Chapter 5
I hated noise. Most people feared silence because it forced them to sit with their thoughts. Me? I preferred it.
That was why the command room inside Blackveil Security Group stayed quiet unless I allowed otherwise. The only sounds came from surveillance feeds flickering across monitors and the soft tapping of Ghost’s fingers against the steel table beside me.
Everybody else knew better than to speak unless spoken to.
I sat in the dark corner of the room, watching the city through dozens of camera feeds. Politicians. Drug runners. Athletes. Judges.
Everybody moved under the illusion that nobody was watching them. Meanwhile, I knew what time they left theirs houses. Who they cheated with. Where they hid their money. Who they secretly feared.
Information was power, and I collected power like dirt collected bodies.
Ghost stepped beside me, holding a folder thick enough to ruin lives. “They moved him again.”
I didn’t look away from the screen. “Where?”
“South side dock warehouse.”
I nodded once. Ghost understood me without needing full conversations. That was why he was still alive. Most men talked too much around me. Ghost learned early that silence carried more weight than threats.
I leaned back in my chair while watching one of the camera feeds zoom in on a black Escalade pulling through downtown traffic.
The senator climbed out first. Sweat seeped from his pores. His eyes bounced around, letting it be known that he was nervous about something. Fear always made people obvious.
I adjusted the cufflinks on my wrist before speaking. “Who touched him?”
Ghost smirked faintly and replied, “Reese got impatient.”
My jaw muscles tensed. Not because Reese hurt him, but because I gave specific instructions.
I finally looked over at Ghost.
“Break both his hands.”
Ghost nodded immediately like I’d asked him to grab coffee. I loved that about him. He was always on it. That was the thing about Blackveil. Nobody working for me had clean souls.
I built this company from blood, paranoia, and desperation. Publicly, we were an elite private security firm protecting celebrities, politicians, and wealthy clients.
Behind closed doors?
We made problems disappear.
The lights from the monitors reflected across the black walls while I stared at the senator again.
People always thought men like me were loud. Explosive. Easy to spot. They never understood the real monsters rarely raised their voices. I didn’t need to. The room shifted the moment I walked into it.
Ghost tossed the folder in front of me. Inside were pictures, bank statements, phone records, and photos of the senator with underage girls.
Pathetic-ass nigga.
Men destroyed themselves so easily.
“You want him dead?” Ghost casually asked.
I studied the picture for a moment before closing the folder. “No.”
Ghost raised an eyebrow.
I stood from my chair slowly, buttoning my suit jacket.
“Dead men don’t suffer.”
A dark grin pulled at Ghost’s mouth.
He damn sure understood exactly what I meant.
I walked through the warehouse with my hands in my pockets while men scattered out of my way. Nobody made eye contact with me for too long. Smart decision.
Fear was necessary. Not the loud kind. The quiet kind that sat in your stomach and kept you awake at night. The kind that made grown men double-check locks before going to sleep.
One of the guards opened the steel door leading downstairs.
The screams started before I even reached the bottom step. I paused halfway down. My ears perked.
The man strapped to the chair was already crying when I entered the room. Blood covered his mouth, and one eye was swollen shut.
Sad.
He started rambling the second he saw me. “Please—please listen—”
I pulled black gloves over my hands slowly. “Everybody begs when consequences are involved.”
His entire body shook worse than a bad stripper. “I got kids . . .”
“So do cemetery plots.”
Ghost laughed quietly behind me.
I crouched in front of the man ’til we were eye level. “You stole from somebody under my protection,” I said softly. “That makes you a liability.”
“I can pay it back—”
“This stopped being about money an hour ago,” I told him. I didn’t know why they always thought begging was gon’ get their asses out of a situation.
Tears flowed faster down his cheeks. I hated crying. Shit was weak, wet, and annoying.
I grabbed his jaw hard enough to make him whimper.
“You know what your fucking problem is?”
