“You literally tracked me across half the city today on my one day off.” Well, hours off, I didn’t really do vacation or weekends, too much shit to fix in the world. But hell, I should’ve beenable to pick up dry cleaning and get a coffee without someone following me.
“Yes.”
“But you followed me to my apartment.”
“Yes.”
I dragged a hand over my face, already tired of this conversation. “You’re a freak.”
Something changed in his expression, not offense or irritation, but something closer to interest.
“I know your routines,” he said, as if that were a reasonable response. “The routes you take, the way you check reflections instead of turning, the delay before you cross a street when something feels wrong. You noticed me on the second pass.”
A cold thread tightened down my spine. “I always notice anomalies,” I said.
“That’s not accurate.”
“Pretty sure it is.”
“You noticed me faster than most,” he continued, advancing toward me, his focus never shifting. “That makes you different, but you still didn’t notice me straight away.”
That stopped me for half a second, just long enough for irritation to spike over whatever else I might have felt.
“Right,” I said. “Of course you weren’t.”
“I needed to confirm your awareness threshold.”
“By following me around like a serial killer?”
“Yes.”
I stared at him again, waiting for the correction, the backtrack, the moment where he recognized how insane that sounded.
It didn’t come.
“Doc really needs to get you a leash,” I said under my breath.
“I don’t respond to control measures,” he said evenly.
“Yeah, I’d noticed.”
He came even closer, and great—now he was invading my personal space on top of everything else. Perfect. Exactly what I needed: a six-foot wall of murder vibes breathing my air. “You’re not safe,” he said.
“I’m plenty safe,” I said.
“Last Thursday. You had sex in the bathroom at Black Static.” He wrinkled his nose, a small, precise expression of distaste. “He sucked you off, but you were interrupted before you could return the favor.”
I recalled the interruption, someone shouting about cops right outside the bathroom. Hell, I’d only just gotten off, and the man sucking my dick had been up off his knees and left so fast I’d assumed he was just…
I didn’t know what I’d assumed, too come-drunk to care at that moment.
“He waited for you and followed you.”
Irritation flared first, then disbelief. “He didn’t follow me.”
“He did,” Novak replied. “Not for long. I made sure of it.”
“What do you mean you ‘made sure of it’?” I asked, more focused now.
