7. Knox #2
Between her pointer and middle finger rests a small piece of metal that I suspect to be her car keys, and the way she angles her knuckles, she looks every bit like she’s about to stab someone with it.
And it only gets weirder from there. A soft chirp comes from her purse, and she pulls out her phone like she’s handling a venomous snake.
I know I shouldn’t risk getting closer. I should tail her from a distance.
But I can’t help it.
The look on her face makes it clear she’s far more terrified of the phone than whatever is around her.
What’s got her so spooked?
Thankfully, we’re in the chip aisle, so I have a legitimate excuse for being here, heading past Anna to grab a few bags for the guys. I’m able to stand behind her, and—
Hot damn.
Whoever made the dress she had worn to the jewelry store needs to be hogtied, because they committed a felony hiding curves like hers. Even with the girl wearing loose sweatpants, it’s impossible not to see the wide hips, a gorgeous, shapely ass, and a set of thick thighs I want wrapped around me.
Fuck Barbie. She’s more like Marilyn Monroe.
And it’s obvious I need to get laid, because it takes way too fucking long for me to drag my eyes up from her ass to look over her shoulder at the phone screen.
Can you blame me though? I haven’t been with a woman in over four years.
Sure, I’ve gotten offers down at the strip joint, but as they say, “Don’t shit where you eat” and “Don’t fuck where you chill.
” I go to the club to clear my mind. I can’t risk complicating things by getting involved with someone or catching feelings.
There’s only room for one woman in my life right now, and it’s the one I’m going to fuck over so thoroughly she’ll be wishing she was dead.
Although, it doesn’t seem fair to call Lillian a woman.
She’s a cunt. A she-devil who deserves to burn in Hell.
And I’m going to bring that fire right to her doorstep.
That is if I can focus instead of ogling Scarlett Johansson’s even curvier cousin here.
Shit, what is that blouse hiding? The way the fabric drapes over her, I have a feeling it’s severely underplaying the size of her tits.
Goddamn it, get your head in the game, Knox.
Since Anna here isn’t wearing heels, our difference in height makes it easy for me to see over her shoulder without having to lean in like a creeper.
The phone number at the top of the text message isn’t saved in her contacts, but the message makes it obvious who it’s from.
Please let me know when you’re feeling well enough to give your official statement. You’ll be surprised how talking about it can jog your memory.
Well, fuck me sideways.
She hasn’t talked to the cops yet. At least not in any official capacity.
But before I can get too excited by the idea that she may not remember what happened, she curses under her breath and shoves the phone back into her purse without replying to the text.
Nothing about the message should have flustered her, but that’s precisely what it’s done. Her hands shake ever so slightly as she drags them through her hair before gripping the handlebar of her cart so hard that her knuckles turn white.
Strange.
I can understand feeling a little on edge being in public after the robbery, but this is something different.
Putting the chip bags in my cart, I keep walking and disappear down another aisle. My disguise may not be great, considering I can’t wear my sunglasses in here, but I make do, taking out my phone and reinserting my earbuds that aren’t connected to anything.
Yep, I’m that asshole, the guy who’s more concerned about DMing some girl on Instagram and listening to a podcast rather than paying attention to where he’s walking.
What can I say? The last person you would ever suspect of stalking is the one who can’t be bothered to acknowledge that other people around him even exist.
Sure enough, I get a dirty look from a middle-aged woman who mutters about “young people with their phones glued to their hands.”
My girl doesn’t pull out her phone again and continues looking over her shoulder, like she can feel my eyes on her.
Maybe she can. I make sure to keep my distance, but not too far that I can’t appreciate her.
I mean, hey, I am only human, and anyone with a semi-functioning eyeball can see she’s gorgeous.
And maybe she has a lot of roommates or lives with her family or is stockpiling for the apocalypse, because she’s buying enough food that would last a month even in my house.
The cart gets so heavy that she has to lean over the handlebars and leverage her weight just to make a turn.
And she continues stealing glances upward, as if someone’s lurking on top of the shelves.
Seriously, what the fuck?
The only normal thing she’s done since I spotted her is debate over what versions of various foods she should buy.
Again, I know I shouldn’t get this close, but I have ice cream on my list from Dominic, so I join her in the last aisle as she studies the cartons in her hands.
She outright makes a face at the one, and I see it’s some fat-free shit that’s guaranteed to be bland and coarse, but she looks at the nutritional facts label on the other one before setting it back on the shelf.
Still making a face, she takes the fat-free shit to her cart, and I want to chuck it out and say, “Fuck that!”
I don’t want to see her lose a single ounce off that gorgeous frame, and I sure as hell don’t want to see her do it by ingesting something that will make her tongue feel like sand was mixed in with it.
That was the only kind of ice cream Georgia ever bought when I was little, and I had to be subjected to it anytime my mom sent me to her apartment when she had to work.
I want to rip the carton out of Blondie’s hands, but what I’m seeing is very reassuring.
I’ve witnessed what she’s like in a high-stress situation, and the girl knows how to handle herself. She didn’t start screaming or crying or completely lose her shit when everything went down at the jewelry shop, even after that asshole Devin threw her into harm’s way.
She had been subservient.
Compliant.
She valued her life more than her job and knew how to read the room. Not until you’re in prison do you see how many people are incapable of the latter.
