The Danger You Know

by Lily White

  She didn’t remember a damn thing about the man who made her feel light on her feet for once, not consciously anyway. But something inside her was shining within the dark, a single flicker like a firefly.

  She didn’t cry in her sleep. She didn’t scream. She smiled for once, even if her fingers still clutched the sheets as if she were reaching for something unseen.

  Only for three weeks, though. After the feeling left her, she sank again, seeking out new problems to make her feel alive.

  In that time, I’d snuck in and installed cameras and microphones. I’d bugged every computer, every smart device, her phone, her car. It wasn’t enough anymore to read her journals and watch. I’d needed to be there beside her in everything, even if she had no idea.

  Even from a distance.

  And I was there, for another year and a half, watching her, memorizing her, studying her like she was a science experiment I couldn’t quite figure out.

  Every song she listened to, I downloaded to my playlist. Every book she read, I bought for myself. Every movie she watched, I forced myself to sit through. Every word she uttered, I analyzed. Every fucking food that burst against her tongue, I tasted so I could experience it as well.

  She played three instruments: cello, piano and guitar. I bought all of them and had them in my penthouse even though I had no idea how to make them sing.

  And every man she let near her, I refrained from killing. Not that I didn’t want to. It was a struggle of epic fucking proportions. Something had changed since the night I touched her, and instead of simply being amused by her frustrating antics, I was slowly coming undone.

  Enough to worry Lincoln.

  Enough for me to worry about myself.

  So, I kept my distance. I watched, but I didn’t touch. I kept myself busy with jobs and asked Lincoln to babysit as much as possible.

  I was casually involved in her life. An awareness that took no part in it, but knew everything about it. At least until the tables turned, and I received a phone call that caused my blood to boil.

  I’m walking through the arrival terminal of a commercial airport, minding my own fucking business after having executed a particularly bothersome film producer who’d had his way with an underage actress.

  Not that I gave a damn about his crimes, but that little girl’s manager took issue with a man in a position of authority who liked them young.

  The problem was solved quickly and quietly. As far as anybody knew, his guilt had caught up with him and he’d decided to consume a cocktail of drain cleaner and bleach while watching the secret audition videos he’d made of his victims.

  What they didn’t know was that he’d done so with a gun pointed to his head.

  Personally, I would have chosen the bullet, but the man was an idiot who thought he might survive his stomach being dissolved by cleaning products.

  His death had been excruciating, and I’d be a liar to claim I didn’t enjoy it. Had his victims been sixteen or older, I might have empathized. I was the creeper who’d stalked Adeline since that age after all.

  But no, they were half that age, and for that, his death had been justified.

  Not that it mattered.

  I’d killed him for the money, not the crime. He could have done something as mundane as tossing a plastic bottle into a trash can instead of the recycling bin, and I still would have killed him, although maybe not as painfully.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I answer it while eating the distance across the terminal on a long-legged stride.

  “What did she do now?”

  Lincoln’s long exhalation is followed by the sound of his hand scrubbing against his face and the gravel of his deep voice.

  “You’re going to lose your shit.”

  My feet stop, the crowd around me parting and moving like a school of fish to the left and right, careful not to touch me, as if they know death itself is staring them down.

  “I’m a very patient man, Lincoln. You know this. We need to be for our line of work. And while I stand here and wonder why you think I need an assessment as to my future psychological state, that patience is running extremely fucking thin. So much so, that I’m having preliminary regrets about cutting your tongue out of your throat to let it hang like a damn tie down your chest. So, I’ll ask this again and expect a better answer: What did she do now?”

  His silence does nothing to improve my state of mind. I’d only been out of touch for the eight hour flight. In that time, I’ve known Adeline had gone out to a club, one I couldn’t monitor from a distance, not that the Wi-Fi on the plane would have allowed for live streaming even if I had cameras in every place she frequented, which I don’t.

  “She met up with a guy. He hit her. She’ll have a decent shiner for a week or two. I thought I’d let you know before you saw her again and planned my death for letting her get damaged.”

  My jaw ticks, and my body goes far too still.

  “What did she do after that?”

  He sighs again. “Told him to get lost. Caused a scene. Left and took an Uber home by herself.”

  My left eye twitches. I scratch my jaw with my free hand then straighten the cuffs of my sleeves while pinning the phone between my ear and shoulder.

  “Who was the guy?”

  Another beat of silence.

  “Ari, we do what we do for money, not for out of control little girls.”

  Fuck his warning. Fuck his reminder. I’m seeing fucking red at the moment. The walls around me and all the faces of the people rushing back and forth are dripping in it.

  I lick my tongue against the smooth surface of my top teeth, then scrape it against the sharp edges.

  “Who was the guy?”

  A sigh. “Jason Ayers. I guess she decided to give him another chance, again, although I have no fucking idea why. What is with this girl? I could watch daytime soap operas and witness less drama.”

  Jason Ayers. That son of a bitch has been a problem since the night I touched her. Adeline is a stupid, stupid, little girl. Constantly going back to someone who obviously doesn’t know how to keep his fucking hands to himself. And up until now, I’ve stayed out of it. He is an asshole, yes. But he hasn’t caused any significant damage.

