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nineteen
Costas
These stakeouts kept feeling longer by the day. The lazy man inside the apartment never bothered to leave more than five minutes, and it drove me bonkers that he never saw much of the outside world. What could be keeping his attention inside for this long every single day? As for the woman, she was quite the opposite of her partner.
Every morning, she rose early enough to go for a run before she came back and got ready for work or she went straight to work. Most of her evenings had her driving somewhere else after being home for a short time. Some might question if she felt naturally that busy or if she tried to escape something from inside. Part of me felt like it was the latter between the questions of her busy life. Most women I knew, even the ones who run empires, loved to relax a little or be waited on just enough to regroup themselves. Some called it selfcare from what I read online.
Millie stayed busy enough that she wouldn't have to think about her life, and I knew she came home to pass out because her lights were always off within minutes of arriving home. Maybe she didn't know she was running from her own life, but it sat clear as day in my own thoughts from how I watched her and perceived every action she made. With how she answered her phone so often, I could tell she adored those in her life and wanted to feel important in theirs like they were in hers. With the few conversations I tapped into, two people really made sure she felt loved. Her father and her best friend, and they were usually the only phone calls outside of work and the prison.
Seeing a pop up on my laptop in the passenger side, I quickly glanced over at it to see an alert coming in from her phone. She had no idea we tapped it when Tony met her at the coffee shop that first time, but he was able to get the upload by keeping her distracted long enough for the download to complete as I stayed in range. The woman would never know I bugged her phone, but it was the easiest way to stay on top of her movements.
Just like right now, the woman planned to go to her book club. The group chat of other women sent many emojis that meant spicy scenes, and yes, I had to google to make sure that's what the pepper, fire, and hot temperature meant. While I spoke English, it was not my first language, and American women were a slightly different breed than the ones I grew up with.
Millie quickly responded that she was just about to leave and meet them. Part of me wanted to follow her there and get a closer look of the other women she met with once a week, but I knew better because my job was to get inside her home. Now that she visited Draven more often, and Tony kept her busy at the coffee shop, I had my ways to discover more, if only her boyfriend would leave the damn house.
There were many in my life who I would call reclusive, but I just had this niggling feeling that's not what this man was. He felt more like a child locked in his room who refused to come out of it. In the small walks he took, I managed to find a set of keys inside and quickly take a sample before he returned. Being glad on the first day I did this, I didn't move from my car to see how long of a window I would have.
The man literally walked to the gas station down the road and bought himself a fountain soda as he walked back and drank it. Every once in a while, he would have the large thing gone before he returned and would have a tantrum on the stairs as he marched back into his home. He'd also throw the cup on the ground as though he didn't care about the pollution he created. The man would never know that when his girlfriend returned home, she often was the one to pick up the litter he left behind.
In all my watching, I noticed her sweet nature. The woman didn't want to do any wrong in the world, and her heart showed it through her work. The three of us men saw it in every interaction we had with her even though she didn't know I existed yet. I became the man she'd never know about until I got called into action, and I knew I had always damn good at my job when it came to the staking out and stalking people.
The pride of my actions came from the hardships of my youth. While trying to please my absent father, who I wanted to reconnect with, I tried to be the best I could be in order to make him see me. The dream still came that I wished he called me son, but all I got from him was a job offer because of my qualified skills.
For now, I would do as Tony and Draven asked. Attempting to watch the girl and all her movements, waiting for the perfect moment to break into her home. Speaking of Tony, my personal phone lit up with his name on it.
“Yes?” I used my American voice the best I could just in case anyone planned to trace my call.
“Anything new from your end?” Tony sounded slightly on edge, telling me he had just gotten off the phone with his father. He probably just learned his father didn’t care about what went viral today. Draven’s sister’s raping had been released for the world to see, but I didn’t know how to bring up that business.
“Nothing other than watching,” I sighed heavily. “This man literally never leaves his home.”
“From what Draven has told me of him, he sounds like garbage for a human. If he's like most, we know there are certain things that would tempt him to leave. Why not send him a few coupons to the local strip club? Maybe e-mail him that he won some prize?”
Tony had definitely come to the end of his rope with this cat and mouse game. Part of me wanted to ask if he was okay, but I also knew the line of being his employee shouldn't cross that with him. Nodding my head, I knew he couldn't see it, but I needed to move something. “When would you like me to do this by?”
“She has late meetings through work tomorrow, so why don't you send it before lunch? It would give you ample time to make sure you can uncover anything in her home that way we might know more about her. Maybe there’s something in there to help us get Draven out.” The last few words of his were a long shot because neither of us knew how we were going to do it. The compound Draven had been locked in happened to be one of the hardest to get into without having a visitor’s pass hanging around our neck, and we couldn’t have Tony being tied to us during his escape.
“I'll head over to the strip club now and see if they can e-mail him. I have his information on me already, so it shouldn't be too hard to buy them off. How much would you like me to send the fucker?”
“Just enough to cover a lap dance. The man can waste away his own money if he wants to.” Tony paused for just a second, understanding how much work I had to put into getting all this done. He had to be the person to greet her constantly, but I became the man behind the scenes who had to form plans and hack into data to discover everything we needed. “Thank you, Costas.”
Whether or not Tony would ever know this, I appreciated his small gestures of kindness his father never afforded me. A warmth always spread in my chest that had me wanting to tell him my secret, but I knew better. The threat of exposing myself had already been made, and I still had one person to protect. I knew my job would be to head to the local strip club just as Millie came down her steps to go to her book club. Silently, we knew there was another topic of conversation we’d need to approach, and I could tell Tony wanted to bring it up.
“Did you see it?” Tony had to ask.
“The video? I’d never disrespect the woman of Draven’s manor by watching, but I have been tracking the sources of the video to delete it. Are you going to tell him about what the world received today?”
“Yeah,” he sighed. Not from hating that he had to be the messenger but because he knew how this was going to hurt Draven. “I’ll head over there now while you handle the club.”
“Want a name of who sent out the video?”
“Is that even a question? The second Draven gets out, you know we’ll be going on another manhunt.”
“But hopefully you can rein him in this time if a cop shows up,” I grumbled. Using the server, I opened my other software to see if it had finished tracking the IP address.
“Are you close to a name?” he asked me.
“Not yet, but I should have it before you see him. Let me do my business at the club, and I’ll send you what I have.”
