Page 7 of Primal

“What?” she asks drowsily, trying to sit up. I push on her shoulder to keep her in place.

“Grandma—listen to me. Was anyone in the house while I was gone?”

That must be why she was so startled when I came home. She must have heardhim.

Eyes wide, she shakes her head. “No, no one was here. What’s wrong, Kiara?”

I pull the comforter back over her frail frame and turn back to the door. “It’s nothing, Grandma. Just go back to sleep. I’m sorry I woke you.”

I leave her room again and shut the door behind me. In my haste to get back downstairs, I trip over the rug at the front door and fall to my knees.

“Shit,” I hiss, wiping droplets of blood off my left knee. I look at the runner with malice, glaring at where it’s folded over at the corner.

Was that like that when I came in?

No. Surely, I would have noticed it before… right?

A chill inches down my spine, and the hair on the back of my neck prickles. For the second time today, I feel like I’m being watched.

“This is ridiculous,” I mumble. He’s not in the house anymore.

He’s not.

My hope that Grandma and I are the only ones here doesn’t stop me from looking around as I walk into the kitchen to get the security system. I want to set it up before she wakes up, but when I start reading the directions, I can’t seem to focus. All I can think about is that someone is down here with me.

I drop the instruction manual on the table and look at the closet across from the kitchen. The door is ajar. Did Grandma leave it like that?

Oh my God, Kiara, get a fucking grip.

I take several deep breaths to try to calm myself down, but I can’t relax. I grab a knife out of the drawer and slowly make my way to the closet. This is the moment I realize I should probably get a gun, because this knife won’t do shit against his gun.

Closer and closer, I inch toward the closet, until my hand is resting on the doorknob. I swallow before flinging the door open.

CHAPTER 7

HIM

How cute of her to think I would be stupid enough to hide in a closet.

Well, technically, I am in the closet, but I’m hiding in the crawl space inside the closet. Kiara must not know about it, though, because she shakes her head as if to clear her thoughts, then she turns and goes back into the kitchen.

Slipping in and getting the cameras up was a bitch with Esther here, but I managed to get the job done—and put the phone and wallet on Kiara’s bed—without her noticing.

Although, I should have made sure everything was back where it was before my butterfly got home. I watch as she angrily kicks the corner of the runner back into place.

Oops.

Before I left last night, I’d thought about taking her phone, but I decided to clone it and put a tracker on it. That’s how I knew she would be out of the house for a while, so I was able to come in and bug the place. There are cameras and microphones in every room except for Esther’s bedroom and private bathroom. Figured I could at least give the old lady some semblance of privacy.

Kiara, on the other hand, doesn’t get that same courtesy.

I’ll watch her sleep, watch her eat, watch her fuck herself senseless to the thought of me.

She was just as turned on at the thought of me robbing her as I was actually robbing her. I’ve never met anyone whose dark fantasies are so like mine, and I fully intend to keep her for myself. I’m never letting her go.

Kiara Saunders will never know peace as long as I’m around.

CHAPTER 8

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