Do I look like a TEA to that moronic approximation of an assistant manager?
All the people in the world—except for four—fall into two categories: “need killing” and “don’t care what happens to them.” A man who spends ten minutes complaining about somebody using a wrong name, yet does exactly that to his colleague, falls into the first.
And within that particular category, there are the “do it myself” and “let karma do its work” subcategories. Luckily for Eric Jones, karma will be sufficient. Not because he doesn’t deserve killing. He simply hasn’t done enough to earn it.
Yet.
I cross the street at the corner, then walk another block back to the skyscraper that houses the Pryce Family Foundation. Back to my job as an assistant to Elizabeth Catherine Lucrezia Pryce-Reed King. There are other assistants, but I’m the one in charge of Lizochka’s security and schedule.
The security guard in the lobby nods, and I nod back. Although his mouth turns flat every time he sees me, at least he’s stopped flinching. Probably because the sniveling little shit I told him to shoot on sight is dead, so he doesn’t have to do the honor. The man’s a great shot—I made sure of that before hiring him—but he’s a bit too soft, either in the head or heart. Perhaps both.
Once I’m inside an elevator by myself, I pull out my phone and check Lyosha’s social media feeds. I told him not to make those accounts because they’re a spy’s idea of heaven. But my son is too cool and smart to listen to his father.
So I use his youthful arrogance to my advantage. Lyosha has no clue I hacked his accounts, but I need to keep an eye on things to make sure he’s safe until I can cross the last item off my kill list.
There are a couple of selfies of him and his buddies at some restaurant in Berkeley last night. He seemed to be having fun. I screencap the picture so I can check these new friends of his out. I didn’t bring him all the way from a shitty Russian orphanage to California to have him hang out with the wrong crowd. I taught him how to take care of himself, but he’s young and inexperienced. And those two factors can get anybody into trouble. As I know from my own experience.
When I’m on my floor, I walk to my desk. Rhonda and Patrice say hello, and I say hello back to them because that’s what’s expected. And because they aren’t ever going to be a threat. I screen them every six months to make sure nothing odd is going on—no sudden change in their finances, among other things.
If Lizochka finds out, she’ll tell me to quit wasting my time, since Rhonda and Patrice have been with the foundation forever, and they’re loyal and good people. Lizochka doesn’t seem to understand betrayal comes from those who are closest, and Rhonda and Patrice fit that category.
I carry the coffee to the break room. I tilt the cup to pour the contents into the sink, then stop.
Angelika handed it to me…
Only because I’m a customer at the café, and she was doing her job. She’s good at her job, all smiles and bright eyes. She’s also good at running. Eight years is a long time.
But who cares about that? She’s here now. In L.A.
In my domain. In my control.
My innocent little fawn.
I thought she’d be more like an untamed wildcat, but no. There’s nothing feline about her.
Those slim, but leanly muscled, shapely limbs. Plus the thick hair, a glorious mixture of gold, amber, mahogany, cherry and every other shade in between, topping and framing a pixie-like face with a slightly pointed chin. And her eyes—wide, whiskey-colored, curiously expectant and more than a little wary. When I met them, an odd recognition jolted through me, just like it did when I first laid eyes on Lizochka. But with Angelika, it’s different. It aroused every dark and dangerous instinct I’ve hidden deep in my heart to blend in with society at large.
She looked up at me like I were her personal god of vengeance and justice when I sicced my dogs on that pervert in the park. The most intense urge to deliver proper retribution to the pathetic pervert with the limpest dick I’ve ever had the misfortune to see surged through me, which was precisely why I let that trash go.
Still, she smiled at me at the café, like she didn’t mind I didn’t do something more permanent to the flasher, like she couldn’t be happier to see me again. She approached like a fawn that’s lost its sense of self-preservation—and the instinctive fear of predators, which is what I want, but perturbing in a way I can’t quite put my finger on.
Not only that, she doesn’t seem to care that I didn’t do anything to the pervert. He’s still out there, fully intact and healthy. Men like him don’t change. If she keeps to the same routine, he may come back to show her—or any woman he runs into—that shamefully pathetic cock again because that’s how he feels powerful.
Perhaps I should find him. He probably thinks he got lucky and feels smugly safe now, but nobody gets that lucky when I want them located and dealt with.
Will she smile at me again if I do? Will she look up at me with vulnerable adoration?
I clamp down on the train of thought. All this over two brief encounters?
Absurd.
Focus on the goal—the final item on the kill list.
With a flick of my wrist, I dump the coffee and toss the cup into the trash can.
When I’m back from the break room, Lizochka asks to speak to me. She’s the top dog at the foundation. Everyone else calls her Elizabeth, but Lizochka is the name I’ve used since she was a stubborn teenager and I worked for her grandmother.
Lizochka is pacing in her office. She’s outfitted in a magenta Versace dress—one her barely tolerable husband bought her last month—and nude stilettos. As she moves, her golden hair spills forward. I don’t have to look into her eyes to know she’s worried.