Chapter Six Creighton
Chapter Six
Creighton
I loved technology.
Or I loved that the guys I employed could do almost anything with technology, including getting my own fob for Blake’s townhouse. Using it on the back door, I let myself inside.
She was on the second floor, but it was four in the morning. The last of her roommates had arrived home an hour and a half ago with their light turning off forty minutes earlier. Everyone was asleep, and that meant I was free to peruse the interior.
I could’ve done this during the day. The house sat empty for a longer period of time during the waking hours, but I would’ve missed out on my favorite part of this entire expedition.
I wanted to see Blake.
In her bed.
Sleeping.
Without her walls.
Where she was vulnerable.
The kitchen was to my left. Moving through it, I took in the mugs hanging on the wall. The schedules on the fridge. The marker board. The messages scrawled there for other roommates. I recognized Blake’s own handwriting, a message not to forget to grab more coffee creamer.
I frowned at that. She knew she could utilize my men to do her shopping. She could save her money. I had more than enough for the both of us, but no. She had her pride.
She was such a stubborn one.
I grinned faintly, proud.
I moved into the living room and idly scratched at my chest. Fourteen years I’d known Blake.
And fourteen years I’d been feeling emotions.
I still wasn’t used to them. Half of my life had been spent not having these sensations.
I should’ve been used to them by now. They were only getting worse, more intense, the longer I knew Blake.
They were uncomfortable at best. At worst, they made me vulnerable, but that was the name of the game.
Vulnerability.
Blake was mine. Too many people knew it as Blake grew up and as my power rose, so I flipped it. I had to or she would’ve ended up dead by now. If anyone touched her, hurt her, considered even a negative thought about her, they were snuffed out immediately.
Blake herself gave me the rules that I used to live by. No one good. No one innocent. That’s who I couldn’t harm except if someone hurt her. They would pay. That was rule number one for me.
I moved through the rest of the main floor, opening the door to the girl’s bedroom on the first floor. Niko. When she slept, she slept like the dead, so I wasn’t worried about her waking up.
Still. I didn’t go through too many of her things while she was in the room. If she woke up, she’d raise the alarm and Blake would be even more incensed by me.
I’d go through her things later, when she was out of the house.
I avoided the stairs that would squeak under my weight and bypassed the second floor.
I wanted to spend the longest time in Blake’s room, with Blake, so I went to the third floor.
The two guys had a similar layout to her room except the boys’ sitting area was much messier.
A cereal bowl sat on a counter with mold growing over it.
Weights were left haphazard by their couch.
I went through the one boy’s room. Marshall Finch.
He looked like an angel sleeping with some drool pooling on his pillow.
The framed pictures on his desk matched what I read had been his childhood.
He was from a two-parent household. He had two older brothers.
He was the baby. They all looked similar, with chestnut curls on top of the head. Brown eyes. Athletic physiques.
A literal picket-fence type of home he grew up in.
His parents were still married. There was no history of secrets within the family.
No infidelity. His mom and dad both owned a realty business, with his mother being the Realtor.
The dad did the books and was the broker.
They had a good setup. They were flexible, the mom being home when the boys had hockey practice growing up.
The dad rotated in when she had to show a client a home.
They were a team. All three boys played hockey.
The other two played in college. Both graduated with MBAs.
Marshall was the only one who didn’t play hockey in college and now he was in graduate school for biology.
I moved on to the next boy. Heath Nogoskeski. This one I knew.
He didn’t look like his brothers, except he had the same dark blond hair and a full sleeve of tattoos. His brothers were much taller, bigger in build too. They were almost giants compared to this one, but Heath wasn’t little. He was just shy of six feet, and I could see that he kept himself strong.
He slept how he operated during the day. Guarded and on edge. He was frowning in his sleep, one of his hands curled into a fist.
My eyes fell to the bulge under his other pillow and knew what was there. Interesting. I thought his brothers picked up that habit because they worked for me, but perhaps it originated from their home.
His two older brothers pledged their lives to me. Both were good soldiers. Fierce. Ruthless. Loyal. So I would use this connection. There were two reasons I had Blake placed in this house, and he was one of them. The closer he was to Blake, the more rewards I would heap on his brothers’ shoulders.
I moved around his room. Looked through his desk. Rifled through his bag. His wallet.
I was tempted to take his phone, but instead I put mine next to it, the one my tech team gave me. It beeped quietly as I began to clone. If he reached out to his brothers about me, I would be privy to that conversation. While the phone worked, I moved to the head of his bed.
I reached under his pillow, touched the end of a handgun, and pulled it out.
He was a true Nogoskeski. He kept his weapons close when he slept.
I could respect that and put the gun back.
