Waiting for the Dark
Mack
The executive parking level sits three floors underground, and it's quiet as a forgotten graveyard down here.
I’m surrounded by concrete and cold air, and somewhere off in the dark a pipe ticks as it cools. I've wedged myself into the corner past the last row of cars, where the light from the fixtures gives out before it reaches me, and I've been standing still for so long, my knees are starting to creak.
I wish I knew where Crispin parked his damn car. I rest the metal pipe against my shoulder and settle in to wait.
There wasn't time to figure out what kind of car the fucker drives, but I don't think it'll be a problem. There's only one elevator that comes down this far, and only one stairwell does too.
Thankfully, there wasn't a camera on it anywhere.
My only real concern is that this fucker, Crispin, doesn’t have a car parked down here at all. Men like him tend to have town cars that take them everywhere. Right?
If that’s the case, there’s nothing I can do about him tonight. We’ll have to figure this out tomorrow.
Fuck. What time is it?
I pull the burner out of the pocket of my coveralls. Nine-sixteen.
Then the phone buzzes in my hand and one word comes in from Adrian.
Now
It’s time.
I scan the ceiling once more for cameras. There's one mounted high on the far wall, but it's aimed off the other way, watching the elevator doors and the lane that feeds into them. Nothing points back into my corner.
I don’t see others, but that doesn't mean there isn't one, only that I haven't found it.
Reaching up, I adjust the ski mask on my face, making sure all my hair is tucked away. Then I tug at my leather gloves. I’ve got latex gloves under these, and they’re making my palms sweat like crazy.
The elevator dings, and everything in me goes quiet and hard at once, that old readiness dropping over me like a thrown switch. My weight settles down through my heels and hand curls tight around the pipe.
Ten years fall away and I'm all instinct again, the kind that kept me alive back when I was living on the streets.
The doors slide open, bright light flooding the open space, and the motherfucker actually steps out. He's got his phone pressed to his ear, talking loudly as he marches through the dark. Behind him, a guard leans halfway out of the elevator, one hand holding the door, and watches him go.
Holding my breath, I flatten myself into my corner, then I force every muscle to freeze. I keep my stare fixed on that guard, waiting to see if I’m gonna have to handle him too.
Crispin keeps walking, those expensive shoes echoing off the walls, and the guard watches him the length of the lane, patient, making sure his boss gets where he's going. I count Crispin's steps in my head while I wait, and, I swear to god, every one of them takes a year off my life.
My eyes go wide as Crispin moves into the sightline of that fucking camera.
Shit!
The guard nods once, and leans back into the elevator. His hand comes off the door, and he hits a button.
My lungs start to burn, my patience running out with each passing second, waiting for those fucking doors to close. They finally start their slow crawl toward each other and I swear they stop halfway to spite me. My heart slams so hard I feel it in my teeth.
Come on. Come on.
Fucking shut!
The gap slooooowly narrows and the guard's face disappears behind steel, and finally the two halves kiss shut with a soft clunk.
I move.
I come off that wall as fast as I can, my tennis shoes whispering on the concrete.
But instead of going for Crispin, I set my sights on that fucking camera.
I run, then jump as high as I can, reaching for it.
I manage to get a hand on the camera housing, and force it toward the ceiling until it's staring at nothing but concrete and pipe.
Then I drop and run.
Thankfully, Crispin doesn’t hear me. He's got the phone at his ear and his keys out, thumbing the fob. The lights on a black Porsche flash once, then he reaches for the door handle.
He's still talking when I pick up my pace, running as fast as I can.
"No," he growls into the phone. "You tell them if Hargrove wants to renegotiate at the eleventh hour, he can watch the whole deal burn, and you can put that on the record." He wrenches the car door open. "I don't care what time it is there. Wake him up."
He hangs up, right as I hit him full-on.
All of my weight slams into him, right as the door swings wide. We leave the ground together. His phone goes flying off into the dark and the keys skitter under the car as the two of us come down onto the concrete in a heap. The pipe in my hand slips, clanking loudly on the concrete floor.
Crispin makes a sharp grunting sound as we hit, all the air punches out of him at once. And I don’t give him a second to recover.
I straddle his chest, pin him under my weight, and I start swinging.
