by Vivi Paige
“I’m fine, thank you.” My tone was sharp, my patience nearly at an end. He finally took the hint and flitted off to speak with some chick with green hair and a nose ring. I guess I found other ways to piss off my father than facial jewelry.
It wasn’t often the heir to a gun manufacturing empire went pro-gun-control, after all.
Once Man Bun no longer irritated me with his presence, I used my cell phone to turn on the camera and check the feed. My hair had been pulled into a braid behind my head, so I looked more professional, and only light makeup adorned my face. I didn’t have the confidence to go sans cosmetics entirely, not with how cruel the internet could be. I was a little bloated from my cycle during one of my podcasts and half the comments were about how I’d gotten “fat” since the previous week.
“Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Common Sense Gun Laws podcast. I’m your host, Scarlett Shaw.”
Good, good, no flubs or mistakes. I hated having to go back and edit. Growing more confident, I continued my presentation.
My gaze narrowed, but I struggled to keep my anger out of my voice. Conviction was fine, but if you showed too much anger, the ’net would gripe about how you didn’t have control of your emotions.
My father used to say there was no such thing as an unloaded gun and insisted we practice utmost safety. When I was a young girl, shooting was fun. It wasn’t until I got older and became “woke” that I realized the truth. My family were merchants of death, and it was up to me to try and do whatever I could to end that rule.
I banged my fist on the table for emphasis as I continued my podcast.
The podcast went on, with me ranting (intelligently) about the societal ills caused by reckless gun ownership. A lot of folks thought I shouldn’t speak up about gun violence because it hurt the family business. Those folks could shut it.
After I wound down, I stopped the recording and checked the replay. I didn’t need any editing other than making my teeth a little brighter. It’d been months since I had a treatment, and my coffee habit had taken its toll.
Mr. Man Bun came over to give me my check, and I made sure to tip him twenty percent. Even though he was annoying, he deserved to make a living like anyone else. As I gathered up my things and prepared to leave the café, I turned notifications back on and my cell phone blew up with messages.
A lot of it I didn’t really care about. Why was Mindy bitching about Kevin? Of course, a man-ho like him was going to cheat on her with her cousin. And I was so over the drama between Kelly and Anna. Like, they need to hug it out or something for real.
But then I got to the good stuff. My best friend Lacey mass-texted the entire crew.
Rave tonight! A long profusion of emojis followed. Lace tended to overuse them. Mason’s dad’s warehouse, 9 p.m. Wear a fairy tale themed outfit or you won’t make it in the door.
Jesus Christ, Lace, give the emoji button a rest.
The replies came in after, and it was important to go through them all and see what had been “claimed.” Fairy tale theme meant that my go-to character, the Little Mermaid, would be a shoo-in. I make a good mermaid, and not just because of my red hair or penchant for wearing tiny outfits.
“Damn it,” I cursed, gritting my teeth and glaring at Mindy’s text saying she’d claimed the Little Mermaid for herself. “Fucking bitch.”
I laughed at my own private put-down and kept scrolling. Jasmine was gone, so was Snow White. Damn it, what’s even left?
Nothing good, that was for certain. I realized I was going to have to reach into the bag of actual fairy tales and not mass-produced family friendly animation for my costume.
Then I found it, the perfect character, and one that hadn’t been tapped by multi-billion-dollar entertainment companies: Little Red Riding Hood.
“Yeah,” I grinned at the screen. “I can work with this.”
My fingers danced over the keys on my phone, sending missives out to my social circle. It turned out Lacey and Krista didn’t have their outfits put together, either. It wasn’t hard to convince them to join me on an excursion to my favorite boho boutique, Scandals. People can find a lot of gently used clothing there if they’re willing to sift through row upon row of clothing racks.
