James
FIVE
The most dangerous thing about a monster isn’t what he’ll do to his enemies, it’s what he’ll do for the one person he loves.
Debriefing with the FBI is about as fun as it sounds.
At least we’re doing this in the back of a surveillance van with Camryn and Agent Thompson and not in a chilly interrogation room with nothing but cold coffee and even icier stares.
I point at the mug shots of the men present tonight and consider telling them that Graydon might be an issue, but decide against it.
Camryn needs plausible deniability when his body turns up.
“The case against Owen depends on the girls’ statements,” Agent Thompson states.
“If you need my help, let me know,” I say.
He nods once. Camryn’s eyes narrow. She hates the reminder of who I am when she sees me softer than anyone should. I could spend the rest of my years committing good deeds every single day, and it still wouldn’t tip the scales in favor of my soul being considered for Heaven.
“Anything in the witness statements tonight against you that is going to cause us a problem?” Camryn wonders.
“Tonight? No, the only woman I touched was Willa.” I’m leading a rotten organization to the pits of Hell, and I’ll be dragging these abhorrent men with me. No one will miss them. It’s a service to humanity.
Agent Thompson frowns at his phone and passes it to Camryn as I lean back against the side of the van and fold my arms, the restraints long since gone.
They don’t see me as a threat, which is a fair assessment when they’re holding enough evidence to deliver my heart to a jury who won’t hesitate to deliver the death penalty.
Still, they possess a hidden advantage. My clever sister, hacker extraordinaire, is on their radar after what went down onboard the ship where Jonathan took his last breath.
I have no regrets about that. He needed to die, and if it hadn’t been that night, it would have been another soon after. He took Eleanor—the one thing keeping me under his thumb—threatened her life, and tied it with Stephanie’s, bonding us all in trauma.
But now I’ve swapped a narcissist for the FBI, and if I fuck up, they’ll arrest her. I’m not convinced they possess enough to get a conviction, but I’ve spent my life protecting her, and I’m not about to stop now.
Camryn’s stare bores into mine. “We have a potential woman Burnside has set his sights on.”
“That was quick,” I murmur. Although it’s rare he’s without one, he likes the hunt and isn’t one to delegate it.
Christopher gets off on the fear as much as the eventual pain.
He sometimes love bombs his victims, making them depend on him so when his true nature comes out, they’re so wrapped up in the nice version of him they fell for that they are trapped.
Other times he stalks them. He once sent a woman a bouquet every Friday for six months with violent threats laced into each message before abducting her.
He delights in the way they startle at every shadow.
If he’s found someone this fast, it’s the latter.
“He’s going to stalk her,” I tell them. “The best way to catch him is to watch her.”
Camryn glances at her colleague, then back at the phone. “You’re suggesting bait?” she checks.
“It’s risky, but yes, if you can guarantee you’ll have eyes on her. He’ll circle her for a few weeks while enjoying picking her confidence apart. You could approach her and explain, but that might scare him away and you’d be back to him selecting another girl.”
“Do you think he’d move on?” Agent Thompson checks.
I shrug. “Depends on how invested he is.”
I’m no profiler, but my entire life has been spent around men like Christopher. My survival depended on reading their intentions with precision. I trust my instincts. They’ve never led me wrong so far.
Camryn’s lips twist to the side. “How would you measure that?”
“How long has he been tracking her? How much research has he done? The deeper he sinks into the fantasy, the more difficult it will be for him to let go.”
Camryn sighs. “By the looks of it, weeks.”
“How do you know?”
“Confidential source sent us a file with all the intel Christopher has already gathered.”
I’m not stupid enough to think I’m the only one working both sides, but hearing it makes me both happy and anxious. I’m not caught in this game alone, but the danger of playing both sides is insurmountable.
“Are you going to show me?” I ask.
They share a look that has my body tensing, and Camryn takes a moment to decide one way or another before handing me the phone.
My stomach free-falls, my chest tightens, and I can’t breathe as I study the only woman who has succeeded in stirring something inside me.