  Until now.

  Now he’s marked her.

  Now he doesn’t deserve to have the hands he can’t keep to himself.

  “Where is she?”

  “Home,” he answers, sounding completely defeated since he knows exactly what is about to happen.

  “And where is he?”

  “Jesus, you’re going to do something, aren’t you?”

  Annoyance flickers inside me.

  “My name is not Jesus. I’m not feeling particularly forgiving or without sin at the moment, and that doesn’t answer my question.”

  “He tried following her home. She wouldn’t answer the door. He took off. I don’t know where because I stayed to watch her.”

  Lincoln doesn’t need to stay there any longer.

  I’m home. And I am pissed.

  “Take off and do whatever it is you’d rather be doing now. I’ll take care of the problem.”

  “Ari-“

  “Don’t ask questions, Lincoln.”

  He curses under his breath, but ends the call without another warning that Adeline’s problems aren’t mine.

  Except that’s where Lincoln is always wrong. From the moment I first touched her, everything in her life has been mine.

  I leave the airport, go home, change into something less expensive than the suit I wore on the flight, and I’m on the road to Adeline’s house within an hour. I’m not sure why I know Jason will return to her house again. Maybe it’s because I know guys like him, weak motherfuckers that beat on women because they don’t have the balls to take on a man.

  Parking in my usual spot a block away from her house, I round the street corner with a hoodie covering my head, the dark cloth hanging low to disguise my face, my gear bag slung over a shoulder.

&
nbsp; Not that anybody will see me, I know how to move without being detected, but I will see him, and I don’t want Jason to know the face of the demon breathing down his neck until it’s too late for him to do a damn thing about it.

  Just as I suspected, his car is parked in her driveway, his face lighting up from the glare of his phone. I pull my phone from my pocket, scroll to the tracking app connected to Adeline’s and see Jason is calling her over and over again.

  She doesn’t answer, which makes her a good little bird.

  But still, the fact he feels the need to harass her after bruising her face sends a fresh wave of anger burning through me like fire.

  It isn’t long before I’m by his car. His face turns to me when I rip the door open. His body slumps in the seat when my elbow cracks his nose so hard blood splatters the steering wheel and windshield.

  Not the cleanest job, but this isn’t about being professional. This is about making a point.

  He passes out, and I lug his weight from the car, toss him in the back seat, bind him, gag him and I’m backing his car out of her driveway within two minutes.

  Pet by A Perfect Circle is blasting from his speakers. I laugh at how appropriate the song is.

  Jason wakes up again in the middle of a wooded lot, body stretched over the ground face up, bound wrists secured to the ground above his head by a tent spike, his ankles the same.

  I’m crouched down beside him when he blinks open terrified eyes. His mumbled voice draws my attention to his face, his head lifting to lock eyes.

  It’s impossible to make out exactly what he says, not that I care. I’m sure it’s something along the lines of Who are you? Why are you doing this? Let me go.

  A bunch of boring, uninspired bullshit that is a waste of my time. I don’t care to hang out with him for too long, so what he says means nothing.

  “I don’t like you,” I say conversationally, as disinterested as a person asking for the butter to be passed at the dinner table.

  “And the fact that I’m out here in the middle of the fucking night after a long ass flight across the Atlantic makes me dislike you even more.”

  He mumbles again, something along the lines of a demand I let him go. But that would be a problem. I’m not the type to leave witnesses. They’re too messy and need to be watched constantly. And since my schedule is already full with Adeline, I’m not inclined to add him to it.

  “You know,” I say, pushing up to my feet, “usually I’m much less hands on. But I have an issue.”

  Stepping up to his hands, I peer over my shoulder to see his head roll back to keep me in sight. If I were a nice person, I would tell him not to watch this part.

  The toe of my boot presses down on his left pinky finger.

  “I don’t like assholes who hit women.”

  The fine bones of his finger crunch as I grind my boot against them, my ankle twisting left and right as a scream crawls up his throat.

  Methodically, I move to each finger, explaining to him why his insignificant life is about to be cut short.

  “I don’t like when people touch what’s mine.”

  Another finger.

  “I’ve always hated your skinny jeans.”

  Another.

  “Your hair has annoyed me since the minute I first saw you.”

  The thumb of his left hand is last.

  “And I really hate men who rely on women to buy their drinks for them.”

  He screams the loudest on that one.

  Crouching by his head, I catch the sparkle of cubic zirconia in his ear, and reach out to rip it from the lobe. Twirling it between my fingers, I add, “And I especially hate fake diamonds. Did you actually believe someone would think this was real?”

  Jason is a sobbing mess at this point, but I’m sure he’s answering my question in his head. It would be rude not to.

  “I’ll take that as a no. I’d be a sobbing, pathetic mess, too, if I was ever caught with this crap on me.”

  I would have flicked the cheap jewelry away in disgust, but leaving evidence behind isn’t the best plan. I tuck it in my pocket instead.

