Haunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse Duet Book 1)

by H. D. Carlton

  I beat him in the first game, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen pride in a man’s eyes shine brighter since that day.

  “Well, boy, let’s see what you’re made of then.”

  He’ll find out what a bullet is made of when it’s lodged in his throat. But I don’t say that.

  Throughout the next several hours, I purposely stay neck-in-neck with him. I understand a narcissist’s ego enough to know that it would’ve only angered him if I cleaned him out. And if I’m horrible, he won’t respect me. So, I keep the playing field even.

  You win some, you lose some. Back and forth until he slaps his cards down with a hearty laugh.

  “I’ve met my match,” he chortles, taking a drink out of his whiskey glass.

  I smile prettily at him. “You’re a lot better than I gave you credit for,” I praise.

  He offers me a cigar and I take one, but I’d let Detective Fingers finger blast my ass before I put it out on a girl’s arm. I’ll have to figure out a way to stop him without breaking his neck if he tries it again.

  “How come I haven’t seen you here before?” he asks, eyeing me closely as he lights his cigar. Not necessarily suspicious, but every man in these types of clubs looks at a new member with an air of wariness. “I’d recognize those nasty scars anywhere.”

  That was fucking rude. But he’s not wrong.

  I shrug a shoulder. “My money is new,” I lie.

  Zack Forthright is a self-made millionaire from web design and branding. If that name is googled, there will be a Wikipedia page and social media posts with fake followers and engagement, but everything is a blanket site.

  Once I start gaining a reputation here and showing my face more, I’ll be looked into, and I’ll have little enough to raise an eyebrow or two, but nothing that would make someone think I’m trying to take down the club.

  “How’d you get them?” he asks, nodding his head at my face.

  “Bully in middle school. Pretty fucked up kid that liked to play with knives,” I lie again, flashing a grin. And then I shrug. “The ladies seem to like them.”

  He chuckles. “Oh, I bet they do. The young girls have always liked that—oh, what do you call it? Bad boy look?”

  Before I can respond, a waitress approaches with refills of our drinks, the same glazed look in her eyes.

  “Come here, sweetie,” Mark says to the girl, patting his hand on his knee for her to sit on. The wedding ring on his finger glints in the light, as if to shine a light on the fact that he’s a skeevy son of a bitch.

  Addie won’t ever have to worry about that shit when I marry her, that’s for damn sure. She doesn’t even have to worry about it now. The only pussy I want wrapped around my cock for the rest of my life is hers.

  The waitress looks at him like he’s merely an apparition. She’s looking through him.

  Robotically, she sits on his lap, a toneless smile gracing her bright red lips.

  Mark cuddles her closer, looking at her with a smarmy grin. From here, I can see his cock growing in his pants. Normally, I’m not one to judge another man’s dick, but when it’s hard for an abused girl and the tent is lackluster, well… that’s just disgusting on many levels.

  He pulls her back directly onto his dick, gripping her hips tightly and guiding her ass to grind against him. I sigh, keeping my composure.

  Carefully, I swallow the last of my whiskey and purposely set it on the edge.

  I raise my nose in the air, sniffing dramatically.

  “What is that delectable smell?” I ask aloud. Mark looks over to me, his grin growing, while I stare at the girl. “You smell delicious. Lean over, let me smell you.”

  The girl doesn’t hesitate. We both lean towards each other, and once her body is hovering over my empty glass, I flick it.

  The glass tips and it goes crashing to the black tiled floor. Thousands of glass pieces shatter, the sound ringing out loudly despite the heavy music in the room.

  Chatter ceases and heads swivel towards the commotion.

  Reminds me of high school when a kid farted in class, and the whole room went silent and stared at him until his face turned purple.

  The girl jumps up, tiptoeing her platform heels through the glass as planned.

  “I’m so sorry,” she apologizes, the first hint of inflection in her tone. “I’ll clean this up right away.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I shout, glaring at her like she’s the one that knocked it over.