This girl is everything I could only dream of.
Because I won’t have to take up Dominic’s suggestion and kidnap her.
Because with the proper leverage, she’s the perfect person I can keep quiet. All I need to do is find her weak spot, something I can threaten.
The police could place her in protective custody if I tell Anna I’ll kill her, and then I’ll be shit out of luck.
No, I need to study this girl, learn what makes her tick.
There are very few people in this world without secrets you can exploit, and something about this girl tells me her closet ain’t clear of skeletons.
She’s ready to shank someone with her car keys, even when doing something as banal as grocery shopping.
That vigilance—that hyper-awareness—isn’t just the result of the robbery.
It’s something that’s been ingrained in her over time.
You see the same thing in seasoned prisoners when they find themselves alone, albeit less jumpy.
They perceive everything as a potential threat and know to stay on high alert.
Could she be an ex-con? With a body and face like that, it would be easy for her to defraud men of their money. Hell, many would probably sell their firstborns just for a night with her.
Blondie starts to push her cart but abruptly stops. She taps her foot one, two, three times before reaching into the basket and returning to the freezer door.
I can’t help but grin as she swaps out the ice cream carton for the one she actually wants and then follows it up by flipping off the previous one.
Well, hello, beautiful.
She’s scrappy, alert, and, though clearly paranoid, not as amenable as I initially thought. At least not in the small ways.
But you’d be surprised just how compliant good old-fashioned blackmail can make someone.
You ’ ve got a secret, Blondie, and I ’ m going to find and exploit the shit out of it.
So long as Anna here is driving her own car, Michael can look up her license plate to get her full name, but that also requires me having to follow her out to her car.
I expect Anna to take her groceries out to some newer model Nissan or Honda, so color me surprised to see her hurrying over to an old Pontiac Sunfire. And when I say hurrying, I do mean hurrying . She’s loading her groceries into the trunk like she’s being timed.
Again, I’m tempted to laugh, until I notice an all too familiar SUV parked directly across from her, the license plate number seared in my mind.
Any hope that the boys in blue changed up vehicles sometime during these past four years dies as the Asshole Supreme himself, otherwise known as Officer Benedict Holt, comes sauntering right past me with a coffee in hand from the grocery store’s cafe.
For a split second, I think I’m fucked.
He’s been following me.
He knows I’ve been following her—
But the fucker doesn’t spare me so much as a passing glance.
Nope, his attention is wholly captivated by a certain curvaceous blonde.
An irrational flare of anger rises up in me at the way he ogles her ass, like the fucker is cutting into my territory.
Which is stupid, because I don’t even know her, but what can I say?
She intrigues me, and watching her continuously bend forward to put more and more bags into the trunk only revs me up further.
I can usually keep myself in check around a woman, but something about Blondie here sends all my blood rushing below my belt.
And the fact I’m not the only one looking at her like that pisses me off more.
Because Officer Fuck Face here isn’t just admiring. He’s eyeing her with ownership. Like she’s already his. The asshole bites his bottom lip as he watches her bend down, looking like he’s about to tear those sweatpants off Anna and come at her from behind.
I already want to bash in his skull, but this has me adjusting my daydream to ripping his dick off instead and letting him bleed out.
I expect him to go on his merry way after Blondie tears out of the parking lot, only to watch the cretin follow after her.
Beg my goddamn pardon?
Excuse me, douche nozzle, but there’s only room for one deranged stalker and I was here first.
Seriously, what the hell is he playing at?
I’m stuck tailing him as he tails her down street after street after street.
And my girl is far more aware of her surroundings than he’s given her credit for, because he isn’t doing a very good job of being discreet, and she catches on quite quickly.
The very fact that this asshole hasn’t been fired yet from the force is proof his connections hold sway with the department.
The fact he feels comfortable enough to do this only reinforces that.
It’s unconstitutional for a cop to pull over someone just to flirt with them, so he’d be guilty of performing an unlawful traffic stop…
However, she gives him probable cause when she begins speeding.
He turns on his siren and lights, forcing her to stop and me to pass them both.
I pull off into the bar just ahead of them, and with the street lights, I’m able to at least see her expression.
She looks rightfully terrified, but another irrational pang of anger rises in me after a minute or so, seeing the two of them fall into conversation. Anna seems to relax and takes a couple sheets of paper from him, which I bet have his number written on one.
My view, however, is impeded when two drunken jackasses begin tussling in front of me.
One barely manages to punch the other, but they’re both so inebriated that the impact sends them both falling onto the hood of Georgia’s car. I don’t know if someone kicks or smashes it with a beer bottle, but I hear glass shatter and watch the left headlight go dark.
For fuck’s sake.
My fencer, a.k.a. the middleman who will be selling the jewelry from our heist won’t be able to meet with me for several weeks, and even if I could get money sooner, it’s not like I can use it right now with the police looking into me.
But I also don’t want to fall into the habit of relying on gambling to get by. Unfortunately, I barely managed to scrape up enough cash for groceries and utilities. How the hell am I going to afford replacing the headlight and removing the new dent on the car without having to go back to the boat?
To pour more salt into the wound, I look past the two jackasses to see that Holt and Blondie are both gone.
Jesus H Christ.
What.
The.
Fuck?