Page 34 of Kiss the Villain

I gasp awake, staring at the white ceiling devoid of the sticky shadows.

Or the bloody face.

But the weight over me isn’t gone, because I’m staring at a different face.

In the darkness, Carson’s pretty features loom over me like a fucking demon. He’s straddling my waist and holding a syringe as his lips tilt in a creepy smirk.

“Hello there, Professor. It’s time to pay for your fucking sins.”

And then he jams the syringe into my neck.

6

GARETH

I’ve been patient.

Extremely so.

Even when the impulse to inflict pain mounted and multiplied, reaching heights I hadn’t experienced sincethattime six years ago, I repressed it all.

Leaving no room for mistakes.

This needed to be perfected. To a fault.

There’s no way I’d be caught off guard like that night I was literally brought to my knees.

So I watched him—my criminal professor who’s teaching criminal law.

I learned his habits to a tee and gathered some basic info about him through a private investigator. I had to hire someone who came recommended through dark web research myself, opting not to use the mafia’s resources. If I went that route, the news would get back to Jeremy or, worse, my parents.

The private investigator Nadine, a serious-looking American woman who’s ex-military, is reliable and already came through with some info.

Kayden Lockwood is boringly typical. He comes from a middle-class upbringing in Boston to a lawyer dad and a college professor mom.

He practiced law until a couple of years ago when he decided to take up teaching. He still helps with his father’s medium-sized law firm, Lockwood & Associates, and owns a large portion of their shares.

He has a dull, meticulous life where he repeats the same events every day at the same time, like a fucking clock.

His morning starts at six when he goes for a swim in his building’s pool then works out in the communal gym. Then, for breakfast, he only drinks coffee that he personally brews while reading physical newspapers like a grandpa. He walks to campus—for fucking forty-five minutes like a psycho.

He does his lectures. Talks to professors and students, then walks again to the town center. Shops for coffee beans every day—again, like a psycho. Spends most of the afternoon in a chess club. Then he goes home to listen to loud classical music as he brews the coffee he bought, usually throwing away the full bag right after.

Then he has a drink. Showers. Spends time at his laptop, and finally goes to sleep just to repeat the mechanical cycle again.

And again.

I swear, if I watched the monotonous events one more day, I’d stab my own eyes.

The only reason I kept coming back was because he knew I was there.

He even smiled when he engaged in soul-crushing small talk, as if he’d figured out it annoyed the fuck out of me.

I’m not sure when he found out I was following him around, but he did, and he was completely at ease with it. As if he expected me to.

As if I werepredictable.

Well, he couldn’t have predicted this scene.

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