Chapter 2
WICKED GAME
LONDON
The balmy night air sticks to my skin, causing my silk blouse to cling to my chest. I stagger my steps, making sure I appear the helpless, intoxicated victim. The closer the heavy footfalls sound, the more my heart rate ramps.
The man behind me is not a victim.
He chose his fate the second he followed me out of the club.
During one of our first sessions, Grayson said his victims were akin to predators stalking the woods in search of prey. If they fell into the hunter’s trap, they were in the wrong place to begin with.
For us, this moment is predestined. It was never a question of if we would hunt together but when.
Grayson understood our dynamic—what we would mean together—before I could even conceive my own truth.
We’re an inevitability.
Once I shed every lie, severed every anchor weighing me down, it was like being reborn. I walked through the embers of one life to another; a new start. A new woman—one who no longer fears the dark corners of her mind.
Rather, the time I spent apart from Grayson only solidified my resolve.
Strengthening the bond between us, knowing with each sign I gave him, he was waiting.
Waiting for me to fully accept my new reality.
Waiting for the FBI to look the other way.
Waiting for the perfect moment, when every mechanism he set into motion aligned, bringing us together.
A skillfully planned and manipulated moment of chance.
Always a step ahead, my patient has this world twisted around his finger…and we’re all just trying not to be left behind.
Like the man gaining on me now, he’s desperate not to be left behind, dominated by a world that no longer belongs solely to the male gender.
Anger seethed in his eyes as he scoped out his choice victim in the nightclub.
Maybe he’s unaware of why he’s so hostile toward women; maybe he despises his mother.
Maybe he recently suffered a stressor that sent him over the edge—a wife or girlfriend left him.
Humiliated him. Perhaps these slights have happened to him all his life…
and now he’s ready to set it right with me.
No matter what his reasoning, his justification, he won’t be given a second chance. Grayson no longer manufactures redemption just as I no longer suggest rehabilitation.
Rehabilitation for the truly deviant and disturbed is not possible.
I feel the man’s presence looming, a dark shadow growing and swallowing the light. And when the blackness descends over me, he’s there to claim his prize. His arm bands around my waist in a tight vise.
“Shh,” he coos as he places a sweaty hand over my mouth. “We’re just going to have a little fun, baby. Didn’t think you’d put me on frustrate like that and just walk away, did you? Get me all hot”—he rubs his crotch against my ass—“then leave. You know what happens to little cock teases?”
His sour alcohol breath twists my stomach. I shake my head against his hold, maintaining my helpless disposition. Giving him the guise of being in control. Although I’m not sure he needs the reassurance. This isn’t his first time.
There’s no hitch in his voice. No tremble or stutter to convey the usual nerves that accompany a first-time attack.
He’s aroused, with no inhibition or worry that he might not be able to perform due to inexperience or his alcohol consumption.
Rather, he appears confident. He knows he has enough time.
“Cock teases get punished,” he says. His arm is suddenly gone from around my waist, and I hear the snap of a weapon—a knife. His elbow digs into my back. He smashes my body against the brick building. “Now, I want your palms planted against the wall. You got me?”
I whimper, nodding against his hand.
“Good. Make this real nice and easy, and I won’t have to mark up that pretty face.”
He moves back, allowing my hands to reach for the brick. The sound of his zipper lowering echoes off the building.
“Make all the noise you want,” he says around a grunt as he tears a condom wrapper open, “but if you scream, I’m going to make it hurt so much worse.”
My nails dig at the brick. He plans to make it hurt regardless. This is the control he craves. Rape is never about sex. It’s about stealing ownership. Dominating the victim. Asserting ones power over another.
And knowing I ultimately have the power…?
I’m humming. My excitement buzzes beneath my skin, thrilling.
He gets as far as fisting the hem of my skirt before he stills. I feel the tremble then, the hesitancy. The loss of his power.
“I’m afraid I can’t allow your filthy hands to mar this beautiful creature.”
Grayson’s voice is a deep, guttural rasp. Outside of the club, with no music or interference, I can hear the smooth lilt of his Irish accent and the sensual cadence that slips over my skin like silk and smoke.
“Turn around, baby,” Grayson says, and I spin slowly to face my attacker.
The man who threatened to punish me appears much more docile now.
His arms hang limply by his sides, a crumpled condom wrapper clenched in one hand, a knife in the other.