  Her mouth falls open, and I stand.

  “Come to the back with me,” I snarl, my eyes flashing with fury. She curls in on herself, while the other men snicker.

  “Clumsy bitch,” one of the men mutters, looking at her the same way you would if you accidentally touched the week-old gum stuck to the bottom of your desk.

  “I’ll be back once I take care of her,” I say directly to Mark.

  He laughs heartily, enjoying the thought of an innocent woman being punished for something so trivial. The old fuck probably falls over once a week and needs LifeAlert to get back up. Asshole can’t talk about glass falling when he can’t even keep his body vertical.

  I grab the woman’s arm firmly, jerking her against me and dragging her away.

  She doesn’t fight too hard. Self-preservation is kicking in, fighting its way through the cloud of drugs in her system. But she has long accepted her fate.

  As soon as I get her into a quiet room, I turn to her. She’s already dropped to her knees, her green eyes looking up at me with sorrow and acceptance.

  She’s a beautiful girl, with bright red hair, grass-green eyes and freckles dotting her nose.

  Something about her reminds me a little of Addie, and I nearly walk right back out and crush my fist in Mark’s face just for touching her.

  “Get up,” I say firmly. She gets to her feet unsteadily, looking much like a baby giraffe walking for the first time.

  “I’m going to get you out of here,” I say. Her brow puckers and she frowns.

  “Sir—”

  “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

  She stutters over the question. “Cherry.”

  I shake my head. “Is that your real name or stage name?”

  She rolls her lips. “Real.”

  Her parents are really fucking unoriginal. Like might as well have a second child and name her Strawberry or Watermelon.

  Anyway, besides the point. “How would you feel about getting a fresh start in life, yeah?”

  Her eyes widen, and it seems like the prospect of escaping this one has some of the drug-induced fog receding from her gaze. But then she turns wary, and then resigned. Tears line the edges of her lids, and the sight will forever haunt me.

  She looks down, seeming to collect herself. “I know what that means. I-I’m really sorry. I didn’t realize I was leaning that far down.”

  “I’m not going to hurt or kill you, Cherry,” I cut in. “I’m going to help you, but I need you to listen to exactly what I say.”

  She shifts on her feet, peering up at me through her lashes and bobbing her head frantically. I slip out the Bluetooth earpiece I had hidden deep in my inner suit pocket. All of my jackets have a special lead lining in them that deflects radiation. Meaning I can walk through any body scanner without the devices being detected.

  I pop it in my ear, press the button that immediately calls out to Jay, and wait for him to answer.

  When he does, I explain the situation. It takes fifteen minutes before he has a car ready to pick her up. In that time, Cherry tells me about her family. About her younger sister that has cancer and her poor single mother. She works this job to pay the medical bills, but she confesses that she doesn’t know if it’s worth it if she’s killed and the extra income stops.

  She won’t ever have to worry about taking care of them again. Or being killed because of a broken glass.

  Jay watches the camera feed and directs me towards a back door exit without detection.

  I grab her wrist before s
he walks out of the door. The nondescript black sedan is waiting ten feet away, and the door already open for her.

  “I know,” she says softly. “I don’t know your face. I’ve never seen you before,” she guesses.

  I shake my head. “Cherry, you’re not going to a place where you’ll ever be questioned about something like that. You and your family will be taken care of and safe. I promise. All I ask is that you do something meaningful with your life. That’s all.”

  A single tear slips from her eye. She hurriedly wipes it away and nods. Her brightened eyes shine with hope, and doing this shit, involving myself in the worst of humanity—it’s all worth it when I have a survivor look at me like that.

  Not like I’m a hero, but like they can actually envision a future.

  She stumbles off to the car, and I make my way back inside, making sure no one spots me.

  “Jay, clear the cameras,” I say before taking the earpiece out and slipping it back in the hidden pocket.

