We didn’t stick around to hear what Jeremiah was stuttering as we made our way to a side hall and Amanda let me out anemergency exit whose alarm was broken. I slid out the door with a nod of thanks before I walked the two blocks to my car and sank into my seat, closing my eyes when I finally shut the door behind me.
The drive home was quick in the pre-dawn hours, with the light of day just starting to peek out. I’d let my mind drift back to Aiden and the way he’d reacted to me the night before.
It was jarring, to be thinking about something besides my next victim, especially when I had someone on my radar.
I was halfway home when I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. I pulled it out and swore when I saw Christian’s name on my caller ID.
“What?” I bit out as I tried to rein in my frustration. It wasn’t his fault I’d had to leave my little bird and it left me feeling all kinds of wrong.
“Wow, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” he teased with a chuckle.
I let out a grumble but didn’t say anything. If only he knew how wrong he was, because everything had beenright, or at least it had, until I realized I couldn’t kill Aiden and then had to leave.
Part of me knew I should have felt unsatisfied because I hadn’t made the kill I’d intended to make the night before. Even though there had been a different body I’d left behind.
But I felt oddly sated. Even though I hadn’t killed him, either of them, there had been a thrill in knowing I had Aiden’s life in my hands. Briefly, I wondered if it was possible for that to be enough. Maybe not forever, but what if having that sort of power over someone was enough to keep the urge to kill at bay?
I shook my head. It was too early for such introspection. Especially when I had my project foreman on the phone.
“Nothing that has anything to do with my bed is any of your concern, Christian. What did you need, besides to annoy me?”
Last year, I made the mistake of sleeping with the otherman. While I hadn’t had an urge to kill him, I definitely shouldn’t have listened to the urges telling me it would be a good idea to fuck him. Sure, he’d been willing to do all the dirty and nasty things I wanted, but it also left things a little messy since he worked for me.
“We have a problem at the house on Collins Ave. Need you to come by and figure out what we should do.”
I let out a sigh and my head fell back as I let out a groan of frustration. I didn’t want to figure out what should be done. That was what I hired people like Christian for, so things could get fixed and resolved while involving me as little as possible.
The anonymity was what worked for me. People didn’t need to know who I was. While I had over a dozen shell corporations that handled the financial and legal records of the thirty or so properties I owned, I had little to do with them publicly. This way, if I ever needed to use a property for any of my extracurricular activities, there was no tying me to the property.
While Christian didn’t know the sort of man Nathan Turner really was, he did know he preferred to be more of a recluse and live high up in his castle away from people. But as the person who I trusted the most to oversee all the property renovations, he also knew I was the owner of the properties. It might have been careless, having one person know that much about me, but I couldn’t bring myself to trust even more people with what I needed done.
Christian didn’t ask questions, especially about my personal life, even when he was dying to know something. And he knew even when I was fucking him that it didn’t make him entitled to ask questions. Which was why I had let him live.
“Fuck. Give me a half hour to get there.” I knew I should have stopped at home first to change so I wouldn’t be showing up in the same suit I’d worn the day before, but there wasn’t anyone I was going to run into who would have seen me there.
Plus, I needed to deal with whatever it was Christianneeded help with so I could get back home and pour a glass of bourbon and make a plan to get to Duncan.
And find out all I could about Aiden Cooper.
I could already feel the itching starting under my skin and knew it was going to be a hell of a day.
Fuck my life.
6
NATHAN
My fingers drummed a sharp staccato beat on my desk as I stared at the open browser screen, contemplating my next move. Restlessness and uneasiness coursed through me that I wasn’t used to dealing with. Too many things started to take root that I didn’t know how to process.
Things were planned. I executed those plans, which sometimes ended with me taking the life of another human being. Other times, it resulted in me taking over properties and rehabbing them for various purposes or resell.
But my plans were linear. And things never strayed from the plans.
Except threads seemed to be catching and starting to unravel. Just slight pulls. But if I didn’t deal with them soon and get everything back in order, then it would lead to chaos. The very fabric of my thread, my sanity, would be undone. And that wouldn’t be good for anyone.
By all accounts, Aiden should be dead. It had been a risk, leaving him alive. Just because he didn’t recognize me at the hotel, didn’t mean he never would. Not to mention, he’d beenon my list too long to be left alive. Eventually, my brain wouldn’t be able to handle the fact he continued to breathe.
I’d already allowed him to break my ritual. He’s already upended my life into chaos.
