Page 2 of Savage Stalkers
My shoulders drop as I let out a shaky breath, my hands trembling against the keys.
The shirt she’s wearing hangs loose on her body, but I know who it belongs to. My fingers curl into fists every time she wears something that isn’t hers, something that smells like someone else. I force my hands flat against the wood, pressing down until my knuckles go white.
Kain won’t let me leave her a shirt. The only way he even allows me to watch her is if I keep my distance, especially if I want to stay out of prison.
“Yo, Si Spy,” Zay chirps, strolling into my room, his sweats hanging low on his hips. Zay is good-looking, and he knows it. Owning a gym, even if it’s a front for an illegal fighting ring, has done wonders for his body. I trail my gaze over his toned abs, and when I reach his face, I find his ice-blue eyes sparkling with amusement as he runs a hand through his dark hair. “Finished checking me out?”
“What do you want, Zay? I’m busy.”
He strolls across the room until he is standing in front of me. Without warning, his hand grips the arm of my chair, and he spins it around to face him completely.
The sudden motion makes my pulse spike—half in panic that I can no longer see what Skye is doing, and the other half because being this close to Zay is intoxicating.
He leans down, close enough that I can feel the warmth of his skin. His eyes lock onto mine as one hand comes up to rest against the back of my chair, caging me in.
“Are you okay?” His voice is low, and I know he doesn’t want to set me off. “This obsession—is it under control?” I nod, my mouth going dry as his lips feather across mine. “Would you tell me if it wasn’t?”
“Of course I would.”
“Good.” He presses his lips to mine and then quickly pulls back. “Kain and I are heading to the gym. I have a fight in a few hours.”
He pushes up and spins my chair back around to face my screens. “Your girl just got changed, and it looks like she is heading out.”
Shit. I watch as she grabs her keys, her honey-colored hair now twisted into a messy bun, strands escaping to frame her face. As I note her oversized hoodie, my chest tightens. Not because she looks bad—she could wear a garbage bag and still be beautiful—but because this isn’t like her. Skye wouldn’t normally leave the house without every hair in place, makeup done, and looking like she stepped off a magazine cover. Something has upset her enough that she doesn’t care about appearances, and that knowledge sits in my stomach like a stone.
She can’t be going anywhere important—not dressed like that. I’ve watched her get ready for family dinners and seen the transformation from college student to Hawthorne-Ellington heiress. The careful makeup, the designer clothes, and a posture that screams pedigree breeding. Her mother, Lillian, would have a coronary if she saw Skye leaving the house in sweats. But I think that’s exactly why Skye does it, as a small act of rebellion; her mother’s lies turned her entire world upside down.
The ancestry kit had been innocent, one of those DNA tests everyone was doing in the senior year of high school. She probably expected to find some distant cousins, but instead, she discovered Harrison Ellington was her biological father.
I remember the night she found out. I’d been monitoring her stepfather Alexander Hawthorne’s accounts for months by then, skimming small amounts that would never be noticed. There was a new company registered under Skye’s name, and Alexander was funneling money into it.
But when I pulled up a security feed to confirm her identity, everything changed.
She was in the kitchen at the Hawthorne mansion, staring at the DNA results. I watched as she called Harrison. Their conversation lasted three hours, after which she packed two suitcases and walked out.
The apartment she moved into was a slap in the face to Lillian and everything she stood for. No doorman or marble floors. Her roommates didn’t even know there’s more than one fork setting at the dinner table.
“You should come down to the gym and watch,” Zay says.
I stiffen. My obsession with Skye trumps most things in my life, but not Zay or Kain. Without them, I would be in prison—or worse, dead.
We met ten years ago when I was sixteen. The cops were after me—I stupidly got caught trying to break into a jewelry store. I didn’t want the jewelry; I wanted to install software on their computers. They didn’t know me, but Kain gave me his shirt and Zay his cap. We became instant friends. Kain and Zay grew up next door to each other. I wouldn’t say they were middle class, but they certainly didn’t come from where I did—somewhere below dirt poor. My mom was a prostitute, but she did the best she could. Men would come and go; there were parties every other day. I would be woken from a dead sleep by Mom coming into my room drunk, telling me to keep my door locked until the next morning. I think that’s why I like things to be routine now, to be in control of my life.
“Once Skye is home, I will come down.”
Zay nods as I take another look at the cameras to see Skye push the call button to head down to the garage. I have the elevator linked to my computer, and I hit the button to stall it, while I grab my helmet and race out of the apartment. I know that once she is inside, it will take her directly to the basement and won’t stop if anyone else wants to get in.
The one bonus of being dirt poor and my mom bringing home random men was that we had a roommate for a few years. Korbin rarely left his room and was always on his computer. He also taught me things a kid should not have known. Now I am a systems integration consultant, which is a fancy way to cover up the data theft, digital manipulation, and exploitation of security systems—just as a start—that I do in my private life.
My boots pound against the concrete steps as I head down to the garage. My MTT 420RR waits in the shadows like a predator, and I hurry over to it, then swing my leg over the seat, feeling the cold leather through my pants. With a gentle press of the start button, I wake the beast, and the sound of her rumbles through the garage.
Skye exits the elevator, unaware she is being watched, and climbs into her cherry-red Tesla. The stereo blasts Teddy Swims, and my heart sinks. She is feeling down; she only listens to this playlist when she needs a boost.
I pull out behind her as she takes off down the street. I sit a few cars back, thankful there is traffic. She pulls up in front of a coffee shop, so I pull in across the street and watch as she gets out and heads into the shop.
A man around her age doesn’t stand as she approaches him—he looks like a preppy college boy in his polo shirt and khakis. Exactly the kind of snobbish wanker her mother keeps trying to set her up with.
I pull out my phone and snap a picture; another loser I have to keep away from her. Blackmail is not beneath me, and if anyone tries to take what’s mine, I will bury them, figuratively speaking of course, because seeing someone with money end up with nothing satisfies me a lot more than death.