  The cameras will be spliced. If anyone reviews them, they’ll see me dragging a dejected Cherry into a room and us walking out separately.

  It’s one of my specialties that I mastered and then trained Jay in. Taking parts of a camera feed and manipulating them to look exactly how you want them to, without even the best hackers being able to detect manipulation.

  I crack my neck, and ready myself for a very long night of shooting the shit and becoming BFF’s with a fucking pedophile.

  Chapter 21

  The Manipulator

  I ’m stewing.

  Nana used to make this god-awful stew when I was young. It smelled like a dumpster fire and tasted even worse. My attitude is about as foul as that stew right now.

  “I don’t even know his name,” I groan, my voice muffled by my hands. They’ve been glued to my face ever since Daya got here, and I confessed he broke in again.

  I haven’t gotten around to what happened yet. There’s not an ounce of courage in my bones. She’s been patiently waiting, knowing that I’m holding something back. Something terrible and shameful. And something I can’t stop fucking thinking about.

  “You fucked him, didn’t you?” she asks calmly.

  My eyes bulge, and I unglue my hands from my face so I can pin her with a glare.

  “No, I did not fuck him,” I snarl, as if she’s suggesting something insane and I didn’t come really damn close to it. I can feel the blood rising in my cheeks and my left eye twitches.

  Fuck. Daya knows that’s my tell.

  “You did!” she bursts, standing up from her chair and looking down at me with shock.

  “I didn’t! I promise,” I rush out, grabbing her hand. “But… something did happen.”

  She puffs out a breath and settles back down in her chair, scooting back into the island in my kitchen and grabbing her margarita. She sucks down two huge gulps, trepidation on her face.

  “You sucked his dick?” she guesses, lifting a hand to fiddle with her nose ring.

  The images those words just put in my head have my blood pressure rising to dangerous levels. I bite my lip and shake my head slowly, the guilty look still present on my face.

  “He sucked you?”

  When I just stare, the guilt in my eyes burning brighter, her mouth pops open and her eyes round.

  “Bitch, what the fuck!” she shouts. She leans in closer, an unreadable emotion flaring in her eyes. “Was it consensual?”

  And this is where I get tripped up. Because it wasn’t. But had he kept going, had he stripped his clothes from his body and fucked me—I can’t say with absolute certainty that I would’ve stopped him. Or that I would’ve wanted to.

  Still, I shake my head no.

  Fury flares in her sage eyes, and her lips twist into a snarl. I lean back, honestly a little afraid of her.

  I put my hand on hers. “Daya… I-well, it wasn’t consensual… at first?” I say the last part like a question, embarrassed that I’m even admitting something like that.

  She blinks. "At first," she echoes. "Meaning what? He was that good that he changed your mind?"

  My hands cover my face, but she forces them away, nearly bumping her nose into mine as she intently waits for an answer.

  “You have such pretty eyes,” I tell her.

  She snarls at me. “Spill, slut.”

  I close my eyes with a resigned sigh. “That man ate the soul out of my body, and I don’t think I’ve gotten it back yet.”

  She jerks back, surprise in her pale green irises.

  “I know, you can judge me. I’m judging me too,” I say pitifully. I slide her margarita over to me and finish it off. Mine’s been gone since I first told her he broke in.

  “Baby girl, I am not judging you. But let me get this straight. You egged him on in a text because you felt like a bad bitch. And then he broke in to make good on his promise, tied your ass up, and you freaked out at first, but then ended up riding his face?” she summarizes slowly.

  Several emotions swirl in her eyes. Confusion, shock, maybe even intrigue. But not judgment. And that’s only because I didn’t confess to her about the gun incident. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to talk about that one.

  I roll my lips. “Pretty much.”

  Without taking her eyes off me, she leans over and grabs the bottle of tequila we used to make the margaritas. She pours a shot into both of our empty cups and then hands one to me.

  We take the shot, cringing at the taste, and then stare at each other in silence.

