He was my life's work.
I wasn't getting paid for it though.
So on the third day locked up in my apartment, I quickly worked through my backlog of jobs, watching my online account fill up with money that would enable me to buy me another camera to put outside the gym he spent his early mornings in. And would buy me some groceries and pay my week's worth of rent.
The people who owned the Chinese restaurant were okay with this arrangement. I paid by the week. I kept the noise down during working hours. I didn't wreck the place.
I had been staying there for a few months, knowing that I should have moved at least two times already. I was getting lazy.
Which wasn't safe.
But there weren't a lot of places that didn't insist you sign paperwork and put down a security deposit and agree to spend a year of your life there.
I didn't commit that much time to anything.
Not since I was sixteen.
Not since I found my mother's body in the bathtub, dressed in her prettiest beige linen dress that skimmed her ankles and made her look like a fairy princess. Her hair was done. Her makeup perfect. She looked asleep. But I knew the second I laid eyes on her that she was dead.
I found the note sitting on the sink counter next to the empty bottle of pain killers she had taken.
A note that haunted me. That told me the truth.
A note that set my life in a whole new direction.
I spent a year in and out of foster care or in group homes before I finally decided I was better off on me own. Better off not having my shit stolen. Better off not having creepy foster fathers come in my room at night. Better off learning how to take care of myself, making my own way.
So that was what I did. Working whatever jobs would pay me under the table. Saving up. Getting cheap places to live. Buying myself the equipment I needed to start the process of slowly dismantling Lex Keith's life.
Closing in on ten years and I hadn't managed much. I siphoned a little money every year. Money that was tainted in blood so I rewired it and sent it to charities that helped women who survived sexual assault or domestic abuse. I had created a minor annoyance when I released a nasty bug into his cell and computer systems.
Mostly though... it had just been gathering information. Getting to know him. Learning how he operated.
Alright, so I was a little obsessed.
But taking him down was the only thing that mattered in my life.
Which was kind of sad if I thought about it.
So I didn't think about it.
I checked the time on my cell (a burner, I was like a drug dealer with an aversion to contract plans), powered down my laptop, put a bottle on the door (I couldn't afford the good kind of security and it was a bad area, but my methods had always proved effective enough), then I turned out the lights and got into bed.The bottle crashed sometime after I had finally fallen asleep. My body moved before my mind was even awake enough to react consciously. I was half off the bed, my heart hammering hard in my throat, trying to grab one of the bats (or even one of the knives) that I had stashed around my bed.
The light flicked on, half blinding my sleep-tired eyes.
And then there was a man.
With a very nasty gun.
Pointed at me.
“Where the fuck is Alex Miller?” he demanded, his voice gruff, guttural and brooking absolutely no argument.
Actually, everything about him, head to toe, was intimidating, meant to scare the ever loving hell out of anyone he crossed paths with.
He was well over six feet of solid, unyielding muscle underneath his black jeans, tight black tee, and leather jacket. He had on huge, heavy combat boots and leather gloves. The gloves struck me as weird before I realized that he was likely trying to not leave fingerprints during whatever the hell he was going to do to me.
His shoulders were wide, pulled back. The hand holding his gun was steady. His head was shaved on the sides in a deep undercut, the hair on top long and falling to one side, a really pretty natural shade of blonde.
His face was strong. Wide of jaw, chiseled, with a full beard that was a shade or two darker than the hair on his head.
Then there were his eyes.
They were the lightest shade of blue I had ever seen. A color I could only describe as ice. And the look he was giving me, well, it matched.
If he wasn't there to possibly rape and murder me, I would have said he was really good looking. In a truly terrifying way.
“I'm Alex Miller,” I said, deciding to go with the truth. If he did any kind of digging at all, he would find that out for himself. I wasn't exactly in the position to piss off the bad guy.
And with that, to my utter shock, he looked stricken.
Like... maybe he didn't want me to be Alex Miller.
Why, I wasn't sure. But it was there. In the tightness around his eyes, his clenched jaw, the way his spine seemed to straighten all the more.
Then he was tucking the gun away and going through my purse to validate my claim. And then he took my purse. Slinging it over his shoulder like it was the most normal thing in the world.
It was then I realized what was going on. Because he didn't want my purse. He went through it. He was in my wallet. He knew I didn't have any money. So he would only take it with him if...
Oh god.
He was taking me.
“What the fuck did you get yourself into?” he asked, sounding sad almost. And resigned. Like he didn't want to do it, but he had to.
“I don't know what you're...” my sentence cut off as his hand moved out fast. I saw the flash of the needle before it plunged into the side of my neck, the pain sharp and instantaneous, making me cry out. My eyes flew up to his, silently begging, and to his credit, I saw regret there before my vision and mind started swimming.