Scan, scan, scan. And finally, just four minutes later, there’s a beep that makes my heart trip. Match found: Travis Bell.
Hell yeah. I’ve still got it.
I start with Google. It’s easy enough to pull up the public stuff. He’s an attorney, a high-powered one, at one of the big firms here in Vegas. He’s the kind who attends charity galas; there are pictures of him shaking hands with important people. He even has a wife, though from the looks of it, they live two entirely different lives, him here in Vegas, her off in Miami. Everything online gives a clear vibe: it’s a life curated to look like success.
But I start digging deeper.
It’s the kind of digging you only do when you’ve got the stomach for it. The kind of digging I promised myself I was done with.
But sometimes old skills come in handy.
The deeper I go, the filthier it gets.
Deep in their system, there are HR reports—redacted, sealed, labeled “handled internally.” I find four anonymous forum posts from women calling him out—the partner who couldn’t keep his hands to himself, and then so much worse. The man is a sick bastard who has trapped women in back rooms and had his way. He’s made threats. He’s extorted with photos. There are half a dozen police reports that went nowhere, stamped with the lazy shrug of “no evidence to support claims.”
The further I dig, the more my stomach turns. My fingers curl into fists as vile anger turns my muscles taut.
Shit. Willow didn’t kill a man. She cut out a cancer the system just let keep growing.
She isn’t a heartless monster that just kills for fun. She’s a damn hero.
She’s not profiting off it, at least I can’t find any evidence that she’s being paid by any of the victims to put an end tothis asshole. She’s using that blade for balance, slicing the scales until they even out.
It’s brutal. Messy.
I know one doesn’t just turn into a serial killer vigilante for no good reason. Plenty of people get hurt and then they just focus on healing. There’s a reason Willow does what she does. I have enough common sense to know that.
It’s insane that I feel fucking relieved right now. Finding out your online crush/obsession kills bad guys for fun is a little startling. It should have sent me running.
But if she has to kill people as a hobby, at least I know she’s doing the world a favor.
She’s not just beautiful. Not just sarcastic and sharp and impossible to look away from.
She is justice Herself. A goddess worthy of devotion, and I’m already obsessed.
Willow ison her way to kill someone.
How could it be anything else? She left the house in black jeans and boots, a look that practically screamedpredator chic. No makeup, no sparkle—just that calm, purposeful stride of someone about to ruin a bad man’s evening.
My pulse is hammering against the steering wheel as I tail her truck down the road. I mean, she has half a dozen cinderblocks in the bed of her truck. What use would she have for them other than sinking bodies? And who would just drive around with them sitting in there?
Every red light is the biggest annoyance of my damn life. Every turn she takes spikes my adrenaline higher. My brain won’t shut up:
Who is she hunting tonight? What did that bastard do? Am I supposed to stop her? Or am I supposed to let her? Hell, do I… help her?
That thought makes me grip the wheel tighter. Because part of me—the sick, unfixable part—knows I’d be good at it. Too good.
She takes a left. My stomach drops.
This is it. This is where she picks up her next vic. Perp? I’m about to follow her back to her shop and watch the daggers come back out and?—
She pulls into the parking lot of a grocery store.
I blink. Stare. For a second, I honestly think my brain has glitched out. My adrenaline is still blasting like I’m in a car chase, but there she is, parking neatly between a minivan and a Prius like she’s just here to pick up some steak and potatoes.
I slump back in my seat, heart still jackhammering. “You’re a fucking idiot,” I mutter to myself.
I watch Willow slide out of the truck, and then sit a little straighter when the driver’s door to the Prius opens, and Opal steps out. Floaty dress, hair down, a dozen bracelets on each wrist. She looks more like she’s about to shoplift a crystal than buy groceries. Willow smiles at her baby sister, and there’s something easy and protective about it. Then they head inside together.
