Page 30 of Executing Malice (Jefferson Rejects #4)

LEILA

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“Where are you taking me?” I shout at his back.

My answer is getting shoved up the pull ladder of the attic. The fact that it’s drawn down has me puzzled for a full second before I’m met with a whole, little apartment right over my head.

The few old boxes Mom keeps up here are wedged into one far corner, leaving the rest of the space open for a mattress set up off to one side and a whole computer system connected in the other. The trio of monitors are all flashing and moving, but the middle one has me edging closer.

Dozens of square boxes framing different parts of my house, capturing a dozen different angles. Everything from my bedroom to the bathroom and even the basement.

“What is this?”

He says nothing as he stalks to the chair and drops into it.

“When?” he barks at me.

Staring at another screen with rows upon rows of information on every single person I’ve ever come in contact with, I’m not quick enough to understand .

“What?”

“When were you found?” he repeats sharply.

I swallow audibly before giving him the date. I give him the exact date and the articles I was mentioned in. I know each one by memory. I watch his long fingers fly across the keys. Rapid and sure pulling up my claim.

All I can stare at is the black ink across his knuckles. The name I can just make out in the cold hue of the screen. The neatly woven braid fastened securely around his wrist right next to my red ribbon he’d stolen the other day at the bank.

“Have you been living in my attic?” I ask instead, my brain a jumble of chaos too messy for a single train of thought.

It certainly explained how he was always in my house, always there when he shouldn’t be. But...

“How long?”

He’s ignoring me as he pulls up article after article calling for help locating the family of a girl found badly hurt in the Red Hollow Woods, near Jefferson. There’s a colored photo of me in one of Reed’s oversized T-shirts and baggy sweats. I’m younger, but my face hasn’t changed.

“No,” he’s mumbling to himself as he pulls up another screen with another article describing my miraculous rescue. “This isn’t right. It’s not...”

But he’s not the only one upset .

He’s not the only one confused and a little more than mildly panicked.

I just learned a strange man has been living in my house.

In my attic. That he’s been secretly recording my every movement for possibly months.

He’s now drugged me, tattooed me, pierced me.

He follows me to work. Refuses to show me his face.

And now I’ve enraged him.

I’ve always been afraid of sharing my past with people, but none of them have reacted with such anger.

Such outright fury. It dawns on me that I may have trusted a truly dangerous man.

I’ve watched enough Criminal Minds to recognize when an unsub’s delusions have been shattered.

It’s when they become unpredictable, desperate to get that fantasy back.

I remember my knife in his pocket and my stomach goes cold. Sweat clings to the back of my neck. My limbs go numb as I watch him hammer into the keys and mutter to himself about this not being right.

Heart drumming in my ears, I hazard a slow, careful step back. I just need to get to the hatch. Once I get down the stairs, I can run. I can call Reed. But I need to get out of this airless space. Get away from him.

Regulating my every breath to the best of my abilities, I inch another step. My heel-toe progression seems to be working. I’m getting closer. I can almost reach the opening .

My gaze swings over the sprawling space, linger on the neatly made bed. Everything in the room is neat. It’s dusted and clean. I can’t imagine how long it must have taken to do all this with me just a floor below oblivious.

I think back to the first time I noticed him. It was just beginning to get warm. I can’t pinpoint the exact month, but it’s been long enough that I feel like an idiot for not noticing there was a whole ass man living in my ceiling.

“How did I miss this?” he’s muttering as I dart a quick glance in the direction of the door.

They’re not stairs. I need to turn and crawl out backwards. I need to time it so I don’t fall. Last thing I need is a Misery situation with my legs broken trapped in a house with a possible psychopath.

I reach the edges of the trapdoor, eyes fixed on the man bent over his keyboard. I turn bare feet, putting my back to the opening and slowly crouching.

Everything seems to be going well. I even think I might actually make it ... until I place my weight on the top rung.

The groan may as well have been a bomb going off in the crippling silence. It detonates through the room as loud as my heart hammering in my throat .

My head jerks up right as his snaps around and for a split second, neither of us move. Time itself seems to stand still as we both realize what’s happening.

Then, he’s lunging out of his chair, and I scream. The sound is sudden and unexpected. It bursts out of my chest as I throw myself the rest of the way towards the bottom.

