And that’s not very productive. Or maybe it is, depending on which angle one looks at it from.
I leave my briefcase in my office and take the lift to the car park. Someone stops it a floor below, one of the assistants. She smiles and I fake one right back.
It’s easy now, to pretend that I’m normal, that I can automatically smile upon seeing another human instead of having nefarious thoughts about throwing them from the highest floor.
I might act friendly, but I don’t trust people. Not after the kindest-looking ones made mine and my sister’s lives hell.
The rotten people looked posh, elegant, and had all the right connections and money to hide their nefarious tendencies. They used their power to prey on the vulnerable and feed their fucked up animalistic urges.
Which is why I made it my mission to make them pay any chance I got. The press and everyone in the law circuit says I’m picky, but they don’t know the actual reason behind that.
I refuse to represent a person if I doubt they’re rotten.
They have a stench—the rotten ones—and I can smell it from a mile apart. It’s a sixth sense that I’ve had ever since I was a child.
Don’t get me wrong. That doesn’t mean I give a fuck a fuck about justice. At least not in the traditional sense.
If a woman comes to me because she murdered her abusive husband, good for her. I’ll get her out of prison in a heartbeat.
If a man killed his gold digging, emotionally abusive wife, good for him, too. I’ll give him a new page so he can start over.
Yes, I get murderers out of prison, but not any murderers.
Not any abusers.
Just the ones I don’t smell that rotten stench on them.
When the lift is about to close, I spot a very petite and very familiar woman walking at a brisk pace in the opposite direction.
I don’t even think about it as I hit the button that opens the doors before it closes. This is not the IT department, so what’s she doing here?
That girl is shady as fuck, and today, I won’t let it go.
I follow after her, keeping a safe distance. She doesn’t notice me, though, since she has that nerdy way of being so focused either on her computer, or on her feet, like right now.
She’s carrying her laptop case and lowering her head as she cuts the distance in record time. She’s fast, but not forceful, almost like a breeze passing through.
Her destination is, apparently, a staff supply room that’s rarely used. She stops in front of it and checks her surroundings like a thief before breaking and entering. I hide around the corner until she goes inside.
I wonder what the little daredevil is doing on a floor that shouldn’t concern her and in a supply room. I doubt it’s because a tech was needed here.
Instead of following right after, I wait five minutes. I need her to be engrossed in whatever her task is so she doesn’t get the chance to hide.
I’m patient like that. Hunting doesn’t happen with only speed. Stalking before the attack is the best way to leave the prey with no way out.
Once the five minutes are up, I stride to the door and slowly open it. Sure enough, she’s sitting cross-legged on the floor in the midst of stacks of papers and typing away at her computer.
The blue light reflects in her glasses as her fingers move at lightning speed. She’s facing me, so I can’t see what she’s working on, but she doesn’t notice me, even when I close the door, trapping us both inside.
Click.
The sound echoes in the air and she lifts her head, her lips forming an O.
With the door closed, the only light in the pitch-black supply room comes from beneath the door and her laptop. There’s light, but I don’t use it.
For me, darkness is familiar. Light is not.
Due to the blue glow, I can make out the parting of her full lips. Lips that should’ve never left my dick since that first time.
“W-what are you doing here?”
“That should be my question.” I stalk toward her. “What are you plotting now? Another identity? Another name?”
She tracks my movements as if I’m indeed the predator that’s coming after her. I lean forward to peek at the computer. “What do you have there, Anastasia? Why do you need to come here to do it?”
As if just realizing what I’m after, she slams the laptop shut, filling our surroundings with dark shadows.
“Do you think that will stop me?” I reach for it and she tries to curl up around it.
I slip my hand onto her stomach and she’s forced to get on her back, keeping the laptop overhead so I can’t reach it.
So I climb on top of her, my chest glued to hers, and that stops her from wiggling about. She strains, her fingers clutching the laptop in a death-grip.
“What are you doing?” She pants, half-mortified, half-strained.
“I told you, I’ll uncover you, and now is as good a time as any.”
“There’s nothing to uncover, let me go.”
“Hmm. I would’ve believed that if you weren’t going through so much trouble to protect your crime weapon.”
“Laptops are personal, asshole.”
“Not if they’re at the crime scene.”
“Ugh…you’re crushing me.”
“Then give it up.”
In one last-ditch attempt, she tries to knee me in the balls. I grip her knee with one hand and stroke her thigh. A smile stretches my lips, a real one, though it probably looks like an evil smirk in the dark. “You really shouldn’t have played dirty. Now, I’m tempted to do something.”
“D-do what?”
“Make you squirm.” My fingers inch closer to her hips, and even though I’m touching her through her clothes, I feel her warmth and the shudder going through her body.
“Y-you said you wouldn’t touch me.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Why?”
“Because your body gets so pliant underneath me and I might like that.”
“It does not.”
“Hmm. Should I prove it?”
“D-don’t.”
“Challenge accepted, my little butterfly.”
After all, she’s the reason I lost my sexual appetite and it’s only fair that I get it back through her.
Yes, she’s a liar, but she might be the best form of distraction I’ve ever had.
9
ANASTASIA
My little butterfly.
That’s what he just called me, right?
My chest tightens and my eyes grow in size, desperate to make him out. In the darkness, I can’t see him, but the sharp lines of his face are visible and so is the glint in his intense eyes.
I’m trapped beneath the hardness of his body and the sheer size of him. I’m crushed and can’t breathe. And that cologne I searched for at the department stores? It’s suffocating me now, robbing my thought process and stopping me from thinking beyond this moment.
“You…you have my butterfly?”
“Why would you think that?”
“You just called me a little butterfly.”
“Could have done that for any reason.”
“But it was specific enough.”
“Hmm. What are you going to do to find out whether I have it or not?” His voice is deep, dark velvet that’s wrapping itself around my neck.
“I…”
My words trail off when his hand that’s been on my thigh glides to the inner side of it.
I clench my legs together tightly, even though it tingles, even though every illogical thought in my head is urging me to let go.
I can’t.
Not when I can sense ripples of darkness emanating from him. The same darkness I fought tooth and nail to leave behind.
I think I’ve always sensed it on him, even during that night in Jersey, but back then, it was fine because it was a one-time thing and I foolishly thought I wouldn’t see him again.
I foolishly thought I would just keep him in my memories and that’s it.
But he’s right here, and he’s coming after me and that’s not good.
It’s downright frightening for Babushka’s and my destiny.
His fingers hover at the apex of my thighs and even though he’s not forcing entry, he’s lingering there, biding his time.
“What’s going on?” There’s slight amusement in his tone, bordering on sadism. “Feeling shy all of a sudden?”