  “I’m just not even sure what to say.”

  I groan. “Daya, I don’t know what to do. He didn’t hurt me, but he did. He definitely forced himself on me. But I would’ve let him go farther had he tried. I’m so fucking confused. And I feel dirty and wrong, but when it was happening, it felt…”

  I trail off with another groan, and this time I just bang my head against the granite countertop.

  “Really good?” she fills in. "Amazing? Out of this world?"

  "All of the above," I confess. "I have never come so hard in my entire life.”

  “Damn,” she breathes, a note of awe in her voice. “Has he contacted you since then?” she asks gently, running her fingers through my hair in a comforting gesture.

  I lift my head, a frown on my face. “Yes. He just… he said he didn’t want me to fall in love with something fake. He pretty much said he’s showing me who he really is, instead of lying to me about it. The fact that he thinks he can make me fall in love with him in the first place goes to show how deranged he is.”

  “That’s… oddly nice? But really fucked up. There’s something wrong with him. But we knew that from the chopped-off hands.”

  I snort. “Yeah, just a bit.”

  “Have you, uh, asked him about that yet?”

  I nod. “Yeah, he basically played his usual macho man act and said not to worry about it and that he’d take care of it.” I roll my eyes, but in all honesty, I’m glad for it. If I can count on my shadow for anything, it’s to fuck someone up.

  He’s made that more than clear.

  I sit up and bring Gigi's journal back towards me. “Anyhoo, let’s just focus on figuring out what happened to my great-grandmother.”

  It’s not hard to put Daya back into hacker mode. She slides her laptop towards her and immediately starts tapping away on the keyboard. The quickness of her fingers gives me a run for my money when I’m in a particularly good part in writing my book. She’s been known to have to replace a few keys from how hard she types.

  “So, time of death for Gigi was estimated about 5:05 P.M. Your great-grandfather claimed that he had run to the grocery store and when he came home, he found her dead in their bed. I found some witness reports claiming they did see John in Morty’s grocery store around 5:35 P.M. But they didn’t specify if they had seen him walking in or out of the store, or if they just saw him shopping during that time.”

  I nod my head, twisting my lips in contemplation. “In her last few journal entrie
s, she was frantic and kept saying that he was coming for her. She never said who he is. But it has to be Ronaldo, right?

  “So, maybe he waited until John left and snuck in and killed her while he was gone. He stalked her after all, he’d know exactly when my great-grandfather would’ve left.”

  Daya shrugs a shoulder, looking a little unconvinced.

  “But don’t the diary entries say that John was getting aggressive, and Gigi said she was going to divorce him, right?” she questions.

  I frown. “Well, yeah, but I don’t think he would’ve killed her. He loved her too much.”

  “Couldn’t the same be said for her stalker?”

  Noting my expression, Daya sighs and rests her hand on mine.

  “Addie, I love you and I’m going to say this with all my love. But don’t project. I’m starting to get the feeling that you want Ronaldo to be the killer because in your head, that will criminalize your stalker, too. Please tell me that’s not why you’re seeking justice for Gigi. Because you’re looking for a reason to hate your stalker when in actuality, you don’t.”

  I pull my hand from under hers and look away. Uncomfortable feelings invade my body, preventing me from speaking right away.

  “I don’t need to look for a reason to hate him,” I grumble.

  Daya cocks a brow, unimpressed with my attitude. I sigh, a headache blooming right between my eyes. I rub at the spot, stalling as I try to figure out what I want to say.

  Because she’s not entirely wrong.

  Maybe I just want to be able to say that all stalkers are crazy, and that it’s not possible to fall in love with one. I want to be able to say it’s never happened before. And I want to say it’s absolutely impossible to find myself in a loving, passionate, and healthy relationship with a person who invaded every aspect of my life unapologetically.

  As much as I hate to say it, my shadow might not be wrong either. The man has a magnetism about him that rocks me to my core. He’s shifted my entire life out of balance.