Grayson relieves the man of his weapon, then presses another blade to his neck—a switchblade.
The fact that Grayson carries a weapon with him shouldn’t surprise me.
By the heated look in Grayson’s eyes, he’s wondering if it excites me. Yes. Yes, it does.
“What are you…undercover?” the man spits. “This is entrapment.”
Grayson jabs the point of the knife deeper. “Come on, you’re smarter than that. Would a cop use a switchblade?” The guy says nothing. “How’s his friend doing?” Grayson asks me.
I let my gaze rove downward. “A little wilted.” His once-erect penis now flops flaccidly over his open jeans. Grayson has stolen his power, his control—his virility.
“I don’t want any trouble,” the guy claims.
Pressing closer to his back, Grayson says in a low tone, “Neither did she. Guess trouble just knows where to look.” Then to me: “Where is the jugular? Here or here?” He repositions the point of the blade. “Or is this the carotid?”
He winks at me, and I’m like a smitten schoolgirl. Sharing an inside joke with her crush. It’s exhilarating.
“I get them confused,” Grayson continues. “How deep do you have to cut to sever the carotid? Have to slice through tendon and muscle. That sounds messy.” He nudges the man’s shoulder. “Let’s take a walk.”
Squeezing his eyes shut, the guy pleads, “Please—”
“Don’t.” Grayson delivers one gruff word to silence his attempt. “You don’t want to go there yet. It’s far too early.”
A few paces down the alley, Grayson glances at me, an unspoken question in his eyes. He wants me to pick the kill site.
This is too spontaneous. How many times have patients told me that rash decisions were their downfall? I’m not sure if this is another test, if Grayson still doubts my transformation…
“There,” I say, pointing to a darkened warehouse.
Grayson nods his agreement, and a smidgen of relief settles over me.
“It’s not that I don’t like the alley you chose,” Grayson says to our captive. “It’s a good location. Nice and secluded on a dark night. It’s just that I would’ve chosen differently.”
Kill sites are Grayson’s specialty. Over the years, he’s perfected his methods. Selecting places that allow him plenty of time to torture his victims. I diagnosed Grayson with a particular psychopathy: sadistic symphorophilia. He experiences gratification from staging disasters.
Yet there’s so much more beneath his disorder. The man is meticulous. His high intelligence alone adds layers of complexity to his psyche, and then there’s the development of disempathetic type.
I’ve rebuked its claim in academia and all through my professional career, and yet, I can’t deny my own yearning to accept the impossible—that a sadistic psychopath has developed feelings for one woman.
Not just feelings. Love.
That all-consuming, elusive emotion.
It’s possible I’m as delusional as the women who write to serial killers in prison. Believing they’re the special one—the one who has penetrated some protective layer of their hardened heart.
No, I’m not that delusional. Not anymore. There is some unique chemistry between Grayson and I that can’t be summed up with blanket terminology or compared to love. It defies reason. And as I watch him guide our victim into the abandoned warehouse, I admit, I even fear him.
For the average mentally healthy person, the emotion of love can make them do the unthinkable. What is Grayson capable of?
He pushes the man down on the concrete floor, then looks at me. That sinister spark in his eyes. It’s like foreplay, the anticipation building, and I sense something in him that wasn’t there before.
He fears me, too.
Grayson forces the man to remove the tacky metallic shirt and, once he has the man’s wrists and ankles zip-tied behind his back, Grayson unloads the rest of the tools on his person.
Another knife tucked in his boot. A sculpting wire in his back pocket.
A slim roll of duct tape. A filed-down key. I raise an eyebrow.
After he tapes the man’s mouth, he approaches me slowly, stealthily. He removes my blond wig, letting it drop to the floor, then steps close to run his fingers through the escaped wisps of my brown tresses.
“There you are,” he says. He trails his fingers over my shoulder and up my neck, his breathing becoming labored. “I never knew how enjoyable touch could be.”
I take his hand from my neck, bringing both his arms before me. I undo the buttons of his cuffs and roll back the sleeves of his dark gray button-up, exposing the scars and tattoos that wrap his forearms.
“There you are,” I whisper.
As I drag my palms along his arms, feeling every beveled and smooth scar, Grayson towers over me, a formidable force pressing against my senses. His touch, his scent, the intense allure in his eyes… I’ve always been his captive.