini strolls away from her. She looks around nervously, her eyes darting left and right.

She can feel me watching her. It’s getting to her—messing with her mind. She’s quickly realizing she’s the prey, but she can’t figure out who the hunter is yet.

She smooths her hair and spins around, the golden waves tumbling down to the small of her back. Her outfit is too slutty tonight. It doesn’t feel like it suits her but I trace the curve of her ass in those tiny shorts with my eyes anyway.

Deliciously spankable.

She ducks into the bar and I crack the window, letting the cool nighttime air in. Not wanting to sit in my car with a hard-on like a pervert anymore, I take a few deep breaths and check the missed call.

“Enzo.”

“Boss,” he greets me. “Stopped by Rocky’s earlier like you asked. He fired her.”

“Excellent,” I tell him, a smile spreading across my face. I’m about to hang up when an idea hits me. “Meet me at her place in thirty minutes.”

“Done.”

“And bring the good cameras,” I say, starting the car. “I’d like to keep a closer eye on her.”

Enzo confirms and hangs up as I pull out of my parking spot. I tell myself that installing hidden cameras in her home will help me get to know her better. That I’ll be able to play the game I have in mind easier.

But I know, deep down, there’s an ulterior motive. My obsession with the waitress keeps growing, and seeing her in such an intimate setting, in her own home, will keep feeding it.

I pull up to her building at the same time as Enzo. We park in the back and I walk over to him as he pops his trunk. We study the equipment he brought.

“I figure these offer the best quality-to-size ratio,” he explains, pointing at a set of microscopic cameras. “It won’t be perfect, but the chances of her ever finding them are low.”

I nod. “Bring them.”

We stick to the shadows in the parking lot while making our way to the back door. Enzo grabs the handle but the door doesn’t budge. I trace my finger along the seam. Painted shut. That’s a fire hazard.

“Did you come through here last time?”

“Nah, I just used the front door.” He points through the alley. “There’s no security. Come and go as you please.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. The idea of some low-grade thief or aspiring serial killer walking into her building undetected made my blood run cold.

“Put a camera in the lobby,” I tell him, leading the way to the front door. We turn the corner into semi-darkness.

The light out front is burned out, and the lobby inside is pitch black. The rickety door swings open with the breeze and I shake my head. How does she live like this?

“On second thought,” I tell him, glancing into the inky blackness. “One at the entrance, one in the lobby, and one in the stairwell.”

Enzo shoots me a weird look but gets to work. I pull out my phone, using it as a flashlight, and climb the stairs. Her floor only has three units on it and I locate her door quickly.

I inspect the dinky lock and anger curls in my belly. Any moron with half a brain could pick this lock in three seconds. I smash my fist against it and the doorknob rattles to the floor. I give the door a light kick and it swings right open.

“Fucking hell…”

I make a mental note to coerce the shitty slumlord who owns this place to install better locks on his doors. Wandering into her dark apartment, I take a deep breath. It smells of cinnamon, coffee, and clean laundry. I commit the scent to memory.

The place is tiny. A one-room space with a bed tucked in the corner, a curtain separating it from the living area. My body barely fits in her kitchen but I pull open her fridge to see it completely empty. That simply won’t do. How is she surviving?

The rest of the space isn’t much better. A sagging velvet sofa sits haphazardly in the middle of the room. Bookshelves line an entire wall, stuffed to the brim. I wander over, pulling books out at random. Travel books, memoirs, art history textbooks, romance novels—her taste is all over the place.

A stack of canvases against the opposite wall catches my eye. I walk over, turning them around, but they’re blank. The rest of the space is filled with plants, many of them looking a little worse for wear. I ignore them, walking to her bed.

Like a fucking perv, I stare at it, hypnotized. The urge to lay down in her sheets and bury my nose in her pillows, just to feel the memories of her here, drives me forward. I stroke a pillow, imagining her head resting on it.

“Boss, where do you want the cameras in here?” Enzo’s voice pulls me from my twisted desires.

I shake my head, shocked at my current mental state. Was I really about to climb into this girl’s bed? What the fuck is wrong with me?

I gesture vaguely around the place. “This shithole is so tiny, it doesn’t matter…just make sure to have a clear shot of the door, wherever you put them.”

“On it.”

Enzo gets to work while I stand there, resisting every sinister urge I have to go explore her bathroom. The overwhelming, intoxicating knowledge of being in her apartment finally gets to me, and I excuse myself.

I practically fly down the darkened stairwell and burst out onto the sidewalk.

You’re the son of Dominic Romano, The Wolf. Powerful. Lethal. Bullet-proof. Get a fucking grip on yourself.

I pull myself together quickly and stroll to the car, leaving Enzo to finish up by himself. As I drive home to the other side of the city, I contemplate what’s going on with me.

This isn’t the first time I’ve played games with a victim before ending their life. In fact, this little cat-and-mouse game has become one of my favorite torture methods, but something feels off here.

Usually, it built up the anticipation. Every move, every taunt, every look of fear on their face upped the ante and made me more excited to end them. But I’ve been thinking less and less about killing her and more and more about fucking her.

I push the image out of my mind. The plan is revenge and I’m following through. She deserves the pain, the slow death I have planned for her. She killed my father , I remind myself.

But a niggling thought in the darkest recesses of my brain stops me.

Are you sure?