As people filed into Ryan’s house, I got to work digging into the encrypted digital package Damian had sent me.
From what I could gather, we were looking for Ronan Carter. He was a man on a fucking mission. It was clear he was a professional, and based on how easily he had been covering his tracks, it was obvious he was ex-police, at the very least.
The other man, Logan Sutton, didn’t seem to have any police background at all, but he was smart and…creativewith his kills. Logan also seemed to be nearly as good with black hat hacking as Vox was, which was going to make my job difficult. It was extremely tough to track hackers. They rarely left a paper trail.
I stared down at Logan’s headshot. Vox had pulled it from theAboutpage on his tattoo shop’s website. He was giving California surfer with a side of serial killer. His dark blond hair curled out of a backwards ball cap and his pretty eyes were blank and void of light. He was hot as fuck. Like a ten out of ten, and also… vaguely familiar. It took me a minute, but I realized after a moment that I’d seen him before.
I’d been sent by Damian to guard some judge who lived in a big fancy house; however, by the time I got there, the dude was already dead. I saw Logan leaving the scene but hadn’t known at the time that he’d been the killer, so I let him go.
Huh.
This whole thingscreamed‘revenge mission.’ They had started with small potatoes, targeting pedophiles.
My gut churned as I realized they were hunting the same types of douchebags I did in my spare time. That fact alone made me hate the fact that I had been assigned to this mission.I didn’t want to kill these guys. I wanted tohelpthem. However, it became clear why Damian wanted them gone as I scrolled deeper into their file.
What I couldn’t figure out was how they were sourcing their targets. If I could work that out, I could likely determine who their next target was going to be, then intercept them and take them out before they could execute.
Vox finished up with my monitors, and I glanced up with a grin, flipping to the viewing room so I could watch my man in action.
He was in a suit, looking absolutely fuckingdeliciousin formal attire. However, the tie he was wearing would look way hotter around his wrists than his neck, in my opinion…
I watched as he mingled with the attendees. It was an open casket, and I frowned as I saw a strange shadow following him around the room as he checked in with guests.
His back was stiff, and he seemed more uptight than usual, and he kept brushing off the strange shadow that no one else seemed able to see.
“What do you think that is?” I asked Vox, pointing to the dark spot on the monitor. He frowned and fiddled with the wiring in an attempt to correct the screen.
“I don’t know, man. I don’t think it’s the hardware. It’s almost like he’s interacting with it or something…” I said when none of Vox’s tinkering made a difference.
Vox leaned back, his brow creased as we watched the odd phenomenon. The more I watched, the more frantic Ryan seemed to become.
He was rushing (in his controlled Ryan way) to do what I would have assumed were several people’s jobs. He was greeting guests, showing them the way through the house while also doing his best to mingle in the viewing room. At one point, hehurried out to the garage to get the hearse ready, and I tongued my lip ring anxiously.
Didn’t he have anyone to help him? Why was he doing all this by himself? Where was Theo?
Ryan told me he didn’t want my help… but it was starting to get hard to watch. The final straw was when a woman grabbed him by the arm, and his entire body locked up with anxiety.
The strange shadow next to him seemed to flicker violently while this woman was clearlyberatinghim… What was this lady’s fucking problem?
I told myself it was nothing. Ryan could handle it. He did this every day… he didn’t need my help.
However, I lost it when the lady pointed a finger in his face, and it became clear that she was straight-up yelling at him.
I would fucking kill her.
“I’m going in.” I snarled, and Vox gave me an amused look, shaking his head.
“What!?” I asked, and he just shrugged, the corner of his mouth quirking up.
“Whatever. Stay here. I’ll be back in a bit,” I ordered, hopping out of the wagon. I would just make sure he was ok and tell whoever that bitch was to back the fuck off… politely, of course.
Yeah. I wouldpolitelylet her know that there was room for two in that pretty coffin if she touched my man again.
Everything had gone to fucking shit.
I was already feeling self-conscious because the makeup I had borrowed from my mom to cover up my shiner seemed to have just made it look worse. I had no idea how to put makeup on a living person, and I was completely shit at it. So, with a still kind of purple but now cakey eye, I put on my suit and made my way downstairs to get started.
I received a text from Luthor, my part-time funeral service attendant, informing me that he had woken up with a bug and couldn’t make it.
