EPILOGUE
There was one truth that lingered, threatening to unravel everything. Landon didn’t die that day.
As everyone prepared for a lengthy trial, one that would detail every heinous crime he had ever committed, I felt resentment growing in me.
I refused to let him near any of us ever again, but the reality was that each one of us would have to sit there in court, reliving every painstaking detail of the months of torment at his hands.
Weeks of combing through files full of his past crimes, listening to depositions detailing every detail of the crime—it was too much to tolerate most times.
We were getting close to the trial when I was struck by devastating news.
Somehow, this slimeball prick had managed to strike a deal with the FBI.
One that would get him out of prison after a few years.
In exchange, the FBI owned him. He would be their informant, taking down everyone he had worked with all those years.
I don’t know how he fucking weaseled his way into a deal, but he had.
The security that we had all felt, in a few short years, would be gone. I refused to let it ruin any of us. Fortunately, I had learned a lot about his life over the past few weeks, way more than I cared to ever know. I had two choices: I could let it ruin me, or I could use it.
I chose to use it.
I spent five years studying the case file, his depositions, everything. I learned the ins and outs of how Landon operated.
I learned how to stalk.
I learned how to move unseen.
I learned how to cover my tracks.
I took self-defense classes. I went to the gym and worked with a trainer. I turned all of my resentment and anger into fuel. I adopted the mind of a criminal without ever becoming one.
Now, it was only a few days before his release, and I had spent every precious moment in between my everyday life learning. We were all prepared.
Theoretically, there wasn’t much Landon could do to any of us.
His release was under the condition that he was relocated and constantly surveilled.
He’d wear an ankle monitor for the next ten years while he rounded up criminals for the FBI.
He couldn’t come near any of us, but I knew better than to assume that would stop him.
New identities were prepared for all three of us, as well as relocation plans.
Not that any of us wanted to leave the life we had built, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
I didn’t mind; it meant I could move completely undetected.
He couldn’t track a person he didn’t know existed.
I was intentional about taking a job that required occasional travel.
It would be all too easy to “go on a business trip.” No one would be the wiser.
Bribing someone for a tip-off was easy, too.
It’s amazing how fast someone will speak for a wad of cash.
In less than a day, I had the time and date of Landon’s relocation and knew exactly where he was going.
All it would take was watching, stalking, waiting for the perfect moment.
I was going to make sure he could never hurt us again, and I was going to do it alone.
On the day of his release, I said my goodbyes, packed a bag that included cash I had been stashing away for months, and left for what I told everyone was a week-long business trip.
One week.
It was all I had to establish his patterns, get him alone, and end this once and for all. As long as I was breathing, there would be no redemption arc for Landon.
I spent the first two days watching safely from a distance, holed up in a hotel with a clear line of sight to his apartment—a trick I learned from him. The irony wasn’t lost on me that I was days away from using everything Landon had unknowingly taught me against him.
I watched as he left at the same time every morning, returning around the same time every night.
I watched him walk to the bar down the street for dinner and a few drinks after work the second night.
He never left otherwise. Perhaps he had learned his lesson, or maybe he just knew to keep his head down until the heat was off him. Either way, I didn’t care.
On the third day, I left when he did, following a safe distance behind him. I watched from store windows, down the street, or in a car if I had to, as he operated like the old Landon, making deals, pulling information from people, doing whatever he had to do to appease the FBI.
But what I really saw was the same old fucking Landon that he had always been. I knew, deep down in my soul, that the only reason he took this deal was so that he didn’t have to let go of what he loved so fucking much.
It took six days to formulate my plan. He had gone to the bar for dinner four of the past five nights. He was always so fucking predictable.
I sat in my room and waited until he entered the bar to put my plan into action.
Once he was clear out of sight, I put on a hooded sweatshirt and gloves and tucked a hunting knife into the pocket of the sweatshirt.
As I left the hotel and made my way across the street, I was careful to keep myself concealed, pulling my hood down to cover as much of my face as possible.
I had already figured out which apartment was Landon’s based on the window I saw him in and the general layout of the apartment building.