  Back to my feet, I work over his right hand, slowly, meticulously, crushing every finger before paying attention to the knuckles and the rest. If I don’t kill him when all is said and done, he’ll never use his hands again. Even the best orthopedist wouldn’t be able to create working bones from dust.

  I circle around, stepping over him so one foot is planted on each side of his chest and stare down at a set of swollen eyes. He’s whimpering, his face a mess of snot and slobber, his body shaking from pain.

  My hands are tucked casually in my pockets, the hood of my jacket no longer covering my face.

  “Do you know why I broke your hands?”

  Surprisingly, he shakes his head to answer.

  I grin, happy to explain the reason he will die tonight. Everybody deserves to know why they will no longer occupy the same world as me.

  “You hit Adeline Kane for the last time.”

  I pull my gun from the holster at my back, allowing it to hang in my hand by my leg. His eyes go to it, widening just before he starts screaming again, his body jerking left and right.

  There’s really no point in dragging this out. It’s late, and I have a body to bury, a car to strip and wipe down, and I want to check in on Adeline to ensure she’s all right.

  “Remember to keep your hands to yourself in the next life.”

  Silence when the bullet catches him between the eyes.

  The job is done.

  Another professional hit.

  Except, Jason is the first man I’ve killed without the promise of money.

  Of course, it would be Adeline that forces my hand.

  Of course, it would be the woman I can’t let go.

  Adeline

  June 23, 2018

  There is no way I’m this stupid. No fucking way in hell I would screw up like this, today of all days.

  I’d been doing so good lately. I’d stayed out of trouble. I’d kept straight A’s in school. I’d managed to stay in a relationship almost two years.

  I’d even exhibited my photographs at a small gallery show, a project I’d bled my heart and soul into for the past sixteen months. It wasn’t much. A visual account of the sleep disorders I suffer, but it had been a huge success. I sold every single shot within an hour of the doors opening on the first night. All of them, swept up for some ridiculous price even though I was an unknown.

  And tonight, I will take another step into my responsible adult life.

  I am getting engaged.

  Not that I’m supposed to know it. Grant planned to surprise me tonight at dinner. He’s taking me to Mackinnon’s, a brand new restaurant that is impossible to get reservations. It sits on the eightieth floor of Hedgeman Tower, the exterior walls all glass that give every diner a three hundred and sixty degree view of the city below. I’ve been dying to eat there since it opened. How he got us a table, I don’t know.

  His sister, Gloria, had called to warn me of his plans. Not because she thought I’d cut and run, but because she thought I should have a head’s up to get my nails done and also my hair. She was sure there’d be pictures and wanted to make sure it would be special.

  Honestly, I am not the type for nails and hair, but I’d thanked her anyway, even if it did ruin the surprise.

  But now it doesn’t look like I‘ll be getting there, not with my car being towed off in the middle of downtown, the damn driver refusing to release it from his truck when I ran up to apologize for remaining parked past the metered time.

  Promising him cash didn’t help either, he just smirked in my direction, mumbling something rude about rich bitches, and off he went with my only way of getting home.

  I thought to call for a ride, but my phone was in that car along with my purse, wallet, and camera. He refused to let me grab any of it because lowering the car would cost him time he didn’t have.

  Asshole.

  Yes, it wa
s stupid of me to run off with only my keys in hand. It was also stupid to not actually put money in the parking meter, but I thought I’d only be inside the gallery for five minutes to sign a release for the exhibit photographs to be given to the buyer. I ended up being in there for an hour, promising Rebecca that I’d let her know when I have a new collection of photos to show.

  A car honks behind me, and I spin, the driver obviously not giving a damn that I’m having a shitty day.

  All he cares about is that I am standing in the only open parking space, and he guns the engine to let me know it.

  His car lurches forward, and I jump back to dodge between more parked cars to make it to the sidewalk. A male voice calls out for me to watch it, and when I spin, a bike messenger is only feet from me, his eyes wide and his mouth open, telling me to move.

  I am yanked away, my feet tripping backwards until my back hits a wall. And while my heart pounds a death metal beat inside my throat, my hand flies to my head to realize I almost went to the hospital with a dozen broken bones.

  The city keeps moving around me, undisturbed by my near miss with death, and I turn to see who grabbed me.

  An angry scowl meets me, my gaze drifting up to find grey eyes lined with thick, dark lashes, annoyance glimmering behind them.

  “You almost got yourself killed.”

  I flinch at the snap in his voice, the tone sharp and undercutting.

  Running an accusing eye down his grey suit and black shirt, I pause for a moment on the flash of platinum cufflinks where his hands slide into his pockets and pull the front of his slacks taut.

  You can tell the guy is in immaculate shape even with his clothes on. Either that or he paid a mint for the best tailor in the world. There isn’t a single stitch out of place, the buttons lying flat over his stomach, and the cut of his jacket is a perfect fit over broad shoulders.

  He has money. At least, that’s what his clothes scream.

  Judging by his less than patient tone with me, I assume he must be a business owner, some higher up like a CEO, who is used to snapping at the people beneath him.