Page 52 of XOXO, Little Butterfly (The Storyteller’s Bodyguard #2)

Tristan

The city folds around me like a hunting ground. I know its shadows better than Blake Abel ever will. He’s sloppy when he runs, arrogant when he hides. Men like him always are. They believe the rules always bend for them because they’ve bent them before.

The apartment complex where Reagan used to live squats at the end of a forgotten street, all rusted fire escapes and windows sealed with cheap paint. The place that marked the beginning of her end. The first time Abel wrapped his leash around her throat and called it love.

Abel doesn’t deserve a clean death. He deserves to feel the weight of his sins grinding down on him while the walls close in. But Birdie’s voice echoes in my head. I need to be there. I need to see him dead. And she will. I’ll give her that.

I park across the street and scan the area. Third floor, apartment 3B. Windows dark. No movement. The front door will be a trap—if Abel remembers his training. Odds are he’s holed up like a coward, a syringe dangling from his arm.

Not worth the risk. Time for another diversion. I call the nearest pizza joint and place a big order for 3B. Payment: cash. No tip.

When the delivery kid shows up, I check my gear and move toward the building. I circle around to the fire escape, climbing the rusted metal like it’s second nature.

I reach 3B, crouch and wait.

The doorbell rings. Footsteps. Hesitant. Abel won’t open the door as expected. He’s paranoid, twitchy. The kid pleads—he’ll have to eat the cost if Abel doesn’t pay. Abel starts shouting, voice sharp and defensive: he didn’t order anything.

That’s my cue.

I pull a glass cutter from my thigh pouch—diamond-tipped, military-grade.

With practiced ease, I trace a clean circle into the glass, press the suction grip, and lift the pane free.

No sound. No resistance. I reach in and flick the latch.

It gives with a soft click. Inside, Blake is fighting with the helpless delivery boy.

I make a mental note to compensate him later.

Now, I slip through the window into the bedroom like a shadow.

The apartment is small, cramped, and smells of stale sweat, liquor, and copper pipes. A place Reagan Fletcher once thought she could turn into a happy home. Her little piece of heaven until it became another nightmare in hell.

The things we’d settle for when we don’t know our worth…

Abel scares the boy away with his gun and snaps the door shut. He moves a few steps, but then he freezes. His head jerks toward the bedroom door.

He might be a junkie, but his instincts are intact. Mierda.

I press my back to the wall. The floorboards creak beneath his feet as he inches closer. I count the steps. Three. Four. Then silence.

I hold my breath.

The door swings open just enough for him to peek inside, and that’s when I strike. I grab him by the collar and yank him into the room, slamming him against the wall. His gun clatters to the floor. He lunges for it, but I kick it under the bed and drive my forearm into his throat.

“You.” He claws at my arm, gasping, eyes wild. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“You’re just her new dog. She sends you to do her dirty work for her. But when she gets tired of you…” He elbows me in the rib. Then his foot does a number on my shin.

We crash to the floor, tangled in sweat and fury. He’s stronger than he looks—desperation makes men dangerous. I let him swing, let him burn out his rage, then I twist his arm behind his back and pin him down.

“You think you’re the hunter, pulling all the strings,” I whisper into his ear, “but the truth is the moment I stepped into her house, you’ve been the prey.”

Abel thrashes under my hold. His shoulder pops, and he bellows, feral and raw. With a surge of rage, he bucks hard, slamming me into the edge of the nightstand. My vision flares white. I lose my grip just long enough for him to twist free.

He comes at me like an animal. Fists, knees, elbows. He catches me in the gut and knocks the air from my lungs. Pain blooms sharp. My knees buckle. He fights like a man with nothing to lose. His weight pins me. His fingers claw toward my throat.

I twist, slam my knee into his side, but he surges forward again, teeth bared in a nasty grin. We’re wrestling on the floor. My hand scrabbles against the floor, until I feel it—the cold weight of his Glock beneath the edge of the bed.

Abel sees it, too. His fingers close around my wrist, shoving, twisting, almost tearing the gun free from me. His breath reeks of chemicals and sweat as he snarls in my face, “You don’t get it. You can’t touch me.”

Oh, can’t I? I’ve fought far stronger men than you, you piece of shit. I wrench sideways, slam his shoulder into the wall, and jam the barrel up beneath his chin.

I could finish this in a second. One bullet and it’s over, but it has to be clean. A gunshot will draw too much attention. I must make his death look like an accident.

The rage drains from Abel’s eyes, replaced by something colder—arrogance.

A crooked smile curls his mouth, split and bleeding.

“Go on, pull it. I dare you.” He tips his head back against the wall, grinning like a lunatic.

“You can’t, can you? You know about my little app.

If I don’t check in, Birdie is toast. All her dirty little secrets go wide.

Every filthy thing she’s done. You put a bullet in me, and you bury her, too.

