Page 31 of Prey

Betty wore a mischievous expression while hiding something behind her back; when she was at my side, she bent down to kiss my cheek with those scarlet lips. “Happy birthday Mikky.”

A white cube-shaped box with a red ribbon was placed in front of me, and I turned numb and checked the date on my phone. July 27th. My birthday. Fuck. I hadn’t noticed, nor did I care.

“Thanks,” I said, trying to raise enthusiasm, but it wasn’t there, and Betty could tell.

“I’ll let you get back to your work,” she said, striding to the door. “And if you feel like company later, come down to the club and get one of the girls to fix you up something special.”

“C’mon, Betty,” I groaned. “Meddling with the girls was against my rules.”

She shot me a sharp look over her shoulder. “I was talking about alcohol,” she asserted sternly. “Good ol’ fashion liquor and ice.”

I smiled, and this time, it was genuine. “I’ve got work to do.”

“Sure,” she sounded disappointed. “But the members want to see you now you’re…out. They keep asking after you. The staff do as well. Many believe Mikael Kaiser is nothing but an enigma or fictitious character. A name that was merely thrown about to intimidate people.”

I wasn’t ready to mingle with the staff and members, but I knew that a good businessman always stood by his product and championed the customers who paid good money to buy it. But being in prison for three years changed how I viewed myself, and I’d been a little sheepish about getting back into the game. But Betty was right. She was always right.

“I’ll come down later when the club opens,” I told her just as she was about to shut the door.

“Good,” she mouthed with a blood-red smile.

16

Found it. Finally. The keycard into Riley Laws’ bedroom in Hallen Hall. Ronan hid it in the top drawer of his desk, and I snuck in while he was on the club floor organizing shit. He didn’t try to hide it and assumed I wouldn’t cross that line and snoop in his office.

I’d been communicating with Riley, letting her believe I was following her, and I could tell she was shit scared. Good. Keep her on edge so I can work my magic. But while she was away, I snuck into her bedroom and sat on her bed. I placed a purpleflower that I picked from the flowering bush outside the front door, then pulled open her top drawer to find her underwear. It was the typical underwear that I’d expect a geek girl like Riley Laws to wear: full panties and plain white bras. It still thrilled me. It still got me hard.

Choosing a pair of pale pink panties that a granny might wear, I pressed the crotch against my nose, inhaling her scent. Even though these were clean, I could still smell her scent underneath the laundry powder.

Confident footsteps echoed down the hallway toward the room, and I paused to put on my ski mask. How would she react if she, Riley, or Annika were to walk in right now?

The footsteps stopped, then the squeak of a door opening and closing, and I was free to continue when it was quiet again. Slipping the granny panties in my jeans pocket, I rummaged through the underwear drawer, searching for secrets, proof that Riley was Annika.

Shaun and Callum had already gone through her stuff and told me they couldn’t find anything interesting. Since they weren’t fully committed to the cause in the first place, I’d check again. They were on the Kaiser payroll to help run the business within the Gotland campus, hired for extra security, delivered packages, etc., but I might sack them just because I can.

Neatly, I closed the top drawer and opened the second drawer to find folded sweaters and T-shirts. I rummaged about, searching for evidence. I pulled out every item in the drawer, dumped them on her bed, and checked the lining for false bottoms. My hand ran across something taped to the drawer above, and I carefully ripped it off to inspect it.

An envelope with something inside as another set of footsteps echoed down the hallway, and I waited to see if they’d come down this far. When they stopped dead, I thought it was odd, so I seized the handle and slowly opened the door to peer downthe hallway. I spotted a brunette standing halfway down, head down, scrolling on her phone. After scrolling, she turned to the nearest room, and I returned my focus to the envelope.

After locking the door, I held the envelope to the light streaming in from the window, but I couldn't see what was inside. I didn’t want to do this because Riley seemed like a nice girl, but my motivation was to uncover the lying fraud Annika, so I was in two minds as I took my lighter from my pocket. Whatever was in the envelope was important or wouldn’t have been hidden so well.

I hovered the flame over the glued flap as the paper crinkled and buckled, then released and unstuck the glue. Carefully, I opened the flap to find, to my disappointment, several $100 bills, then counted $600. Assuming she’d prefer to hide it in her drawer than have a bank account, or maybe it was for emergencies. Still, it brought me no closer to finding out who Riley Laws was. I’d already Googled her, found nothing, and researched her hometown of Luton, but I couldn’t find any old-school photos of her.

The mystery remained, and it only fueled my fire to get to the bottom of it. After burning the glue off the envelope, I couldn’t seal it shut again, so I placed it on her pillow next to the purple flower. She’d know someone broke into here anyway, so there was no point pretending otherwise, and part of me was eager for her to return while I was still here.

I took a picture of the pillow with the envelope, flowers, and sweaters dumped on her bed before shoving it back into her second drawer. The third drawer opened, and it was more of the same—sweatpants and jeans. I pulled them out, checked for false bottoms or envelopes stuck to the wood, and found nothing. As I shoved them back as neatly as my restless fingers could manage, a silver necklace dropped from one of the items and landed on my boot.

I’d seen necklaces like that before - half a silver heart pendant and someone else had the other half of the heart. Too fucking cringe for my liking, but the jealousy stirring my stomach that someone had the other half to her broken heart was going to cause me a sleepless night until I found out who. She better not have a fucking boyfriend lingering about. Shaun already checked that out and said she was definitely single, so maybe this was from an ex-boyfriend.

I chucked the necklace back into her drawer, then closed it dissatisfied. Everything I needed to know about her would be stored on her phone, but it was just a matter of stealing it off her, even for an hour or so.

I took more pictures of her room and assessed where I’d plant the hidden camera. We had loads of spy devices stored in Mikky’s office, and I grabbed a tiny camera, but there were few places in this small room to put it. First, I checked that the flash card was installed correctly, and then I planted it above her window on the rail the blinds hang on.

Digging my hand into my jeans pocket, I took out her granny panties and pressed them against my nose again, inhaling her scent as my cock pressed against the zipper. I was half hard since I walked in here thinking of her ass wagging at me and that cute face in those glasses snapping and trying to remove my mask.

She made me smile. I liked a girl who made me smile. Cute. Very cute. But was she Annika? Part of me hoped she wasn’t because then I’d let her live, then fuck her into next week. My filthy fucking mind invented this scene – her little legs wrapped around my body, clamping tight over my cock, as I hammered into her soaking wet pussy.

My hand found my zipper, and I yanked it down, allowing my cock out straight like a rod, pointing to where that broken heart necklace lay in her drawer. I wrapped her panties around the girth and rubbed the soft fabric up, and down the length, mymind fixed on her face, searching for Annika in her expressions but warming to Riley, wanting to get closer to Riley.

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