Wicked Stalker (Captives of the Onyx Brotherhood #1)

Three

Gabriel

For the seventy-seventh time in a row, the particle fails to transport. I stare at the data, a headache jackknifing into the back of my skull. Each time we try the experiment, I'm sure, against all the evidence, it will work. That my minute adjustments will produce a win.

When I was growing up, my dad would play the lottery and have the money spent in his head before the balls were drawn. He thought he’d win every single week, and the disappointment crushed him each time.

I always thought he was stupid, but now I understand him a little better.

With a sigh, I let my assistant go for the day. A vast, bleak sea of work lies ahead of me, but I won’t touch it until tomorrow. I need coffee and rest. They probably shouldn’t come in that order, but they’re going to. I lock my lab, taking a moment as I always do to admire the shining perfection of the equipment, and head for the dining hall.

In any normal tech company, the executives would be looking sideways at my experiments by now. They’d add up the numbers, count the cost, and demand results. I’d find myself shunted over to something less risky and more profitable and die inside a bit more.

I don’t have that crushing pressure in the Compound. I can try my experiment a thousand times. More, if that’s what it takes. Because the Brotherhood believe in crazy, moon-shot ideas with the potential to change the trajectory of humanity forever.

Holy fuck. Even in my head, I’m starting to sound like Kendrick.

I’d been working for a tech firm and dying of boredom when Kendrick first called me for a chat. I’d just had my research proposal turned down by a smug executive who called my ideas “more science fantasy than science fiction” and told me they planned to assign me to a team developing a more efficient solar battery.

A fucking battery.

Kendrick’s offer–free reign to work on whatever I wanted, with unlimited resources–was so far outside the bounds of reality that I dismissed him as crazy at first. It took multiple meetings, demonstrations, and thick legal documents to convince me it was real. Once I accepted it, my future opened up in front of me, wide-open spaces replacing cramped boxes.

I’m going to change the world, and I have the Brotherhood to thank for it. As long as I don’t die at the initiation.

The pulsing headache dulls as I sip coffee in the refectory, a utilitarian space set out like a school dining hall but much nicer. Today, hand-tossed salads and gourmet sandwiches cover the long, polished table at the end of the hall, ready for anyone in a hurry to grab. The selection changes each day, but we can order whatever we want from the chefs twenty-four hours a day .

I gained fifteen pounds in my first six months here then spent the next six losing it again, forcing myself to visit the onsite gym and order an occasional salad.

Have I really been here over a year? My stomach turns over. Four months. I have four months left to choose a woman, take her captive, and make her utterly obedient. All of the Brothers who joined within six months of me have already chosen their Wards. I’m the last holdout, and people are starting to talk.

As if on cue, the door bangs open, admitting Martin and his girl. He’s been training her for two months and loves to complain about how feisty she is, though I can tell he enjoys the fight. She’s a tiny little thing but curvy as hell, with angry blue eyes and black hair that tumbles down her back.

He’s dressed her in a tight, short, little black dress, displaying fresh cane marks down her thighs.

“On your knees.” He points at the floor next to a small table. She pouts at him but does as she’s told. Her skirt rides up, showing off her round ass. Martin, a tall, blond, lanky man, collects a tray of food and takes a seat next to her.

“Hands on your head,” he orders. Catching me looking, he rolls his eyes and speaks loudly for my benefit. “Sorry you have to see this. She’s been misbehaving again.”

He isn’t sorry. Martin loves punishing his Ward in public. He must get off on it. Which is fine, except I haven’t had a woman in over a year, and having to watch others have fun is nothing short of fucking torture.

He feeds her a grape, and the sight of her lips around his fingers is just too much to bear. I give him a polite nod and race through the white-tiled corridors toward the safety of my apartment. The whole way, I can’t help imagining myself in his position. A girl at my feet. Furious but eating from my hand because she knows that’s the only way she’s getting fed .

