“What’s going—”
“She’s home. Either they’ll come for her here, or they’ll follow her out,” I tell him.
“Maya said she’d have a crew meet him. Just tell him to turn on his GPS so they can locate him,” I hear Eve saying.
“It’s already on,” I tell her warily. “Wait, that’s all they fucking need in order to find me?”
I really hate the motherfucking mafia. They make me feel like a little kid playing with a gun on my bicycle. Dicks.
“What about more firepower?” I hear Drex asking.
“Doesn’t work like that. That would take longer to assemble, but cleaning crews are all over and always prepared at a moment’s notice, apparently. I decided not to ask for any more details,” Eve explains.
My head drops back, and I silently count to ten while staring at the ceiling, as I wait on the two of them to stop forgetting I’m on the fucking phone.
“Just sayin’, the two of you can chitchat later,” I butt in.
Hearing the sound of her door closing, my head comes down, and I watch as Kara prances through her house like she’s not in any sort of hurry. Her eyes briefly glance to my house, which isn’t something she usually does. She studies it a moment, moving closer.
I’ve taken painstaking measures to ensure this place looks abandoned, assuming she had no clue I was over here this entire time. Now I think she’s known I was watching her all along.
She just didn’t know it was me.
Since Eve and Drex are still talking to each other, I just hang up the phone and stare back at her, certain she can’t see me.
“What are you up to, Kara?” I ask on a whisper as I appraise her calculated eyes.
I was too young to fully appreciate just how calculated she was even as a teenager. She’s truly Herrin’s daughter in that aspect.
Back then she was young and a little too arrogant to properly execute things with smooth finesse. She’s had seven years to learn from her mistakes, shed her lingering naivety, and plan her next move.
Seven years to rely solely on herself and learn to hate us all a little more.
Seven years to become someone completely different.
Just last year she killed a man—now I know it without a doubt. For all I know, she’s killed several.
Not surprising, really, but definitely a sharp reminder that I’m not dealing with just some pretty girl with a convincing smile, who also happens to be sprinkled with faux small-town charm.
She’s a chameleon and knows how to blend in, even when everything about her stands out.
Kara Caine is a lethal survivor expertly pretending to be a delicate fucking flower. She’s the daughter of Herrin and the sister of Drex. She grew up in a home full of criminals, delinquents, and killers.
And she never acted afraid.
Not even once.
At least not in front of me.
I have to remind myself of this quite a bit when I think about all the ways this could go wrong. Because she’s more likely to cut my dick off these days than suck it.
Then she’d probably mail it back to me when she’s three thousand miles away.
She stops staring into the window, but a suspicious smirk forms on her lips as she turns and walks away. She’s quieter today than usual, so I turn up the volume on the cameras I have in her house. Then I turn on the video feed…when there’s suddenly a blanket over her bedroom window.
She definitely fucking knows I’m over here.
My eyes land on the video as she seems to search her room for something, flipping over a snow globe, a jewelry box, and various other small but stationary items.
“Clever girl,” I say to myself as my smile starts to spread. She’s looking for bugs.
She even pulls her mattress off, searching through it. The knife in the bedside table gets pulled out before she uses it to rip her mattress down the middle, gutting it.
Cursing, she runs a frustrated hand through her hair, and she starts searching anew. Her eyes pass over the very discreet camera that is hidden in the eye of her angel figurine.
“If you’re listening, I’d like to tell you to go fuck yourself,” she says as she flips off the covered window.
“Done it quite often, baby,” I say to her, grinning when she starts pulling free the guns she has taped to the underside of her bed and dressers.
She tosses them all in a backpack.
She turns and kicks a boot against the sheetrock wall so hard it dents it. Then she kicks it again and again…and again.
When the wall is broken in several places, she easily knocks away the remaining bits that are hanging as she pulls out a second, dust-covered bag and tosses it on her back as well.
“Now what is that?” I ask as I lean forward, studying the footage closely.