Page 4 of Stalked By Raiden

Every morning, children pour through the gates of the elementary school across the street, their laughter carrying over the rumble of traffic. Parents hurry to work after drop-off, teachers greet students by name, and crossing guards bark cheerful instructions that most of the kids ignore.

To everyone else, it’s just another school. To me, it’s a place worth protecting.

Tonight, the gates are open again, hours after they should have closed. Mid-September, and the heat still hasn’t broken. Parents drift across the parking lot in short sleeves, fanning themselves with the flyers taped to every lamppost on this block for a week. Open house.

A familiar car snags my attention. It’s Drake’s. A burning rage that has simmered for years rises to the surface at the thought of the asshole.

Five fucking years.

That’s how long Drake’s name has sat at the top of our list. Years of surveillance, dead ends, and watching that bastard walk around Atlanta like he owns it.

My grip tightens on the binoculars as I watch him step out of the bulletproof, tinted car. Across the street, parents and children stream into the elementary school. Somewhere inside that school is Drake’s son’s classroom. The reason for his presence.

I adjust the focus of the binoculars, and there he is in an expensive suit, his son by his side, two bodyguards trailing behind. Even from across the street, I recognize the arrogant swagger. Dark blond hair cropped close, his thick neck, and heavy shoulders.

The asshole can’t even attend his kid’s school event without armed escorts. Not that I expect anything less. Drake is many things, and these things are the reason he’s still breathing. He is paranoid, violent, and untouchable. I’ve known that since he killed Fallon, my older brother, in a gang shooting.

Which is just one of his many crimes. “The bastard’s here,” I say quietly.

Drake takes his son’s backpack and nudges the boy toward the classroom door.

Teddy Krane.

Almost six years old, and admittedly small for his age. Always nervous. I hate to see the kid’s name in our reports. No child deserves a father like Drake.

“Anything?” River asks through the headset.

“No,” I say.

I barely glance at the computer monitor beside me. River, Roman, and Royal are downstairs in the basement. River made the calls that same night I first mentioned the new shop. Roman said yes before I finished explaining. Royal took two days, then turned up with a laptop bag and a list of everything wrong with the building's wiring. Four men and a condemned building. There's a shop up there turning a real profit now, and a level below it that doesn't appear on any blueprint.

This is just a regular surveillance. You only learn a man’s weaknesses by watching the fuck out of him. And that’s what I’m doing with Drake.

Watching and learning every little thing about him until I know he has no place to hide and nothing to fall back on. I’ll ruin him slowly before ending his miserable life. I lower the binoculars and rest my forearms on the windowsill.

Below me, 4R Ink has closed for the night. The CLOSED sign hangs in the front window, and Nadia’s car is already gone from the curb. Silence blankets the apartment, interrupted only by the distant hum of Atlanta settling into evening.

“You planning to stand in that window all night?” Roman asks, his voice loud in my ear.

I grunt in answer as I lift the binoculars again.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he says.

Royal chimes in through the headset. “I’ve checked the feeds,” he says. “Nothing unusual today.”

I pick up the mug beside me and down the last bits of the already cooling coffee. “He’s getting bolder,” I mutter as I search for him, one classroom to another.

“He always does before he escalates,” River mutters.

Everything quiets. Every man on this channel knows Drake Krane’s file almost by heart. Extortion. Drug trafficking. Witness intimidation. Disappearances. Women who refused him have an unsettling habit of leaving town, or never being seen again.

The police suspect. The prosecutor’s office knows he has his hands in half the crime in this city. Yet nobody can make anything stick. Drake always finds a way around the law. Which is precisely why he’s found himself on 4R’s list.

“I hacked into another burner phone he used last week,” Royal explains through the headset, already starting on his debrief.

I frown as I ask, “Anything useful?”

“He met with one of his lieutenants yesterday. Large cash withdrawal this morning.”