Page 52 of Fixate
It was comfort. I was supporting him in every way I knew how.
Did it feel good? Yeah, of course it did.
Was I curious about what else there was to do? Also, yes.
But at the end of the day, I wasn't going to push for more. I couldn't.
Not when there was too much riding on me being here and helping him out.
I was so lost in thought I almost missed the headlights coming down the road. They slowed as they approached the drop-off point that I had told my suspected rat. He shut off the headlights as he drove the car around back.
It was a good location to hide in and had I not already been here, I probably would have been startled at his position. He had done his research, it seemed.
In the end, it wouldn't matter because I had surveillance footage of where we were as well.
When Pharrell asked me why I was bringing him a dead man's head, I would show this to him.
Of course, I could also take him alive so that Pharrell could do the killing himself. That idea did not hold as much merit.
I missed getting my hands dirty from time to time.
When Dante took on his role as The Monster, I had to take a step back. He handled all his vigilante work by himself for the most part. Occasionally, I would go with him to supervise, but he was the lone wolf type.
Not being with Preacher made him isolated. He created this individualistic ideal of himself.
I was merely the support staff.
Kind of like I was for Pharrell, except I never wanted to climb into bed and snuggle with Dante. I nearly laughed at the idea.
I pulled up the camera feeds on my tablet to see where our rat had gone. He was crouched on the side of the building, smoking like he had all day and night to wait out this process.
Whoever he was working for hadn't shown up. Did that mean they trusted him to handle the interception alone? Was he going to kill some of the men he called brothers? Had they really come this way?
I would have been able to see him play it off as if he had been attacked.
I had seen others who had turned their loyalty go so far as to punch themselves in the face or cut themselves open to bleed just to make it seem as if others had caused it. This guy would probably do the same.
I intended to make sure every wound he got was inflicted by someone else. He had crossed the wrong people.
With the screens still pulled up, I scaled down the side of the hilltop I had hidden on. I went over to the side of the road and waited carefully.
The wind howled, covering the sound of my steps across the gravel road. I kept moving slowly and steadily. He didn't need to get any kind of warning as to what was going to happen to him.
With him incapacitated, I could handle whoever else would show up.
I'd give them half an hour or so and if no one came, then we'd head back so I could make sure he got to meet Pharrell's darker side.
When I approached the side of the building, I tucked the tablet into the slot on the harness I wore and withdrew my gun. I slipped a silencer on it and eased to the edge of the building.
I wasn't going to give him a kill shot. Just needed enough to pin him down so I could tie him up.
A thigh maybe. Something that wouldn't go through a life-threatening vein.
This close, I could hear him grumbling to himself. “Fucking bullshit. Pharrell thinks he's hot stuff. He'll get what's coming to him. Oh yeah, we'll take him down. He shouldn't have hurt her. It wasn't his right.”
Realization hit.
This man was trying to avenge Pharrell's dead wife.