The phone quietly beeped again when it was done, and I put it into my pocket, leaving his room.
Going to the second floor, I stepped into Blake’s area.
I wanted to go right to her, but forced myself go through her floormate’s room first. Palma Beauregard.
As soon as I stepped inside, I didn’t like how she slept.
Open. Naked. Her blanket was thrown to the side.
She was splayed out, a perfect victim for another monster.
This was not good. If she were going to have the honor of being Blake’s floormate, she would need to be smarter in how she operated. That included sleeping. She should be on guard, like the Nogoskeski boy.
I didn’t enjoy being in her room. Her perfume was too heavy. It made me want to sneeze, so I left without going through her things and moved to Blake’s room.
As soon as I touched her door, I felt her. The connection grew clearer, stronger, and I pushed open the door to see her.
She thought I was obsessed with her. Am obsessed with her.
Yes. That part was true, but it’s more than that for me.
It’s always been more than that, though I’ve never told her exactly how much.
If I did, the pressure she would feel resting on her shoulders would be too much.
She was already burdened by so much because of me.
I felt it happening inside of me how it happened the first time I saw her get out of her social worker’s car.
It happened then. The click inside of me.
Something that had been missing was unleashed inside me.
I’d been leaving to kill someone that day when the car turned into our driveway. People knew not to park in our driveway. That was for Miss Marcie, no one else, except a little angel stepped outside of the new vehicle.
I knew it instantly, right then and there. She was good. All good.
My errand was forgotten, and I returned to the house when she came out a second time.
She was the reason I was on those stairs, and she was the reason I hadn’t killed the man I was supposed to that day.
It hadn’t mattered. He still died, except not by my hands.
As it also turned out, he ended up rescuing someone that day.
Another little girl was almost run over by a car, but he’d been there, and he pulled her to safety.
If I had kept going when I left the house, he would’ve been dead.
That little girl would’ve been run over.
It was another reason I looked at Blake with different lenses.
She was meant to be in my life.
I enjoyed this moment when I was with her again.
Just like this.
No walls.
No hostility.
No guardedness.
Beautiful.
She was perfect.
I took my time going through her room. A certain satisfaction went through me when I saw the books she had lined up on her shelf. Each one I bought her; some of them she chose from a trip to the store with me. A few pictures were set up.
She was still using the laptop she used in high school. She would need a new one soon.
I grinned when I spotted the stuffed quokka on her desk.
A list on her desk caught my eye. It was a list of tasks she needed to accomplish. Laundry. Groceries. I frowned, reading Check out foster center. Not sure yet. And at the bottom was Need $ now!!!!!! Job needed. Can’t rely on ykw.
I didn’t like that.
YKW. You know who. A.k.a. me.
She made a little mewling sound, and I turned to her.
There was a chair in the corner of her room, so I sat. I leaned back, relaxing, and pulled my phone out to check. There were two texts waiting for me.
Levi: Ready. Waiting on your order.
I clicked on the other one first.
Lassiter: We need to talk.
He’d sent it three minutes ago.
I glanced up once more, taking in the sight of how peaceful Blake was resting.
I was remiss to leave, so I changed my notifications so it wouldn’t buzz and turned down the light as well. The volume was all the way down already, so only a low light would flash when texts would come through.
Me: About what?
Lassiter: I’m in NY. Tech guys didn’t want to bother you so they sent me something they found a few days ago. I came to explore it. Now you gotta get looped in. Has to do with the rival team.
I barely grinned, enjoying his horrible code.
Me: Give me an hour.
Lassiter: Meet at the nightclub?
Me: Yes.
Lassiter: You need to give that a better name than The Nightclub. You have three nightclubs in this city. What are you going to name them? Nightclub 1, Nightclub 2, Nightclub 3?
I knew Lassiter was genuinely annoyed by this. He wasn’t teasing in his text.
Me: Stop being grouchy.
Lassiter: Stop being boring.
My grin widened. He, Levi, and Blake were the only ones who could talk to me like that. I enjoyed when they talked to me like this.
Me: Where are you currently?
Lassiter: Ignoring my other text, I see. Fine. I’ll retitle your clubs myself.
Lassiter: I’m with Levi. They’re waiting on your orders to do the things you wanted.
The things I wanted. Yes. I’d been waiting for this.
Tonight was the first time I launched my direct attack, except after my meeting with West and Walden, I altered my plans. They threatened Blake too many times in my presence. That would not go unpunished.
I wanted to be in Blake’s presence, whether she was conscious or not, when my orders would be carried out.
Levi wasn’t the only team on standby for me tonight. I checked in with the other two, and when my phone buzzed back that they were all ready, I sent out a text to each of them individually. It said one word only: Go.