We met up in the parking lot, Lacey in her own car while Krista and I relied upon Ryd. Lacey was almost six feet tall, a former college volleyball player and one of the loveliest blondes I’d ever seen. On that day she wore tight biker shorts and a tank top, but she’d always been good at presenting the athletic chic. Me, not so much. Krista’s dad was from Puerto Rico, which was evidenced in her lovely brown skin, but not so much in her rigidly conservative viewpoints. I made a note then and there not to ruin our shopping trip by bringing up gun control because we didn’t see eye to eye. At all.
Scandals was built into a narrow structure between two high-end jewelry stores, utterly packed to the brim with clothing racks to the point where we had to move single-file between them.
“Here, Scar.” Lacey held up a red hooded half sweatshirt which left the belly daringly exposed. “This just screams Little Red Riding Hood.”
“Oh, come on, Lace,” Krista rolled her dark eyes. “Scar is too machestic for that to fit.”
“Machestic?” Lacey arched a brow. “Are you trying to say majestic?”
“No,” Krista grinned, holding her hands out in front of her in the universal sign language for gigantic mammary glands. “Ma-chest-ic.”
They enjoyed a laugh at my expense, which was fine with me since I saw being busty as a good problem to have.
With some help from my friends and the salesclerk, we cobbled together my costume—a red satin dress with a hugging bodice and a lace-up back, the skirt scandalously short. I knew it would flip up during my dance floor gyrations and reveal my panties, but that was the point. Thigh-high black stockings finished off the base of my outfit.
A short red hooded cloak, terminating about mid-back, and a ruffled pair of opaque panties finished the look. Adding a few light-up accessories and heavy lip gloss, I wound up appearing very much like what someone would order from an escort service if they were into Riding Hood kink. In other words, just right for a rave party.
Little did I know at the time that soon enough I would be running into a flesh and blood Big Bad Wolf who would change my entire world.
Chapter Three
The crisp autumn air still possessed the clean smell of recent rain when I first shadowed Scarlett Shaw. I always loved the city after a good, hard rain. It significantly diminished the urine smell, even in the subways. But I refused to let the pleasant weather intrude on my professional duty.
When stalking prey, it’s important to maintain a certain degree of detachment. This was exceedingly difficult when I had to get to know my target so intimately in order to carry out the objective. I’d known professionals in my line of work who’d assigned repellent nicknames to their targets to avoid growing any sort of attachment.
For me, it’s a lot easier to do than for most. I had no illusions about the nobility of the male of the human species. Sorry, fellas, but face the facts. We started all the wars, we committed all the mass shootings, and I could count the number of female serial killers with the fingers of one hand. I’d need an entire Marine platoon sans shoes and socks to count male serial killers, and it still wouldn’t be enough.
So, in my way of thinking, a man on this planet over the age of eighteen was guilty of something. Period, end of story, fuck you too. Especially if they were guilty of something and the Lone Wolf wound up on their trail.
But with women, it was a lot harder to remain detached. Taking into account the aforementioned poor character of men, they’d had to deal with us their entire lives. So even if they’d done illegal or immoral things, it was taken with a grain of salt.
That’s why my usual rules were no women, no kids. But Devlin was right about my need to prove my loyalty to the family and the firm. Mayhem Brothers, LLC’s Prodigal Son Returns was only a
good headline so long as said prodigal son delivered when it counted.
So, there I was, breaking my own rules, and tracking a female target through Manhattan. A person might think a six-foot-two-inch, two-hundred-and-twenty-pound man would have a hard time blending into a crowd, and they’d be right. But I had many tools in my arsenal, the foremost of which was knowledge.
Anyone ever wonder why celebrities and criminals on the run tended to wear ball caps and sunglasses? Because it worked. The main things eyewitnesses remembered other than ethnicity and sex were hair and eye color. Wearing a baggy sweater, I blended pretty well with the general populace. If someone has never tried hiding in plain sight before, I suggest they do so. It works.
One of the old salts who trained me lamented the fact that newspapers have fallen out of vogue since they’re so easy to hide behind. But trust me, if someone stares at their phone no one will look twice, unless it’s to make sure the person is not about to run into them.
