Chapter 7 #2
Let him believe it. Let him strut in here, smug and slow, thinking he’s the star of the fucking show. Let him keep thinking it until the moment I end him.
The bar is quiet tonight. Just a few clusters of regulars, one couple too wrapped up in each other to care. Good. Calm is easier. Quiet means I can focus.
Because tonight, everything has to be clean.
The door opens, and I glance in the mirror. Reflex, nothing more. But my gaze snags on something it shouldn’t.
Her.
Laurette.
Fuck me.
She doesn’t walk—she claims the room. Her gaze sweeps the space with the same courtroom ferocity I saw in the research photos.
My head dips, gaze fixing on the glass of rye in front of me as I avoid eye contact. I want to watch without being noticed.
She slips onto a stool two seats to my left. Close—too damn close.
Close enough for her scent to reach me—vanilla, jasmine, and citrus. Feminine and bright, edged with something sharper that won’t yield.
So fucking delectable.
It cuts through the haze in my chest, vibrating with pressure I cannot shake. My pulse spikes. Not a flutter. Not nerves.
Something worse.
Because I don’t get shaken. I don’t get moved.
Not this way.
Not like someone just reached into my rib cage and closed their hand around something I never give away.
My grip tightens around the rim of the glass. A flicker of adrenaline flashes down my spine and blooms in my chest.
Not fear. Not surprise.
Hunger.
The urge to move closer, to lean toward her, to fall into her, tears through me, splitting me wide from the inside out.
But I can’t, so I stay still.
This is too damn much. Too fast. Too fucking soon.
Not now. She cannot break my concentration again. Not tonight, when Rourke is due to die.
The bartender leans in, wiping condensation off the counter as she settles on the stool.
“I was here last night with a group of friends. Do you remember us?”
He squints. “Yeah, four of you. Lots of laughing.”
“That’s us.” Her smile flashes.
I can’t wait to make her smile at me like that.
“Did you notice anyone near us? Watching?”
He stiffens. “Why? Did someone bother you?”
“A man followed me home. He left a note in my mailbox.”
My pulse stutters. Spikes.
The bartender frowns, the towel slowing in his hands. “Jesus, no. I mean, I don’t think so. No one stood out. It was a regular Friday night crowd.”
“No one sitting alone who took notice of us?”
Oh fuck.
“Plenty of loners but nobody creepy. If someone was paying too much attention, I’d have clocked it.”
Bullshit. He wouldn’t clock a damn thing.
Relief threads through me, laced with something darker: possession.
She’s looking for me, and fuck, it’s thrilling.
Laurette studies him, sharp-eyed. “You’re sure?”
He nods, more certain now. “Positive. I’d tell you if something was off.”
A pause. Her jaw flexes. “Thanks.”
“Want a drink? On the house?” he offers.
She shakes her head. “Thanks, but I didn’t come to drink. Just came for information.”
Laurette moves past me, making for the door. The air shifts as she goes, and her perfume catches in my lungs.
I’m here, Laurette. Right here. Closer than you suspect.
She showed up, and now the night tastes different. Sweeter.
I close my eyes for half a second. Just long enough to burn her deeper into my skull. And then I let her go.
My fists unclench, and my breath evens. The leash tightens around my need, because obsession cannot be a distraction.
Tonight is not about Laurette.
It’s about him. And the special gift I’ll have for Holloway when I’m finished with this job.
I spot Rourke in the mirror before I hear him. His shirt is unbuttoned low, collar gaping wide. A gold chain flashes against his chest, a cross dangling heavy at the center.
I wonder what he tells himself about wearing a crucifix while he shoots young girls full of poison and pimps them out to pay for the addictions he created.
Rourke slides onto a stool a few seats down from me. His posture is loose and casual, as if the night already belongs to him. He keeps his face turned away, absorbed in whatever fantasy he’s chasing this time.
The mirror catches his outline. Broad shoulders. Relaxed confidence. And the gleam of that cross.
He orders a Fireball with a beer back. Juvenile. All cheap heat and frat-boy bravado.
The bartender barely reacts.
Rourke looks younger than you’d expect. Too clean-cut, a pretty boy who got lost in this world of sin. That softness makes him more dangerous. It’s easy to see how a young girl might fall for the mask without ever glimpsing the monster behind it.
“Drinking alone or meeting someone?” the bartender asks.
Rourke smirks, drumming his fingers on the bar. “Meeting someone. She’s—well, she sounds special.” He glances toward the door. “Met her online.”
“Let me guess. Tinder?” the bartender teases.
Rourke chuckles, low and smug. “Something like that. I mean… she’s young, but fuck, I’m into that.”
The bartender raises a brow. “There's nothing wrong with liking ’em younger, long as they’re not too young.”
Rourke grins. “Yeah. Said she’s into older guys. Guess I’m her type.”
He finishes his drink and orders another. Then another.
I watch without giving myself away. Every twitch of his smirk, the tap of his foot, the lazy sprawl of his elbow.
Then it starts.
The huff. The check of his phone. Screen lights up, thumb scrolls, jaw clenches. He sets it down, picks it up again thirty seconds later. Same move and frustration.
He watches the door every time it opens, gaze eager, then disappointed.
Again.
And again.
Each restless shift makes the heat rise in my chest. He’s unraveling. Growing impatient. The silence stretches too long, the drink disappears too fast, and still, no girl.
Good. Let him wonder whether she changed her mind.
Rourke exhales through his nose and downs the rest of his drink. “Looks as though I got stood up. Maybe her daddy caught her sneaking out again.”
The bartender’s gaze sharpens. “Daddy? How young are we talking?”
Rourke laughs. “Old enough.”
Disgust rolls through me. This is a man who preys on the unsuspecting, whose charm is a costume stitched from ego and poison. He smiles as if he’s harmless, as if the evil in him is mischief.
But I know better. I’ve seen the aftermath.
And he sits there, untouched by guilt.
He palms two bills across the bar and pushes away. The door shuts behind him with a soft, final click. I wait for a moment, allowing the silence to settle. Then I rise and follow.
No hurry. This isn’t a flare of fury. It’s a predation.
I move through the night like the promise of a storm. Quiet at first, then impossible to ignore.
He believes he’s leaving the scene of a failed hookup. But he’s walking towards a reckoning, unaware.
My steps are small and measured. The taste of it—something sweet with promise—settles at the back of my mouth. I’m not here to punish in haste. No, that won’t do. I’m here to make him understand the hollow place he carved in someone else’s life.
He will beg. He will bargain. He will learn the damage of what he’s done.
Not because I want to watch him suffer for spectacle, but because his wickedness must end with meaning.
Tonight, Silas Rourke will meet a dark shadow he can’t outrun.