Michael Alvarez is lying on a table. He is naked. There is plastic wrap over his body. The room is wallpapered with the images of all the women he’s turned into sex slaves and all the kids who overdosed on his drugs. There are more on the ceiling, so many they are overlapping each other. I am in the outfit I wore the night I met him. The shirt pink. The jeans black. The boots with tiny silver buckles. I stand over him, a knife in my hand.
“Bella,” he murmurs. “Don’t do this. You love me. I love you.”
“I hate you,” I say, looking around the room. “They hated you.” I raise the knife, waiting to feel guilt over what I am about to do, but I do not. I want him dead. The world is a better place without him. But then something happens. The image shifts and it is me naked on the table, him standing over me, holding the knife.
“You betrayed me,” he says. “And know this, bella. I will kill everyone you love.”
I gasp and sit up, blinking the television screen into view and an image of Dexter, holding a knife above his victim. “Easy, sweetheart,” Kyle says from beside me, his voice bringing everything back to me. The living area floor. Chinese food. A Dexter marathon. Ten days of hearing nothing from Michael Alvarez. “You had a nightmare.”
“No more Dexter,” I say, pressing my face into my hands. “Turn it off. I just dreamed I was Dexter about to kill Alvarez, and then it reversed, and he was Dexter, about to kill me and everyone I love. How can he be this silent this long?”
He grabs the remote and turns off the TV. “You said he’s done this before.”
“He has, but I was always happy when he was gone. Now, I just want him to come here. I want to kill him.”
“We’re all fighting over that honor,” he says, pulling me into his arms, my head resting on his chest, his heart thundering beneath my ear, his hand on my head. I shut my eyes and the nightmare slams into my mind: “You betrayed me,” he says. “And know this, bella. I will kill everyone you love.”
I sit up. “Kara and Blake are still in Italy, right?”
“You were with me when I talked to Blake tonight. You know they are.”
“Right. Yes.” I lay back down and stare into the dimly lit room.
“That’s it,” Kyle says, sitting up and taking me with him. “You are making yourself crazy.”
“Dexter made me crazy. We’ve watched it every night for over a week.”
“You were obsessed,” he reminds me. “You wanted to watch it.”
“Because you got me addicted to it.”
He glances at his watch. “It’s midnight. We need a plan to relax you. A hot bath. Cartoons.”
“Cartoons?”
“No serial killers. Guaranteed.”
“Good point.”
“Or there is always my favorite distraction. Naked, wild, hot sex.”
“I vote for naked, wild, hot sex.”
He stands and pulls me to my feet. “A woman after my own heart.” He scoops me up and starts walking toward his bedroom, despite the master suite being closer. We avoid that room, I think because it reminds us of Michael Alvarez. It does to me and I don’t know why. Michael has never been here or in that bed. And hopefully he never will be.
***
Day Eleven
Still in my pink silk robe, I’m standing at the bathroom sink flat ironing my hair when Kyle walks in, already dressed in a blue pinstriped suit and looking like sin and sex. He leans on the counter next to me. “I have something for you.”
I set down my flat iron and face him, frowning as he holds up several jeweled bobby pins. “What are those?”
“A special tracking device the FBI has been working on for you,” he explains. “The first two have the actual chips in them. The third is just a hair clip that you can give to the staff and tell them you want it to be a part of your accessory line. That will keep it from looking odd that you’re wearing them all of the time.” He indicates his watch. “I have a tracker here as well.”
I take the bobby pins and fold my hand around them. “You’re afraid we’ll get split up.”
“I’m not going to let us get split up,” he promises, his hand settling on my hip. “But if we get ambushed and Alvarez is not present, we’re going to have to let them take us to him.” He gives me a keen look. “Are you prepared for that? Because if you-”
“I am. I can. Whatever it takes to get him.”
His expression fills with what I think is admiration. “You are so very brave, Myla.”
“No. I’m just pissed off. I’m angry. Whatever it takes to get him. Let’s do it.” I turn to the sink and slip those bobby pins into my hair, and I revel in the idea that I am now the single most dangerous person Michael Alvarez ever met.
***