Page 41 of Hunting Pretty

I remembered how she had looked on the hidden camera when I’d checked up on her from my roaming “office” in the back of my white unmarked van just before I broke into Thomas Peterson’s house.

She had been sitting cross-legged on her bed with her panties visible beneath her miniskirt, bent over her laptop as she chewed at the end of a pencil.

Totally unaware she was being watched.

Unaware that this vile creature was desecrating this sacred sight.

My blood boiled.

I might have roughed him up a little bit, locked him down in the basement, but he just signed his death warrant.

Thiswas the final nail in his coffin.

My only concern now was doing it in a way that wouldn’t cause too much noise.

I didn’t want to scare Ava if she heard her new neighbor screaming his head off.

Unmoving in the doorway, I surveyed the half-unpacked bedroom suite. My skin crawled at the sight of the object on the dresser.

But then the dark irony descended on me.

Perfect.

With silent steps, I advanced to the dresser where I plucked up a ball gag. It swung at my side as I continued on, coming to a stop just behind Peterson’s back.

I snatched ahold of him by the hair and cut off his frightened yelp by slamming the ball gag against his teeth.

He fought as I buckled it behind his head, but he was pitifully weak. Bullies who prey on the innocent always were.

“That’s for talking to Ava,” I hissed in his ear as he cried against the ball gag.

I slammed him against the glass window, his hot breath snorting out of his nostrils forming a fog.

He was shaking his head as he looked back at me from over his shoulder.

I grabbed his right hand by the wrist where he held the sill.

All I could see was his fucking hand on Ava.

His fucking eyes on Ava.

Iwas the only one who was allowed to touch her.

To watch her.

She was mine.

And he defiled what was mine.

He had to die.

But first he had to suffer.

I pulled a knife from my thigh sheath—one I named Sweeney Todd—and chopped at his hand.

His scream of pain and horror bubbled around the ball gag. His fingers clutched uselessly at the glass, tears streaming down his pale, unworthy face.

You know, it was actually quite difficult to saw through a wrist.

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