Thus, that day I waited outside the condo Hunter Shaw still covered for his darling daughter in the crisp autumn air, waiting for her to make an appearance. Other than a homeless man who asked me for change—I gave him a quarter, so as not to appear too generous and stick out in his mind—no one paid me the slightest attention as I sat at a sidewalk café nursing my coffee and waiting for my target.
In the meantime, I read up on her as much as possible. She was the eldest child of Hunter Shaw and definitely the black sheep of the family. Rather than attend Harvard like the rest of her siblings, she chose the more liberal leaning Brown. Graduated in the top five percent of her class, with a degree in Sociology. Smart girl. Liked hitting up those self-proclaimed “jazz clubs” where white college kids pretended they had the blues. Volunteered for the Human Hug Project.
Definitely not the immoral type who usually ended up on my radar.
I tried to console myself with the knowledge that she was going to be turned over to her father safe and sound when this was over. Still, I planned to do something terribly traumatic to her, and it seemed to me that being born rich shouldn’t be enough of a crime to get the Lone Wolf breathing down your neck.
I detected movement out of the corner of my eye near her building entrance and snapped my gaze that way. When I saw that shock of red lustrous flowing mane, I knew it had to be my target.
Seeing her in person for the first time was quite the revelation. Wasp-waisted but curvy, Scarlett made no effort to hide her body from the masses. She had adorned herself in those miniscule, tight shorts that look sort of like 1980s high school gym gear only far sexier. They were a tempting green to match her eyes, with a white stripe down the side.
Her lovely legs, dusted with a cinnamon sprinkle of freckles, were bare. Strappy sandals adorned her feet, displaying her red-painted toenails. A little thin ankle chain glinted in the early fall sunlight as she chatted merrily with the ancient doorman.
The camisole she wore was a light yellow, complementing her ensemble, and her hair had been drawn into twin pigtails which trailed down her shoulders. Just about every man who wasn’t completely distracted took a long, lingering look as she passed.
I tossed a twenty on the table, slammed down what was left of my coffee, and rose to my feet to tail her. On a pleasant day like today, the streets were crowded with pedestrians—tourists, shoppers, influencers, and street artists. Typical New York City mix. Fortunately, it made my task much easier.
Following Scarlett, I struggled to maintain my detachment. But damn, it was hard. Scarlett was nice to everyone, it seemed. When she bought a street pretzel from a heavyset Cuban woman, Scarlett paid with a fifty and didn’t accept change. I’d seen people who got off from virtue signaling, but in her case I was pretty sure she honestly just wanted to help out of a sense of altruism.
Damn it, I thought. I didn’t want to like this spoiled rich girl from the Upper East Side, a trust fund princess who had every advantage and every reason to turn into a total bitch. Except, she didn’t. She cared about people. That was what stuck with me. She actually cared.
It reminded me of the deep sense of apathy I’d been battling ever since Devlin absconded with the girl I loved. I refused to say or even think of her name. Whereas I had grown bitter, Scarlett had grown warm.
She made it to Lincoln Square on foot, obviously without a care in the world. She didn’t bother to check her corners or watch strangers to see if one of them might be a threat. While I realized this would make my job easier if she wasn’t paying attention to her surroundings, I also cringed on the inside at the thought of how vulnerable she left herself.
A large crowd of protestors gave me the opportunity I needed. It seemed that one of the boutiques on the square had been selling fur from an endangered species of ermine. About fifty angry college kids and aging hippie PETA activists carrying signs and chanting slogans made it clear they had made a mistake.
As Scarlett tried to navigate through the milling throng, I moved around the crowd and “accidentally” bumped into her.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled with some sincerity, patting her on the shoulder to distract her from the fact I snatched her cell phone out of her purse. This was going to be the tricky part. I had to get somewhere private, jack open her case, and implant my little spying device, which would make me privy to all of her communications and data. And I had to do it before a social media addict such as her would check her phone again, which could happen at any moment.