I had wandered through it a few times while he was out working just to familiarize myself with the layout.
Once I got to door 416, I picked the lock—another skill I had taught myself in secret—and shut the door, relocking it behind me.
From there, all I had left to do was wait.
I sat in a chair in the corner, in the darkest part of the room, and waited. The longer I sat there, the more the hatred inside raged. I had dreamt of this moment every night for years, and now it was here, and it had all come down to this.
Two hours passed before I heard Landon fumbling with his keys at the door.
Before he even opened the door, I knew he was drunk; it took him a good minute or two to figure out how to open the door properly.
I sat in silence, not moving, as he entered the apartment, set his keys down, and fumbled around with the light switch this time, until he managed to get them to turn on.
Now, I was exposed, both our fates resting in the next few moments.
He finally looked up.
“Danielle? What the fuck?”
Surprise, motherfucker.
“Miss me?”
“What the fuck are you doing here? I’m not supposed to be anywhere near you.” He stood frozen in the entryway, looking terrified. I couldn’t help but laugh over the irony.
“Oh, cut the reformed criminal bullshit, Landon. You haven’t changed one fucking bit. But I have.”
That seemed to set him off, as he took a few steps toward me. He had the same look on his face I’d seen so many times—dark, remorseless, on the verge of unhinged.
Unfortunately for him, I was no longer afraid, so I stood, took a few steps toward him until we were face-to-face, inches apart. It was here, in this moment, that I would stand my ground and rid myself, rid everyone else, of this man.
“Da—”
Enough of this.
Before he could utter my name one more time, I pulled the knife from my pocket and, in one fell swoop, plunged it into his side. As he tried to stagger back away from me, I twisted it inside him, ensuring I had done what I came to do.
He looked down at the blood already coming through his shirt, dripping onto the floor. Then he looked back at me, incredulously.
“You won’t get away with this,” he managed to say, not knowing any other words to adequately relay how I had bested him after all these years.
I didn’t react, didn’t say a word, as I pulled the knife out of his stomach, plunging it in one more time for good measure.
Landon sank to the ground, leaving blood smearing down the wall behind him. He clutched the gaping hole in his stomach, but he and I both knew it was too late. Blood was spilling out onto the floor, and fast.
“I already have, Landon.”
My voice was surprisingly calm as I sat back in the chair and lit a cigarette, watching the life slowly drain from him.
“You see, you went to visit that gang member this morning, remember? I watched it. Well, unlucky for you, it didn’t go very well. Sure, he let you leave in the moment, but not before following you, stalking where you lived, waiting for the opportune moment when no one would be around to help you.”
“No one will ever believe you, Danielle.”
“Oh, they don’t need to. I drove here in a car not registered to me.
Meanwhile, a nice red head who looks enough like me took the $1000 I gave her and took my car on a drive down to Tallahassee, where everyone thinks I am right now.
Business trip, you know? I figure right about now she’s enjoying a nice dinner somewhere, using my credit card, in a restaurant that will confirm that yes, a redhead came in, ate dinner, and paid with Danielle Morgan’s credit card. ”
“You’re fucking sick.”
I could tell he was running out of time, judging by the amount of blood pooling on his carpet.
“Anyways, I paid cash, drove all the way here under a fake name. I drive back, she meets me, we swap cars, and I go back to my life, under the radar and off the hook for any of this. I guess I can thank you for the ideas.”
Landon took a few of the last minutes he had left to process everything I had just said.
I sat back in the chair and took a long drag of the last of my cigarette, enjoying watching the exact moment he realized that I had used every single one of his tactics against him.
“Why?”
“Why?!” I couldn’t help but laugh at the audacity of the question. “Because you got off easy. And I will not live my life in fear of you.”
He didn’t try to fight back, and he didn’t try to save himself. He knew I had gotten the best of him, and somewhere deep inside, he knew he deserved this.
As I put my cigarette out and placed it in a baggie in my pocket, he tried to speak, but nothing but blood came out where words couldn’t. Before I turned to leave, to put him behind me once and for all, I looked at him right in his eyes for the last time in my life.
“Send my regards to the Devil when you get there.”