“Is this a joke?” I choke out. Images of me supporting her slight weight as her life hung in the balance dangle before me, along with the memory of the resignation in her eyes that she wouldn’t survive the night.
Never again should she feel that kind of fear.
“No,” Camryn says. “Remember, you just said to let this run its course as bait if we can keep her safe.”
“Not this woman,” I snap. “She’s been through enough.”
“Then who? If not her, who deserves to be in his orbit?”
No one does. My moral code is nonexistent as is, but don’t put someone I’ve vowed to protect in front of me and expect me to color in the lines.
“It leads me to question if he recognized her before they crossed paths,” Agent Thompson muses.
Of course, he knew. He can’t take my sister since I have a strict no-touch list and she’s on it. I never thought to add to it. She doesn’t run in his circles, so why would I?
“Bring her in,” I demand.
Camryn shakes her head. “There’s not enough to do that. Plus, it might compromise my source.”
I curl my lip. For the first time, I see the bureaucracy ruling her decisions instead of her sense of justice. “We aren’t here to play God with people’s lives. Bring her in, Agent. I’m serious.”
“She’s living in the pool house on the Alderidge’s land. She’s safe.”
I know where she is. Always. Stalking issues aside, I’ve persuaded myself I’m keeping an eye on a strong yet vulnerable woman I’d never get closer to. How the hell did I miss this? I’ll tell you how—I took my eye off the ball to engineer a raid for the benefit of the bureau.
“I’ve never asked anything of you, but she needs to disappear. Now.”
“You don’t hold any power here,” Camryn reminds me. “This isn’t a transaction. You walk free as our puppet. Cross me, and I won’t hesitate to withdraw that freedom.”
I grin, all teeth, and let her see the darkness beneath my flesh. “You could try, agent,” I drawl. I snap my fingers. “One moment you’ll be closing in and the next, I’ll vanish like smoke. I may walk free at your discretion, but it’s my choice at the end of the day.”
“It will be the end of your days if you don’t comply,” she snarls.
“Bring. Her. In.”
“No. But I will take responsibility for her protection.”
“Camryn,” Agent Thompson warns. She lifts her hand to stop him.
“I’ll hold you to that,” I snap. “She gets hurt, and I’m done.”
“Deal.”
Fuck. Stephanie King is being hunted by the scum of the universe, and I will die before I let anything touch her, including myself. She deserves light and love. I can’t even be in the same room as her and not battle the demons that plague my soul, telling me on some level she is mine.
Now, how do I tell my sister that her sister-in-law-to-be is being stalked? She’ll cook my balls for lunch and feed them to that crazy dog of hers with a smile on her face.
I rub a hand down my face. I don’t like it. There’s something twisting my stomach that says something is about to go wrong.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Camryn warns.
“Like?”
“Warn her.”
That’s not stupid. That’s protection. “Fine.”
“Or her brother.”
Hunter King? Not for all the tea in China would I deliver this news to him. “Never occurred to me.”
“And not your sister,” Camryn says, showing her unusual ability to see beneath what I’m saying and, more importantly, not saying.
“I don’t like this.”
“You don’t have to. It’s our job to keep her safe.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Get closer to him. However you can manage it.”
“You just raided a syndicate event. Everyone is going to give me a wide berth for weeks, if not months. You know the deal.”
She hands Agent Thompson his phone back. “That would be true for all except this man, who believes himself untouchable. He’ll get off socializing with you, knowing you got away with it again. It will feed his belief that he’s untouchable, and that will make him sloppy.”
All true, apart from the last part. Christopher Burnside doesn’t get sloppy; he gets focused.
And now the woman who haunts my dreams is his new obsession.
Tough shit, I’ve already claimed her. Not in the traditional way, but one that means she’s protected from afar.
I’ll become the one with a blade in the shadows, willing to spill his blood at her door before she ever knows how close she’s come to disappearing into his world.
I’ve spent my life surrounded by monsters. The difference between Christopher and me is that when he looks at Stephanie King, he sees a target.
When I look at her, I see something worth killing for.