She’ll rot in prison before she rots in hell where she fucking belongs. ”

He thinks he’s won, that he’s untouchable. I should rip his tongue out and dice it into dog food for talking about Reagan like that.

“You mean the lies you’re spinning with your buddy Shane. I wonder what happens if he’s no longer available to cooperate. How the fuck would you prove anything in your pathetic little fabricated story?”

He snarls. “What the fuck did she make you do, Morra?”

Ding .

The sound of his phone chiming from the living room slices the apartment. A message. One he isn’t expecting. His eyes flick down to the hallway.

I smirk, pulling him out of the room, switching the gun to the back of his head. Then I push him against the table where his phone lies next to an array of drugs, powder bags, pills and syringes. He’s definitely evolved from prescription meds to crack. “Go ahead. Check it out.”

He does. Curiosity always kills the arrogant. His thumb swipes the screen. A photo blooms to life. Shane. Face pale, body slumped in a prison cot, blood blooming across his blue shirt. A shiv buried deep.

The color drains from Abel’s face.

With the right amount of money, anything is possible. During my very productive visit to Raiford, I’ve learned that you don’t need much to get a scumbag like Shane shanked.

Shane wasn’t the only one who got a tablet that day. I was generous with several others. It’s rather sad that something as trivial as a device that allows poor inmates to reach their families anytime, charged for a year in advance, can earn you kill favors.

I wasn’t gonna use them until it was necessary. Shane sending that message to Abel made it happen. “On the other hand, we have evidence that you are the creep that has been sending Birdie the sick notes.”

“What the fuck?”

Ding.

That’s the hotel video Ashford has shown us.

He shakes his head, manic laughter bubbling up. “Birdie isn’t what you think she is. She’s poison. She’ll gut you the way she gutted me. You’ll see. You’ll all see.”

In a heartbeat, he explodes forward and ducks. The next thing I know he’s throwing the table at me. I fall back. Wood splinters. Pill bottles roll. His filthy syringes scatter across the floor. The gun skids out of reach, clattering under the couch.

Abel grabs a shard of wood, swings it and catches me across the jaw. I punch him in the teeth. His head whips to the other side, and then he pulls something from his pants. It glints as he drives it into my arm. A fucking knife.

Pain sears through me as he dives for the gun. I ignore the burning in my arm and lunge, catching his wrist just as his fingers close around his Glock. The barrel jerks toward me. My own reflection stares back from the hollow muzzle.

He grins through bloody teeth. “Looks like you lose, soldier boy. Birdie is mine. Eight fucking years of my life I’ve done nothing but lose myself, my mind, my soul, to that bitch. I earned her. She can’t just toss me around and replace me with a fucked-up loser like you.”

Growling, I slam his hand against the floor, the Glock half an inch from my face. My free hand scrabbles through the wreckage until it closes around the one weapon I’d like to use tonight.

One of his syringes.

I don’t hesitate. I stab it into his arm.

Abel’s eyes flare wide, the manic grin breaking into shock. He tries to pull the trigger, but his muscles slack, and the gun drops from his grip.

I shove him off me, sucking in air, securing the gun, arm and jaw screaming. “She was never yours. She’s always meant to be mine.”

Blake Abel twitches on the floor, pupils blown, just like my father during the last moments of his sorry existence.

I crouch over him, blood dripping from my mouth, and whisper, “When you clicked on the photo and the video I’ve sent you, it captured your biometrics and sent them to me.

You can kiss your dead man’s switch app goodbye.

I can now check in and delete the message you have in there. ” I give him another dose.

“You’ve made the worst mistake of your life.” His eyes droop. “You should read the message before you erase it. You’ll know why.”

“There’s nothing a useless worm like you can say that will ever make me think twice about protecting Reagan.”

“You know her real name.”

“I know everything.”

Something sparkles in his eyes, just for a split second, before they wither away, as if he’s finally figured something out, finally, realized the truth. “Oh, I get it now. I’ve been there, too…so madly in love…obsessed. It’s what she does… You two deserve each other.”

“Yeah, she deserves someone like me to be her husband, not you, not Shane. Me. Reagan is mine.”

“Shane?” An unhinged laugh rattles in his chest. “You think…” His eyes roll back, and froth starts foaming around his lips. “I’m gonna enjoy watching you from hell…when you find out the truth.”

“Why don’t you watch while I bury my cock deep in her sweet pussy and she screams my name right here next to your filthy corpse? Sure you’ll enjoy that more.”

A gurgle that might be a groan chokes in his throat. “How about this, Morra? I leave you with a little parting gift, and when we meet in hell, you tell me if that pussy was worth it.”

“Just die already.”

“I did start the Butterfly Man game…but I didn’t finish it. Someone else…left that note on her pillow…not me. But I guess…you already know that.” His hands jolt toward my head and bring my ear down to his lips. I yank his hands off me, but not before he manages to whisper his last lie.

“Fuck you, Abel. Enjoy hell.” I watch the light leave his eyes.