Wrong. It’s so wrong, but my mouth practically waters at the image. I can have it. A Ward of my very own. I just need to take one.

It isn’t Martin’s little Ward I’m picturing, though, pretty as she is. It’s the damn girl from last night. Her thick brown hair with a slight wave to it and the big, striking green eyes that watched me with that intoxicating mix of curiosity and fear. The light spray of freckles across her nose. Her lips, so soft and inviting I had to fight the urge to touch them.

Evelyn. Eve for short. A sophomore at Parker University. Majoring in Chemistry, top of her class.

A scholarship student, she lives on a shoestring budget with her best friend, Billie, because her wack-job religious mom wanted her barefoot and pregnant by now and doesn’t give her a dime.

I’ve been doing my homework.

Within an hour of finishing my show, I gained remote access to her phone and spent most of the night scrolling through her life. A team disguised as maintenance workers acting for the landlord installed hidden cameras in every room in her house this morning. Why am I doing all this?

I have no fucking idea.

My thumbprint opens the sliding door to the initiates’ wing. Throughout the whole Compound, the decor veers wildly from modern functionality to dreary, old-school gentleman’s club, as if it can’t make up its mind.

The initiates’ wing falls squarely into the second category. My booted feet sink into a soft British racing green carpet, and velvety-red wallpaper gives the place a sinister look, like the hotel from The Shining . The other Brothers still in this wing hate it, but I love the over-the-top creepiness .

I pause at my door, asking myself again why I’m surveilling Eve. She doesn’t meet the single nonnegotiable criteria I swore my Ward must have once I got over the shock of Kendrick’s announcement. I wouldn’t be rescuing her from something worse.

I’m not delusional enough to see myself as a white knight saving a poor girl by making her my sex slave. But I can, at the very least, choose someone whose real life is utter shit. Eve’s isn’t. From her messages and social media presence—very limited for a college student—she seems mostly happy. And even besides that, she’s too young.

The Brotherhood has rules about who we can take as a Ward. They must be unmarried, have no children, and be twenty-one. Eve’s birthday isn’t until May, just two weeks before the marking ceremony where I must present my Ward.

Two weeks to train her. Absolute insanity, even if she was an ideal candidate in every other way. I shouldn’t have installed the surveillance—it’s a waste of time. Still, though. Might as well take a look.

My living room resembles the penthouse of an upmarket hotel. Not my doing. In my first week, a designer tried to interest me in color and design options. I’d been busy setting up my lab and told him to do whatever the hell he wanted.

The result is bland. Inoffensive off-white walls, expensive but boring furniture. If I was staying here permanently, I’d do something about it, but in four months, I’ll move to the heart of the Compound, which is reserved for full Brothers.

Either that, or I’ll be dead.

My desk faces the floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over the forest surrounding the Compound. It contains a tangle of electronics that would terrify most people, but to me, it feels like home. Four monitors, two keyboards, and several of the gadgets I work on for fun. Little projects I use as magic tricks until I find a use for them in the wider world.

The screens call to me, and tingles shoot up my spine at the thought of seeing Eve again. Sitting down, I close my eyes and bring her to mind. Wide green eyes, rich brown hair, pale skin with just a hint of freckles. Perfection.

She just about demanded I tell her how my trick was done. No one usually does that, preferring to enjoy the illusion. I’ve loved stage magic for years and practiced it from my very earliest childhood. There’s something satisfying about tricking an audience and making them believe exactly what I want them to.

Most love to be fooled, but not Eve. She wanted to know the truth. I smile. I always need to see behind the curtain, too.

My mouth dries as I wake my computer. What will she be doing right now? Maybe–

The shrill warble of my phone cuts through my thoughts. Fuck. I pull it from my pocket, see my dad’s name, and answer it with a sigh. “Hey, Dad.”

“Hi, son. How’s things?”

“Not bad. Pretty busy.”

I tap my finger on the desk in the morse code for SOS. Why did he have to call now?