He stared at me, trembling. “You thought being desperate made you dangerous.” I tilted my head slightly. “It doesn’t.” Then I flashed him a smile. “People like me?” I squeezed his jaw tighter. “We’re dangerous because we enjoy this shit.”
Removing my blade from my back pocket, I sliced his neck from ear to ear and then wiped the blood on his shoulder. His body made a thud sound when it hit the floor.
* * *
A month later
I should’ve left Vegas in Vegas. That was my problem. I fucking didn’t.
Most women blurred together after a while—pretty faces, fake laughs, fake bodies, temporary distractions.
Solei stayed stuck in my head like a bullet lodged too close to the heart. I noticed her the second the jet rolled into that hangar. Pink yoga outfit. Resting bitch face. Danger in her eyes.
When I made it back to my suite, I watched her through surveillance for almost two hours. In that short time, I learned her favorite drink. What irritated her about men. What made her relax.
It was weeks later, and I was sitting inside Blackveil’s command room, watching live security footage from her apartment complex while Ghost leaned against the wall smoking.
“You know this shit insane, right?” Ghost asked.
I ignored him.
Monitor three showed Solei stepping out of the elevator, wearing gray shorts and an oversized T-shirt.
My jaw slightly flexed.
She looked exhausted. Her hair was thrown into a messy bun while she carried grocery bags against her hip and struggled to unlock her door.
I noticed everything about her. The way she sighed before entering her apartment.
The fact that she always kicked her shoes off near the couch.
How she slept with the television on. How she checked the locks twice before bed.
She was paranoid.
Ghost walked closer to the monitors. “You hacked the whole damn apartment complex system and her personal security?”
“Mind ya fucking business.”
His hands tossed up into the air, and he backed away from me.
I leaned back in my chair while Solei disappeared inside her apartment. Seconds later, the kitchen light came on. Then the living room.
Every night, she followed the same routine. Every chance I got, I watched. Obsession was a dangerous thing because, eventually, it stopped feeling wrong. It started feeling deserved.
I knew her schedule better than she did. Tuesday and Friday, grocery store around six thirty. Sundays, she visited her parents.
Wednesday nights, she ordered takeout and fell asleep on the couch halfway through movies. Saturdays, she hooked up with her best friend, Imani.
I knew when she was sad by the way she moved. I knew when she was angry by how hard she slammed cabinets. I knew when men flirted with her too fucking long. That part irritated me the most.
I watched one of the maintenance workers smile at her through the apartment hallway camera two days ago.
Tonight, his employee file sat on my desk with terminated stamped across the front.
Ghost looked over my shoulder. “You’re spiraling.”
“Fuck on. I’m observing.”
“You’re psychotic. That’s what yo’ ass is,” Ghost muttered underneath his breath.
Maybe.
The next camera feed pulled up the grocery store parking lot from last week. Solei climbed out her car wearing black leggings and one of those little cropped hoodies that showed a strip of skin every time she reached upward.
My grip tightened on the armrest.
She grabbed a shopping cart and disappeared inside the store. I already had men inside. Not to hurt her, but to protect her. People saw danger when it arrived loud. I saw it beforehand.
A man near the produce section stared at her far too long. Another followed behind her through the frozen section, pretending to shop.
Ghost glanced at the screen. “You want him handled?”
I lingered on the clip a bit too long, giving him the wrong impression. “No,” I responded.
I hated whenever strangers looked at her. She should’ve been for my eyes only. It made something crawl underneath my skin and my trigger finger itch.
By the time Solei walked back into the parking lot carrying grocery bags, rain had started falling. She struggled balancing everything while digging through her purse for her keys.
Irritation crossed her face as one of the bags ripped, and cans rolled underneath nearby cars. “Shit,” formed on her lips.
I watched her crouch to pick them up while rain soaked through her hoodie. Some nigga stopped to help her, and I gritted. The sudden urge to rid every man from her existence crossed my mind. Fucking with me, the cemetery was gon’ run out of space for bodies.