I try to force the shocked expression from my face, but he only laughs. “My advice to you—if you catch him cheating, get revenge another way. Be sneaky about it so no one can trace it to you.”
“Um, thanks,” I awkwardly blurt, making a mental note to put this guy in one of my books someday.What a weirdo.
Thankfully the conversation ends. Cal’s car pulls over on a side street. I shove some bills into the driver’s hand and hop out.
“Good luck,” he whispers out the window as he drives away.
Why is Cal prowling down a side street on the edge of Brooklyn with his hood up at one in the morning?
I stalk him from a safe distance, keeping to unlit shadows in case he turns around.
He walks several blocks, probably without breaking a sweat because he’s Mr. Fucking Fitness, while I’m back here breathing like I’m climbing Mount Everest.
If Cal and I make it out of here alive, I swear I’ll start hitting the gym like I always say I will,I promise to whoever is up there taking prayers right now.I’ll even jog on the treadmill instead of walking. Oh, and I won’t stare at any of the muscly jocks, hunks, or bears either.
We keep walking for another ten minutes. I’m literally stalking my husband through the streets, trying to figure out what is going on. What can be so important he’d risk his life? That he’d risk leaving me here to live life without him…
With every step, the stale, pungent scent of stagnant gets stronger. We eventually reach the docks. Not the nice part the shipping companies usually use, but an older part. These buildings have seen better days. The shipping containers around them are rusty with huge dents, and the wood is warped.
Now I know for sure he isn’t cheating, because he’s too much of a germaphobe to be caught dead having sex somewhere like this. Is he buying drugs? I can’t imagine him doing anything hard or smoking weed, but there’s a first time for everything. Why would he come all the way out here to buy them? Manhattan has every possible drug you can think of. And he could just have his assistant buy them instead of doing it himself.
In the middle of my musings, I lose track of him between two shipping containers. I pick up my pace, jogging forward to find him. The containers are set up like a maze, and the whole thing gives off creepy vibes. I make a few turns, and still can’t find him, like he disappeared out of thin air. Panic rises in my throat, and I keep looking for him, frantically running around and losing my way. I have no clue what direction I came from, or where Cal went. The Christmas Cleaver could be slicing him to bits rightnow, and I won’t be able to save him because I can’t find my way out of a paper bag, let alone a maze.
I take a few deep breaths to ground myself, trying my hardest to think positive thoughts.
Cal is a grown man. He works out. He’s probably able to hold his own, and you will find him.
I turn around a sharp corner, determined to find my husband before he becomes my late husband. I’m running so fast, I don’t catch the tall, solid figure standing in my path before ramming into it and landing on my ass.
Any confidence I mustered moments before dies an instant death when I look up to see the Christmas Cleaver. He peers down at me, his large body unnaturally still. His white hockey mask is decorated with little multi-colored lights, their glow illuminating his cold, dark eyes. He’s dressed in fitted red velvet pants and jacket with white fur trim, like a hot Santa out of my wildest fucking fantasies.
Christ on a fucking bike. Only I would find the man trying to murder my husband and ruin my life attractive. Why the fuck is Cal paying so much for therapy if I’m still so fucked up in the head?
Oh my God, Cal!
I stagger upright, almost falling again from a major lack of hand-eye coordination.Come on, Bolton, get your shit together—Cal’s life depends on it.This fucker is not taking my husband away from me! He can do it over my dead body.
“Where is my husband?!” I scream, flicking the knife out of my pocket and angling it at him.
A distorted laugh flits out from behind the mask. He must have a voice modulator…just like the villain does in my latest book. It’s surreal for something born of my own imagination to feel like a living nightmare.
“You won’t do anything with that knife, Bolton Blue.” Each word from him feels like a promise that something painful is coming my way. He extends his hand, making an expectant motion. “Hand it over.”
He must be fucking insane if he thinks I’m going to hand my only means of protection over. I finally meet a superfan of my books, and he’s not only a psychopath–he’s a dumb one. Maybe this will work to my advantage.
I take a few steps forward, like I’m going to hand him the knife. Then I lunge at him, coming so close to stabbing him in the side before he leaps away.
“You’re going to regret that,” he sing-songs.
For someone so large, he moves swiftly enough for me to barely clock him shoving my body against the shipping container behind me and pinning me to it. The knife clatters to the ground, and I curse myself for not taking a self-defense class or hitting the gym. I feel so weak with his hands circling my wrists. Every hair on my body stands on end as his dead eyes stare down at me, as if they’re cataloguing everything about me, even the way I breathe.
He brings his head down until our faces are almost touching. I can feel his breath through the mouth hole in his hockey mask as it warms my upper lip.
“What are you going to do now, pet?” he croons, running his massive, gloved hands through my hair. He took a nickname right out of one of my books…
Shivers run down my spine, and like the traitor it is, my dick hardens in my sweatpants. I was rushing and forgot to put on boxers before I left the penthouse. Not like it matters now, though. As long as the media doesn’t run ‘Renowned writer Bolton Blue found dead on Brooklyn dock without underwear’as my murder’s headline, I should be fine.
It finally hits me—this fucker is going to kill me, then Cal.
