Page 69 of The King has Fallen (The Kingdom of the Krow #1)

brIDGET

The next morning I woke up to the usual hollow emptiness in my chest—until I remembered what had happened the night before and adrenaline began to thread through my system, making me shiver.

I knew it was unlikely, but I couldn’t resist logging on to the dark web forum just in case he’d messaged again, or was giving me some clue of when or how he might show up.

But of course, there was nothing.

Then I decided to check my email because I hadn’t done that for a couple days, and it was time for my monthly payment.

I immediately regretted it.

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FROM: Asshole (Jeremy Haines)

TO: Bridget

SUBJECT: You agreed to the rules

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Ugh. I hovered the mouse over the email for a moment, considering opening it. But the truth was, I knew what it was about, and I didn’t want to think about that yet.

Muttering a curse under my breath, I marked the email as “read” knowing he’d get a notification of that. It would hold him off for a time.

Jeremy was an asshole, but a fairly patient one. He believed in letting people think about stuff. If he thought I’d read it, he’d give me a couple days before he’d decide he needed to up the stakes. And by then I might feel differently.

Or I might be dead.

I giggled as my skin goosebumped and sparkled and my heart raced. But then I put Jeremy out of my mind, closed out my email, made sure my computer was logged out of everything before disconnecting the VPN and turning it all off.

Looking at that blank screen made my skin itch, so I slapped the lid of the laptop down and pushed out of the chair.

I’d go to the gym. Then at least I’d feel shaky from tiredness instead of anxiety.

I also smiled at the idea that Cain might already be coming after me. And when he found me at the gym he’d be pissed. I thought you weren’t supposed to raise your heartrate?

Shouldn’t and wouldn’t were two different things.

Some things were worth the risk. Namely, my sanity.

I liked living on the edge.

So I dressed quickly, shoved my black hair up into a ponytail that, because it was cut in a blunt bob, was really just a sticky-uppy top-tie that made me look about six years old, but kept most of my hair off my neck, then jumped in the car, watching the rearview eagerly for any sign of a car following me as I drove the fifteen mile route to the only decent gym in the area.

A heavenly scent assaulted me the minute I walked into the actual gym, but there were already dozens of people there, and lots more than half of them were men. I considered taking a quick circuit of the room and seeing who’d picked the gorgeous cologne, maybe asking him what it was. But he’d think I was hitting on him, so I walked over to the weights praying that whoever he was, he’d walk past at some point and maybe he wouldn’t be a dickhead. He smelled good enough to lick.

In today’s world there wasn’t enough licking outside of preschool in anyone’s life, in my opinion.

Then I was at my first machine, and I had to pretend I was totally casual about messing with the hardware on my body. At least I could just slip my arms inside the big hoodie I wore and do it out of sight. Let them think I was messing with my bra straps or whatever.

As a concession to the doctors, and because they really wouldn’t let me do anything if I didn’t have some kind of observation, I wore a heart monitor while I worked out, or any time I thought I’d be walking more than a mile. Because my resting heartrate was sixty-five, I wasn’t allowed to let my working heart rate exceed one hundred or the fucking monitor would start screaming louder than a church lady at an R-rated movie, and everyone at the gym would look at me.

It was a royal pain in my ass, because it meant that between sets on the weights I had to sit there like an idiot while it lowered—which inevitably invited comments from the gym monkeys who thought I was a princess who didn’t want to break a sweat.

“You need a towel over there, sweetheart? I’d be happy to come wipe you down.”

Fuck around and find out, douchebag.

“I’m good.” I didn’t even make eye-contact. There was no point. I might actually topple him off his too-high center of gravity with the force of my disdain.

When I’d done all my sets, I went to the bank of cardio machines and almost jumped on the stair-stepper. But that really would get my heart rate up too fast. And besides, those machines had their back to the room and the pitbull was still glancing my way once in a while. I didn’t want him leering at my ass.

So I stepped up to my usual treadmill. But just as I was turning the machine on, I took a quick glance out the big window to the street three levels below in case there was any sign of a dark, probably homicidal maniac following me.

My heart rate jumped high enough for the monitor to give a faint beep when I saw a guy leaning in a doorway across the road, smoking a vape. He had hair as black as mine, shaved on the sides and long enough to fall into his eyes on top. He was pierced through every visible orifice and protrusion, and he was strong. Athletic and muscular without the ridiculous bulk of the body builders in here. That was a body that had been honed for moving and dominating, not just to impress the eye.

He was frowning at the doors into the gym and for a moment I stopped breathing and my heart rate jumped up another notch. But then another guy trotted up to him and they kissed briefly, then disappeared into the apartment building.

Oh well, maybe not.

My heart monitor gave one more warning beep before I snapped out of the thrill-trance, took two or three deep, controlled breaths, then turned on the machine and started a slow jog that I could sustain for an hour at a heart rate of ninety-five. I wouldn’t though. Just five miles today. I needed to preserve some energy, just in case Cain really did show up.

My heart monitor peeped at me again, but I was smiling that time.

CAIN

She was more aware of her surroundings than I would have anticipated, but pretty soon it became clear why.

Every time she turned her back in this room, the fuckers that were supposed to be here working out, but had really come here to see and be seen, were following her with their eyes, murmuring to each other—slapping chests and snorting as they said things that I would cut their tongues out for actually speaking if I got the chance.

And yet, a part of me understood the allure. One particular part of my anatomy, understood a great deal. And that was not good.

I had learned years ago that any kind of emotional, or sexual attachment beyond the hunt itself not only complicated the game, but threatened my safety. It influenced my objectivity.

For that reason, I’d almost left the moment she walked in, turned my back and never contacted her again. Because the first time I clapped eyes on her it was like the air in the room shifted.

