Page 27

I’m already halfway to my car, adrenaline making me tremble, and my thoughts are racing as fast as a freight train with broken brakes. The parking lot blurs around me as I stumble closer and closer to my car, fumbling for my keys with fingers that won’t cooperate.

I grab the steering wheel so hard the leather whines as I tear out of the parking lot, tires squealing against the asphalt. Other drivers honk when I cut them off; their angry gestures and shouted curses barely register through the red haze.

I don’t share well. Never have. Not toys when I was a child, screaming until my parents gave me what I wanted. Not attention from teachers or nannies or friends—anyone who mattered to me. And I don’t share love. Especially not love.

Robert is lucky I let him breathe most days, always off playing house with his vapid girlfriend, Amelia, and random women he can get with behind her back instead of focusing on his real family. Instead of remembering, his blood comes first. Family and loyalty mean everything. He’s been pulling away for months. He said he’s there when I call, but he’s been declining invitations and avoiding my calls outside of work.

I’d been patient with him. Gentle, even, but my patience with him is wearing thin.

And Ellie?

Fuck. Ellie is skating on thin ice with her constant partying and rotation of fuck-boys that constantly break her heart. She’s wasting herself, throwing away potential on drug-fueled nights that leave her nothing more than a shell of the little girl I remember. I had half a mind to send her ass to rehab just so I could have a little control again. Just so I can have a chance to fix what’s broken in her before it ruins the good she still has left.

Wynnie is supposed to be different. Wynnie is supposed to understand that what we have is special, and the connection between us transcends normal relationships. She’s supposed to be mine, not slipping through the cracks like everyone fucking else.

I can’t handle it. The careful planning, the patient waiting, and the hoping she was going to come to her senses and realize what she has. I want her to have a clear mind when I finally reveal it’s me who’d been taking care of her all along. I’d imagined the moment a thousand times. Her surprise would give way to understanding, then gratitude, then love.

But if I was going to have to continue killing people around her, if she was going to keep forcing my hand by getting close to men, we were never going to get there. At this rate, I’ll have to drag her to the fucking altar kicking and screaming, with the mask still covering my face.

I slam my car into park in the circular drive of my house so hard the transmission groans in protest. Henry, my valet, appears at the driver’s side door with his usual professional smile, but I throw my keys at him without so much as a glance. Normally, I am more than happy to chat with him about his grandchildren and the weather; he’s worked for my family for fifteen years, and I try my hardest to treat him with the respect his loyalty and hard work deserve.

Tonight, I’m beyond pleasantries.

9

Ghost

Ican’t leave a trail tonight. There’s no room for mistakes, not when Wynnie’s future happiness depends on me annihilating this threat to our relationship.

I’m dressed in black cargo pants, a black tactical shirt, black combat boots, black leather gloves, and a black ski mask that is now like a second skin. Everything is untraceable; bought with cash from different stores, never sported except for these special occasions. I’d worn the bottom of my boots down, and my clothes don’t even have tags, just to be safe.

Leaving my daily driver behind is a no-brainer. Instead, I get into my black blazer, the one that I screwed stolen plates on from a junkyard three counties away; they get swapped out every so often, just to make things harder to track.

Hudson lives in a little shit-hole about ten minutes away, in a neighborhood that has seen better decades. I park two blocks away in the shadow of an abandoned gas station where security cameras have been broken for years. I only know he lives here because I’ve made it my business to know things about everyone in Wynnie’s orbit. Information is power.

The walk to his house takes me through streets lined with chain-link fences and overgrown lots. Dogs bark from behind gates. I keep to the darkest parts, moving with the fluid grace that comes from practice. Ghost isn’t just a nickname; it’s an accurate description of how I move through the world when I need to.

The window to Hudson’s bedroom gives way without even a squeak of protest, and I drop in, smooth and deadly, similar to the feel of a knife between ribs. The inside is marginally better than the outside, but just barely.

I don’t understand how Hudson thinks he can offer Wynnie a life in a place like this. What could he possibly give that I couldn’t give her a thousand times more over?

Deeper into the house, I stay hidden, close to the walls and away from the casting lights from outside. Tonight isn’t about making a statement as the others had been; this one is more for me. Possibly a screaming message if Wynnie allows it to be. If she does, she’ll feel it in her bones the next time she thinks of being close to a man who isn’t me.

She’ll eventually learn that I am the only constant in her life. I’ll never leave her side, never disappoint her, and never fail to put her first in all things.

Headlights sweep across the living room windows, lighting up the space before continuing down the street. I crouch low beside his dingy couch, slipping into the blind spot near the front door. The only sound in the house is the old clock ticking on the wall above the television. Each second is a nail in Hudson’s coffin.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

It’s almost meditative. A countdown to the inevitable.

I don’t have to wait long; Hudson’s beat-up shitmobile wheezes into the driveway only fifteen minutes later, its engine knocking in a way that suggests it won’t last much longer either. The headlights die, and I hear the car door slam.

The door squeaks on hinges that need to be oiled. His sneakers shuffle against the carpet until he kicks them off with the casual disregard of someone who never learned to appreciate his things, letting them fall wherever they land.

Hudson mutters something to himself as he moves through the house, probably about Wynnie, I would imagine. I’m sure all he can think about is their ‘date’ tonight. He’s already fantasizing about what might happen when she takes him home after Sweet Scoops. Whether she’d let him kiss her properly or if she would invite him to stay the night.

About fucking what doesn’t fucking belong to him.