24. Harvey
Chapter 24
Harvey
Five months earlier…
T his is my favorite part.
The watching, hunting, tracking my prey.
I stand shrouded in darkness, completely invisible to the untrained eye.
Every breath is measured and controlled.
Every step is calculated.
Connor Blake has no idea what the shadows have in store for him but tonight, his reign of terror comes to an end.
It was easy to follow him, especially since the dumb fuck has no idea the kind of relentless predator he hired to protect him. I almost chuckle to myself when I think about it. My first impression of Connor was spot on, an idiot who thought money and power meant he was smart and untouchable. Which makes my job a helluva lot easier when it comes to getting rid of a threat.
When I was on my dad’s trail, that was a different story. That took years of dedication to find a man who had been trained just as well as I had to never be found. But based on what I’ve found out over the last several months, this wasn’t Connor’s original plan. In fact, I’d say it was plan D at best.
He never thought he’d have to run. In fact, he was so confident in his ability to scam people with zero consequences that the second it came to light what he was up to, he had to scramble to come up with an escape plan that inevitably was filled with holes that let me slip right in.
“Shit.” I hear his muffled voice as he approaches the run-down motel in the middle of nowhere Mexico. He struggles with the key. “Come on,” he grumbles, jiggling it until the lock finally gives and he’s able to push open the door. He takes a quick glance around over his shoulder, a comical move considering he looked right at me and didn’t even notice me standing there, then slams the door behind him, drawing the shades tighter as well.
I was a little disappointed I didn’t get the chance to confront him in his office. Or perhaps at his house when the hit man he hired showed up to kill me, but this… this is a much safer and cleaner option.
I haven’t decided how I’ll do it yet. The confrontation part, I mean. I’ve debated on fucking with him. Cutting the power to his room or knocking on the door and running away. But I’m not a cat and I really have no interest in playing with my prey. So I wait patiently until it’s the darkest part of the night and the most quiet. When I know he’ll be asleep and at his most vulnerable.
I slide my lockpick tool into the lock and a second later, I’m inside. I stand over his bed, his pathetic body curled up in a fetal position. I move quietly, looking in the most obvious places a moron like him would hide his gun. I open the nightstand drawer slowly and there it is.
Fucking idiot.
I take the gun, checking the room for any others, but this is the only one; there isn’t even any extra ammunition. Then I take a seat in the stained chair at the far corner of the room and I wait.
Two hours later, his body stirs and then he groans. He flips the covers off his body, sitting up and swinging his legs off the side of the bed. He stands, walking toward the bathroom, before stopping to look at the door again. His eyes must scan right over me but with the shadows and the heavy curtains, I just blend right in. But that’s when I see his eyes, a look of panicked desperation in them.
Good. He deserves to feel the kind of fear and desperation he forced onto Aspen.
He leaves the bathroom door ajar, the light shining across the bed as I hear the familiar splash of urine hitting the toilet bowl. A few seconds later, he shuffles through the door, yawning as he flicks off the light and climbs back into bed.
But just as he pulls the covers up around his shoulders and snuggles back down into comfort, I let him know he’s not alone.
“Good evening, Connor.”
He sits up, his hands fumbling for his gun in the dark. I can hear the drawer open frantically, his nails clawing at the cheap wood before he jumps from his bed and stares at me.
“Wh-wh-who are you?” he says. “I have a gun!”
“Oh, come on now, Connor.” I click my tongue at him. “We both know I have your gun.”
“Harvey?” He chokes out my name. “I have money, lots of it. I can get you whatever you want.” He’s holding his hand out in front of him, walking slowly toward the bathroom like he’s attempting to talk down a wild animal from attacking him.
“Oh, wrong again,” I say just as he’s about to make a mad dash for the bathroom. I pull back the hammer on his own gun. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I say and he freezes.
“Please.” His voice cracks, choking on a sob as he falls to his knees. “Please, I’ll do anything. Anything .”
Is it fucked up that this is bringing me pleasure?
I push the thought from my head, not wasting too much time feeling bad about it considering the person the gun is pointed toward.
“How did you find me?”
That’s the same question my dad asked when he saw me after all those years. In my opinion, it’s a pretty obvious question you’d expect from an arrogant narcissist. I saw it in the Marines over the years. They can’t fathom the idea that there’s someone else smarter than them, or like it is in most cases, they can’t fathom the idea that they’re the ones who made a fatal mistake along the way.
“Does that really matter when you know you can’t outrun me?”
“What do you want?” His voice is a pathetic cry now, his hands folded in front of him as he cowers on the floor.
“You know what I want. Justice, for Aspen. For all the women you tortured and tossed aside, for all the lives you ruined over the years.”
“How? You don’t want money, so tell me what you want!”
And now I just sit in silence, letting him marinate in the realization that there is no form of justice I want besides his death. I can see it as it takes over his face, moving from his eyes down to his lips that turn up into a deep frown. “Killing me won’t fix it. It won’t change things.”
“You are right there. Killing you won’t right those wrongs, but neither will money, Connor, and that’s a valuable lesson that you never seem to learn in this life. There are consequences, far greater than losing money or status or wealth, when it comes to fucking people over. Especially when that person is the woman I love.”
“You’re making a mistake,” he says. “Think about Aspen, think about your life together. This would ruin it. They’ll know it was you. You think you won’t get caught but you will. You’ve left a clue or a fingerprint somewhere.” He’s panicking again, rambling, trying to reason with me.
“Do you know why Jimmy told you they called me the shadow?” My question is met with silence. “It’s not because I’m undetectable or hidden. It’s because you forget I’m there. You forgot, Connor, that’s where you fucked up. You got so used to me being around, being your shadow, that your own brain made you forget that I was the threat.”
“There has to be something,” he starts to beg again, “a deal we can make.”
“Not this time,” I say as I finally stand up from the chair and start to make my way toward him. “There’s no deal to be made with me, Connor.” I crouch down in front of him, pulling my eight-inch tactical blade from my waistband and pointing it right in his face. “By the time someone like me finds you, you’re already dead.”
He opens his mouth to scream but before he can emit a sound, I shove the blade deep into his throat, severing his voice box. His hands are on his throat immediately, his tongue shooting outward as he tries to scream.
“Do you remember the promise I made to you?” I say, grabbing him by the hair so that he’s staring at me as his life begins to slowly fade from his eyes. “Because I do and it’s time to collect on it.”
He doesn’t fight me when I pull his tongue from his mouth and cut it off. Blood sputters from his mouth and throat as his hands continue to grasp at it. He gurgles a few more times and then his hands slowly slide to the floor with a thunk , his head lulling to the side as his eyes stare forward.
The room is finally silent.
I wipe the blood from my knife and toss his tongue on his lifeless body before standing up and leaving the same undetected way I came in, letting the night envelop me.
There is no guilt or shame, just like there wasn’t when I walked away from my dad’s lifeless body. I’m not a monster, but I feel justice. I feel a weight lifting from my shoulders, a relief knowing that this monster, this evil piece of shit will never be a threat to Aspen or anyone else again.
And when it’s all done and over and I slip back between the sheets with her and feel her warm body pressed against mine, I’ll know that I did what I promised I would do, what I’ll promise to do for the rest of our lives.
Protect her.