Page 179 of The Pucking Wrong Man

I gave him one back and hoped he saw the promise in my gaze. Whatever he saw was at least enough for his smile to fade and for him to start walking away.

I wasn’t going to fuck him up in a hospital parking lot though. What I had planned for him needed to be done in private, where I wouldn’t make the headlines. I couldn’t exactly take care of Anastasia from jail.

Anastasia hadn’t noticed him, and I preferred that.

Michael was living on borrowed time.

He just didn’t know it yet.

CHAPTER 37

ANASTASIA

Michael was following me.

It was all part of the plan, but it was terrifying.

Even knowing that Camden was watching over me, my heart was going a million miles a minute, so fast that I was worried I might be having a heart attack.

We’d tried this three times over the past week after Freya had seen him lurking near my dance studio—but Michael hadn’t taken the bait.

Tonight, apparently, he had.

We could have called the police—there was a warrant out for his arrest because of the bathroom attack. But Camden and I had both decided that it wasn’t good enough. It wouldn’t be enough to make up for all he’d done to me all these years.

He’d probably get a couple of months probation, or if he was sentenced to jail, he’d get early release.

Michael Carver had tortured me since the day I’d woken up in the hospital. He’d cut my skin—marked me with his blades and his teeth, he’d haunted my nights, he’d locked me in a cage, he’d stalked me through the streets, he’d forced me to take pictures for him and violated my body and my soul. He had blackmailed me and then strangled me for fun…

For all of that, the justice that I needed to sleep at night had to be done ourselves.

Like the other nights, I pretended I was walking home from dance by myself, Camden staying out of sight so Michael would think I was truly alone.

My breath was coming out in gasps as I walked along the sidewalk, trying to keep my steps controlled and not break out into the run that I wanted to.

I would catch glimpses of Michael every time I turned a corner—he wasn’t trying to hide from me at all. He was enjoying this right now, the predator hunting his little bunny.

I knew the plan, we’d gone over it again and again, but I still felt too much like prey as Michael stalked me through the streets.

Turning the corner, I went down a road I wouldn’t usually take, that no one usually took. I stopped in front of an alleyway, pretending to look at my phone.

Camden: I love you.

I read the text over and over, trying to prepare for what was coming next.

Michael’s footsteps sounded behind me, making me sick. I felt violated just having him within ten feet of me.

“Hello, Ana,” he purred as he walked up behind me, smug satisfaction coming off him in waves.

Because he thought he’d won.

“Michael,” I whispered, my bravado failing as I slowly turned to stare at him, just like it always did. I was shivering as we looked at each other, his watery blue eyes that starred in all of my nightmares taking in every inch of me.

I backed up into the alley, my hands in front of me like I was trying to ward him off.

His footsteps were slow and measured as he stalked me, past the piles of trash and decay that lined the sides of the building, his shiny shoes crunching dead leaves and debris as he walked. In my mind, this was where he belonged. There was no amount of nice clothes or expensive hair products that could hide what he was—the worst kind of trash.

A little scream popped out of my mouth when my back hit the chain metal fence at the end of the alley—unplanned of course—but I’d never been great at controlling my reaction to him.

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