“Sorry. I’ve caught you at a bad time.”

Is it that obvious? An odd tension in Dad’s voice needles me, and I make myself turn away from the monitor. “No, it’s fine. Is everything okay?”

The long pause that follows dumps acid into my stomach. My dad is only in his fifties, but things can still go wrong. “Has something happened?”

Another painful pause. Before I can start yelling, he says, “Promise you’ll keep this to yourself.”

My fear boils over into anger. “Keep what to myself? ”

“It’s… I’ve lost a bit of money. The sports betting online? I was on a good run, but I made a couple of mistakes, and…you know.”

I do know. Dad always liked to gamble, but since he got wind of my well-paid new “job,” it’s become more of an issue. I’ve given him three handouts already.

“How much?” I can’t keep the flat disappointment from my voice. Last time, he promised to see a counselor but obviously hasn’t.

Yet another pause has me bracing for the worst. “$10K.”

“Ten thousand dollars? Are you serious?”

“Yes.” His voice takes on a whiny, wheedling quality I hate. “I’m stupid. I know. It’ll be the last time. Please, son. I’ll pay you back.”

Of course he won’t. But it’s only money, and I have plenty of that these days. My eyes draw back to the computer screen. No one is dying. I can get back to what I want to be doing.

“Okay, I’ll send it. No more, though, okay? And promise me you’ll see a shrink. This is getting ridiculous.”

“Yes. Of course. Thanks, son. You’re a lifesaver.”

“No problem.”

I hang up, shoot the money over from my banking app, and hover my cursor over the surveillance program. Maybe she won’t be home. Or maybe I’ll find she’s forgiven her dropkick of a boyfriend, and she’ll be fucking him right in front of my eyes.

If she is, maybe he’ll find himself the victim of a random accident .

Shit. Where did that come from? Pushing it away, I take a deep breath and open the program .

Every room in Eve’s house pops up on my monitors. Her friend Billie sprawls on the sofa, watching TV, and Eve… She’s in her room. I click to expand the image.

The first clear sight of her has my heart pounding. All dressed up last night, she was pretty, but now her hair is wet from the shower and she’s wearing a silly pair of pajamas. Acid smileys on a white background and the words “Life’s a trip!”

Comfy clothes not made to be seen by anyone but her housemate. And here I am, staring right at her.

She’s fucking breathtaking.

I want to reach through the screen and feel the softness of her skin through that fabric. I want to push back the tendril of wet hair clinging to her cheek. Glasses perch on her nose—does she just need them for close work, or was she in contacts last night?—and she peers down at something on the bed.

A grin splits my face when I see what it is. The spur-of-the-moment gift I sent her early this morning. I took one of those “Magic for Beginners” sets little kids get for Christmas, dumped the contents, and replaced them with a trick of my own invention for her to puzzle out. No instructions, of course.

Right now, she holds my special deck of cards. It looks spectacular—the characters are made of shimmering crystals—but the beauty is a trick to distract the eye. Tiny, specific pressure points on the sides of the cards allow you to make the numbers and characters shift, splitting and changing. I can't wait to see her face when she discovers one.

She pulls out the jack of hearts and holds it up to the light, but something distracts her. She sets the card down, grabs her phone, and frowns down at it.

I pick up my own phone and access the mirroring program so I can see what she's seeing.

COLE: Baby, please talk to me. I 'm so sorry. I was drunk and frustrated. You know I love you. If I didn't, would I wait months for you? Don't cut me out like this.

That slimy fucker.

Trying to worm his way back into her affection. Interesting, though. Has she never slept with him? Eve sets the phone down with a thump.

That's my good girl.

But then her eyes drift back to it. She chews on her lip for a while, then picks it back up.

Don't do it!

EVE: Leave me alone.

I groan. If she really wanted him to leave her alone, she wouldn't have replied at all. My phone rings, but I ignore it, settling in to watch the conversation play out.

Cole had better watch his back.