My fist comes down into his face and something gives, and I pull back and do it again, and again. There's a feeling that comes up in me with every hit, and God forgive me, it's a good one.
It's the best I've felt in years.
This is the piece of shit who put his hands on my Lyra. He touched her and terrorized her and made her fucking bleed, and I will end him for it.
I hit him for every bruise he left on her skin. For every tear she shed and every drop of blood she lost.
I hit him until I can’t feel my knuckles anymore.
It takes the son of a bitch a while to come back to himself.
The first several blows he takes, stunned, arms loose on the concrete.
Then something clicks back on behind his eyes, and his hands come up.
But he isn’t trying to hit me. He's clawing at my head, grabbing for my mask, hooking his fingers under the edge of it to drag it off my face.
My hands fly up, trying to save it, but the second my weight shifts off center, the fucker gets a foot down and a hand braced, and he throws his weight to one side. Losing my balance, I pitch sideways, sprawling onto the concrete.
We both scramble up. Then we're on our feet, facing each other across a few feet of empty garage.
I'm breathing hard. My fists have gone cold, and I can feel my pulse ticking in my knuckles, one raw beat after another.
Crispin stands across from me with his chest heaving. His nose is running red over his mouth, his hair's wrecked and hanging in his face, and there's a single dark spot of blood soaking into the collar of that perfect white shirt.
I can’t wait to fuck up the rest of him.
"Who the fuck are you?" Crispin spits a mouthful of red onto the concrete between us.
The rage in his voice is a beautiful thing. It's the sound of a man who has never once in his life been on this side of things, and doesn't have the first idea what to do now that the world has finally swung back on him.
I could listen to it all night.
"Answer me!" The asshole’s eyes rake over me, taking in my mask, dark jeans, and long-sleeved shirt. "Tomlinson sent you," he says like he’s figured me out.
I raise my fists again and roll my shoulders loose, easing back into my stance. I only wish he could see the grin I've got on under this mask.
"Of course he did." Crispin drags the back of his hand under his nose, and it comes away smeared.
"That spineless motherfucker." He straightens, trying to find his height again, trying to talk to me like he can control me.
"Go back and you tell him it doesn't matter.
You hear me? This acquisition will happen with him or over him.
Everything closes by Friday, whether his pathetic old man signs or not.
Breaking my nose doesn't change one line of it. "
I let him finish his little speech, then I laugh, easy and loud, and I watch how much he hates the sound of it.
"Tomlinson?" I say. "Nah. Don't know the man. Sounds like you've made yourself a whole lot of friends, though."
Crispin stares hard into the eyeholes of my mask, trying like hell to figure out who I am. "Who sent you?" he finally asks.
"Come on. There can’t be that many people who want you dead." I move slowly, and he turns with me, refusing to let me circle him.
"You're a dead man." He's breathing hard now, and there's a shake starting up under the anger. "Do you have any idea of who I am?"
"Oh, I know exactly who you are." I step forward, throw a punch, and pop him right in the center of his shitty face.
The asshole’s head jerks back and he stumbles, before regaining his footing.
I'm already moving again, up on the balls of my feet, light as anything. I drift side to side with my fists up and chin tucked, just like my boxing coach taught me as a kid.
Crispin curses loudly as he pinches the bridge of his nose between two fingers. He blinks through the water in his eyes, trying to shake the ring out of his skull. He's flat-footed. Planted.
A big, slow, expensive man who has never had to learn how to fight.
What a fucking joke.
"Come on now," I say, still dancing, still circling. "Is that the best you’ve got? Big man like you?" I feign in and slide back out, making the fucker flinch. "All that money and nobody ever taught you how to throw a proper punch? That's real pathetic."
He swings at me, but I'm already gone. Moving and circling and bobbing and weaving.
I laugh at his clumsy movements, shocked that any alpha would be this useless in a fight.
The asshole is swinging his arms like a windmill in a hurricane. I could read his next punch in the dark. I could read it in my sleep. I could probably read it with my eyes closed and one hand tied behind my back, whistling Dixie.
This isn't a fight. It's a goddamn public service.
And I’m tired of it already.
I move in.
No more dancing, no more running my mouth.
I step inside the asshole’s reach, and I go to work on his body. My fists connect with his gut, driving under his ribs, once, twice, a third time. Each one landing in the same soft place.