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“How do you know my name?” I ask, my voice a little bit stronger than before.

He narrows his eyes, studying me. “You saw me watching from the shadows, little one.”

I let out a breath and dart to the hall where I first saw him. His rumbling laugh follows me into the darkness, and I try to push away the mixture of fear and pleasure I feel as his voice skates over my skin and sends thrills through my core.

“You can run, little one, but you can’t hide from me.”

CHAPTER 6

HIM

I decide that I don’t want to give Aliyah a fear-induced heart attack before I have a chance to claim her, so I duck into a room and wait until she’s out of sight. A few beats later, I turn back down the hall and down the stairs to find her friends.

It’s time to have some fucking fun.

Turning down the west wing, I grip my scythe in anticipation of my next kill. The man in the room was a patron from a few hours ago who had come with his girlfriend in the hopes of having some fun to forget about their troubled relationship, but all of that went out the window when the girlfriend caught him balls-deep in Syn, the contortionist in the sunroom.

I took care of him for her, and I decided to let her go under the promise of silence. I must admit, though, that I may have gone overboard on his punishment. I beat him so badly that he’s completely unrecognizable now.

No, fuck that—he deserved it. How anyone can be so easily tempted to betray their partner like that is beyond my comprehension. And based on what I’ve observed between Aliyah and her friends in the short time they’ve been here, it looks like I’ll be doling out lots of punishment tonight.

I quietly make my way down the hall, keeping to the wall to stay hidden within the shadows. Cherise and Tyler are just a few feet in front of me, completely oblivious to my presence.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have left Aliyah by herself,” Cherise says quietly. If I wasn’t mistaken, I’d say she sounds a bit guilty.

“It doesn’t matter, Cher,” Tyler snaps. “We have to think of ourselves, okay?”

Cherise sighs. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“No amount of money is worth dying for,” he mumbles bitterly.

The irony of that statement.

I barely know Aliyah, but I already have this intense need to protect her. Since this group has been here, not one of them have considered her safety. They broke off into pairs and left her alone, and they haven’t even bothered to check on her. If she knew their true intentions, would she finally toss them aside?

“If we push her down the stairs, it’ll look like an accident,” Megan said earlier in the hallway, gripping Jamal’s arm possessively. “Then we can leave right now and feign the traumatized friends who found her body.”

“I’m in,” Anya piped up a little too quickly for my liking, looking around as if she could feel me staring at them from down the hall.

“The front doors are locked,” Cherise pointed out. “Even if we wanted to leave, we can’t. We’re stuck here until the hour is up.”

“There’s got to be another way out,” Tyler said.

“We could break a window,” Ronnie suggested, eyeing one in a room next to him.

Do it, I silently challenged. I fucking dare you to destroy this house.

Jamal ran a hand tiredly across his face. “All I know is, I’m already ready to leave this place and I’m not in the fucking mood to deal with Aliyah anymore. The freak downstairs can have her for all I care. I just want her to die so I can get that money.”

“Didn’t that guy say something about a basement?” Megan asked. When the group nodded, a cruel smirk split across her face. “Why don’t we find a way to lock her down there? Aliyah was dumb enough to take the bait so she may as well suffer the consequences.”

“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes,” Anya said in a singsong voice.

I left without listening to the rest of the conversation. It’s bad enough that they don’t even like her, but instead of just leaving her alone, they lured her here to kill her and steal her money.

Aliyah deserves better than that. I can give her better than that. She won’t need friends as long as she has me to look out for her.

Maybe Gideon was right about my feelings towards her, but I’m a fifty-year-old man—I don’t fucking “catch feelings”.