I slid away through the crowd and checked over my shoulder at the edge. Scarlett wasn’t looking at me at all. Instead she was chatting with one of the protestors. I guess they found some common ground.
Moving quickly, I ducked under a closed down falafel booth, the interior oddly lit from sunlight filtering through a white plastic tarp. Using my Swiss Army knife, I unscrewed the tiny bolts from the power jack and lifted the case open carefully.
The chip went into place and I closed the phone case. When I checked my success with my own cell, a grin spread over my features. It had worked like a charm. I now had access to all of her emails, chats, contacts, and—though I wouldn’t be needing them—automatic logins for things like her credit cards.
Then came the tricky part. I came out of the falafel stand and saw that Scarlett still spoke with the protestor. All I had to do was get close enough to shove her phone back in her purse.
But as I worked my way through the crowd, Scarlett’s brows rose as she made some sort of query. The protestor nodded and then she started digging into her purse, probably for the phone that was in my hand.
I cursed silently as she started to panic, digging more frantically in her purse for the device. There was no way I would be able to sneak the phone back in so long as she actively searched for it.
I improvised, kneeling down to tie my shoe while really sliding the phone across the ground to come to a rest between her sandals. Then I waited, and sure enough, she looked down at the ground. Relief spread over her freckled face, and she swiftly retrieved the device before taking a selfie with the protestor. Probably going to end up on her social media profiles.
Straightening, I left Scarlett to her own plans—and hacked device. There was no further need to follow her, as I’d seen all I needed.
When I filched her phone, I’d felt about in her purse enough to know she had no weapons in it other than pepper spray, which could be a pain in the ass but was hardly enough to stop someone like me. This combined with her penchant for traipsing about without a care in the world would make her easy prey for this big bad wolf.
However, I couldn’t entirely ignore the guilt growing in my belly. As I said, most of my targets really had it coming, trust me. But in Scarlett’s case, she truly seemed to be an innocent whose only crime was being born into the wrong family.
I wrestled with this for a time, but all I had to do to steel my resolve was remember my tenuous position in the firm. Devlin and my other brothers would be watching me very closely to make sure I had truly, fully commit
ted to them and the family business.
It was meager balm for my soul, and I knew it wouldn’t make things any easier for the poor girl I was about to snatch, but it was all I had.
Chapter Four
The pulsing throb of the high tempo electronic dance music vibrated through our bodies as we entered the loft. My mouth fell open in wonder at the dazzling laser lights and billowing smoke, which filled the senses, creating a chaotic landscape awash in swirling, scantily clad bodies.
“Wow, he spared no expense. Did he?”
“What?” Lacey squinted at me.
Leaning my hand on her bare shoulder, I put my mouth right next to her ear. “I said, he spared no expense. Did he?”
“Oh yeah, he always goes all out,” Lacey grinned. Next to us, Krista talked the bouncer into taking a photo of the three of us in our rave costumes.
Lacey settled on Jasmine, dressed in diaphanous blue silk halter and blousy pants, which displayed her thong underwear beneath. I really thought Krista would make a better Jasmine, because of her complexion, but my other companion decided to be slutty Sleeping Beauty. Her pink dress featured a neckline so plunging she had to put tape over her nipples, and of course the skirt rode high enough to constantly display her matching panties because it was a rave and certain standards had to be upheld.
Me, I knew I looked cute, but seeing the three of us together at the same time in our outfits was Instagram-worthy. While we shared the pic between the three of us, I glanced around at the dance floor to see if I could spot anyone I knew.
It really was packed, the building threatening to burst at the seams. I spotted Mindy in her Little Mermaid outfit sashaying around in a hobble skirt, but other than that, I found that most of the attendees were strangers.
Krista and Lacey hooked up with this total dweeb named Joel who was the weird kid no one liked in high school but had turned into the number one X dealer for our social group. I didn’t do X during high school—still don’t—and since Joel was such a creep, I headed off on my own.