I’d positioned myself strategically behind a few weight machines so I could see her, but wouldn’t be easily seen myself. I knew roughly what she looked like, but it still punched me in the solar plexus when she actually showed up.

I almost laughed at her raven-black hair sticking straight up on top of her head, like a five-year-old’s. Especially since she’d hidden the rest of her trim body in a thick, black hoodie that would have been big enough for me—was it her boyfriend’s? Did he know what she was doing? Who she was talking to at night while he slept?

Or maybe he was behind this?

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Maybe it was something they did together? It wouldn’t be the first couple I’d met that were into dark shit together. And she wouldn’t be the first woman who pretended to be single and was actually looking for someone to help her make it a reality.

But as she strode into the gym with a little bag over her shoulder, swimming in that massive hoodie, her skin-tight shorts hugging only the top half of her tight thighs, my entire body went still and my heart began to thud against my ribs.

Despite the fact that she’d done everything she could to hide it—she was stunning. When she turned her head to look through the glass doors behind her, her eyes were so big and penetratingly bright, for a second I stopped breathing.

The handful of photos I’d seen online didn’t do her justice at all. They were all from college, before she was really a woman.

Her hair was shorter and a lot more severe now. And her skin, while unblemished except for what appeared to be a scar on her forehead, looked too pale. Like she didn’t get enough sun. Which was probably true, considering what she’d told me about her health issues. Yet, not only was she a member here at the gym, I’d found an old archive clipping from her childhood hometown in which the local newspaper showed her and a dozen other high school students who’d received belt promotions at their local Karate dojo over a decade ago.

She definitely moved like someone who knew her own body. But then, a lot of women did—especially when they knew men were going to be looking at them. It didn’t necessarily mean she’d kept up with her training.

I was both fascinated, and frustrated.

Records of her had been easy to find after she was ten years old, which was about the age most people started leaving a trail online. But while I could dig up school records and sports teams and even what appeared to be a college degree earned online, it was like she had only existed in the most shallow ways.

No social media at all, not even old ones. Not even an old Facebook account that uneducated parents might have suggested and then monitored while she was in high school. Which was shocking in this day and age.

And no work history, which made zero sense.

It was like she’d dropped onto the planet at the age of ten, then disappeared again as soon as she got her degree, six or seven years ago. No birth certificate that I could find, definitely no marriages. She had to have a legal name and identity I was, as yet, unaware of.

That was okay. I liked a challenge. A lot.

And, of course, I was still working on the darker side of her online life. I knew there’d be a real harvest there. It was a helluva lot harder to pin down, though. I’d been stalking her profile in the dark web forum we shared since the day we met , but it didn’t save history. Public chats only stayed visible for twenty-four hours, then were wiped. So except for our direct messages, and the homework I’d done following her in real time both online and in person, she was an enigma.

Fucking fascinating.

And that was a problem.

I felt the clench of arousal low in my belly when she sat down on the bench to do some curls and opened her knees, and my brain immediately conjured everything under those shorts.

Or tried to, at least. There were too many questions still unanswered.

My heart was beating faster, which it always did when I was stalking prey. But she shouldn’t have affected me so deeply yet, because I hadn’t actually decided whether to take her or not.

This was what I affectionately called the interview stage: Seeing whether she was realistic about what she wanted—and just how much she was lying to me. Because everyone lied some. The question was whether they did it to protect themselves from everyone , or just to misdirect me.

Was she a desperate woman looking for that heady rush that only danger could bring?

Or was she a manipulative bitch getting her kicks out of toying with a man online?

I didn’t know yet. That wouldn’t have been a problem—I was a patient man. But the way my soul sucked towards her the moment she showed up, and the resistance I now felt in my skin the second I started thinking about leaving, definitely was.

She was my type .

I couldn’t decide if that would make this whole fucking game easier, or harder. And that was a problem. Because she wanted me to kill her.

I needed my head clear. I needed to be decisive. I needed to be in control of every step of this journey.

I didn’t need to keep wondering what she looked like under that hoodie.

Nope.

Nope, nope, nope.

Shaking my head and taking hold of my balls—metaphorically—I let the weights I’d been using clank back to earth and pushed off the machine.

It was time to go. She wasn’t right. Or rather, she was too right. I wasn’t going to be able to disconnect from this one and that made the whole endeavor way too dangerous for me.

I’d already packed my stuff up and slung my backpack over my shoulder and was wiping my forehead with the little towel, looking for the route through the machines that would take me to the door without crossing her path, or being obvious about avoiding her, intending to go home, block her profile, and never speak with her again—even if that thought did give me a little pang. But as I was weaving between machines and drinking from my waterbottle, keeping my eyes off of her and my head slightly turned away, one of the gym bums who was here to build useless muscle for the sake of it, made a sly comment to her and her head jerked up.

It was reflex, when someone moved that quickly, to check and see where the danger came from.

“I’m good,” was all she said. She didn’t even look the guy in the eye. But that meant that her face was turned a little towards me and even though she didn’t look at me either, I could see her clearly.

See the empty, hollow darkness behind those startling eyes.

I sucked in a breath and my step faltered. And right then I knew I was fucked. Because that was the moment I started planning how to intercept her in broad daylight without her seeing my face.

It was my favorite tease. And the way I introduced myself to prey whenever possible.

And I shouldn’t have been planning that for her.

But damn… I wanted to see light behind those eyes. Even if it was only the spark of survival fear.

So I kept moving, and I left without looking back. But I didn’t leave the property—just that room.

I had a plan in place for her before she finished her workout and trotted out to her car, looking over her shoulder and in every direction.

Looking for me.

I smiled.

Good girl.