“Leila!”

I don’t stop. I’m about halfway.

My foot slips. I miss a step. I don’t know how far I am, but I hit the hardwood full on my back.

The wind rushes from my lungs even as I wheeze.

Pain spiderwebs down my spine, scatters down my arms and legs.

My head spins wildly in a blur of muted colors.

For a second, I lie there paralyzed, coughing and watching as my stalker scrambles after me.

“Don’t move!” he’s snapping at me.

But fuck that!

Still desperately sucking on air I can’t seem to keep in, I twist over onto my hands and knees and crawl.

The motion takes the world with me in a spiral.

It churns my stomach, but I ignore the swaying walls and floors and keep going.

My goal is to get back up onto my feet and run to the front door only ten feet away, but I can’t seem to find the strength to do it.

The thump of his weight hitting the bottom spurs me. I scramble up, sway when the floor shifts beneath me, but catch myself on the wall .

“Stop running. You could have a concussion,” he barks after me.

“Fuck you!” I throw back over my shoulder. “You ... you are living in my ceiling. You put cameras in my house. You’re crazy.”

“I never said I wasn’t,” he states with such a casual brush off. “But I did it for you.”

“You were watching me for me?” I try to turn, but the numbness in my legs has my ankles catching around each other and I’m falling again.

Only I don’t hit the ground.

His arms pull me into his chest. Crush me even as I flail and kick. As I dig my nails and teeth into every exposed piece of skin I can reach. His snarl of pain fuels me as I draw blood. As it rolls across my tongue and shreds beneath my nails.

“Fucking little demon!” he growls.

Somehow, with some magical ability, he’s captured my wrists.

They’re shackled at my back with one hand while his other hand is fisted in my hair.

He yanks, detaching my teeth from his bicep.

Strings of blood and saliva extend between us before he releases my hair and reaches to rip the mask off his face.

It’s tossed somewhere, but I don’t get to see his face when his mouth is on mine.

His hand is back in my hair. His body is hot and solid wedged against mine .

For a stupid second, I almost relent, but commonsense prevails and I bite his bottom lip. Sink my teeth in until he roars and slams me back into the wall. The impact releases my hold, but not his.

His eyes are brown. Dark and fathomless. Endless voids of rage and desire as they bear down on me from a face too fucking perfect to be real.

High chiseled cheekbones, a sharp nose that is just slightly crocked like it’s been broken too many times. Strong, firm lips now smeared in blood, and a jaw sharp enough to cut glass.

But features aside, it’s the way he’s watching me, taunting me that turns the heat up in my belly. It’s the challenge in them, like he’s daring me to try and escape.

I headbutt him.

At my height, I only manage to hurt my forehead and get his chin, but it surprises him enough to stagger back a step. I take that as my opening to prop my foot against the wall and use the momentum to shove my entire weight into him, driving him off.

His hold unravels and I bolt.

I do what every horror movie warns us to never do — I abandon the front door and book it towards the back of the house. I sprint in the direction of the kitchen and all the knives.

I have one drawn from the block before he even rounds the corner .

“One more step. I dare you. I know every place in Jefferson where no one will find your body,” I tell him coolly.

Unfazed like he’s had women hold knives at him a million times, he reaches up and sweeps off the baseball cap. It’s chucked into the corner of the room and we’re face to face for the first time.

And boy does my brain go stupid for a second.

His hair is an untamed riot of thick, dark strands that fall in tangles around that beautiful face, nearly graze his wide, broad shoulders. Standing there in nothing but his pants, my marks all over his body, his lip and teeth bloody...

If I survive this, I am definitely going to therapy because no way should I be fighting the urge to charge at him, take him to the ground and rip chunks of flesh off his bones with my teeth while I ride his cock into we both climax.

“You’d miss me,” he counters smoothly.

“You think too highly of yourself,” I mutter, hating that part of me knows he’s right.

“Or I know you. I bet your pussy is soaked right now.”

My cheeks flame hot even as I fight to keep from proving him right by shifting my weight.

“Okay, fucker, go on, tell me how you think you know me. ”

He takes a slow, deliberate step closer. Close enough that I could gut him without even trying.

“I don’t think, I do know you ... Alia.”

Without consent, my gaze drops to his left hand and the name I saw inked across his knuckles.

Alia.