Page 30 of The Stalking King

His phone vibrates. He snatches it out of his jacket and rejects the call, then replaces it. It’s done that twice since we’ve been in the car already. I’m not going to pry, but something’s going on. Maybe he’s losing his head to a woman too.

“Did she kick your ass to the curb?”

“Sort of,” I mutter, remembering the flurry of texts, the heat we shared, the ache in my chest and in other places. “But she didn’t outright reject me. She made me promise not to watch her anymore. It just got out of hand so fast. I don’t know what it is.”

“I already told you—smitten.”

“Men like us don’t get smitten.”

“Apparently, we do,” Nikolai says, chuckling. “Maksim Volkov, the scariest man in DC—and that’s saying a lot—obsessed with a random woman.”

“Don’t call her that,” I snap. “And don’t make light of it.”

He flinches, then nods. “Sorry, brother. Damn. I didn’t mean it. You care about her a lot, then.”

“She… interests me,” I say. “Everything about her. For months, those stolen minutes made me feel more… hell, I don’t know.”

“No, go on.”

“More human,” I grunt. “More real. Like I might have a chance at a real life. Fuck, I sound like a goddamn stalker. I know that.”

“Newsflash… you don’t sound like a stalker. You are one. But fuck it, we’ve done worse than that.”

“Not to women,” I say.

“Yeah, no shit, but still. You didn’t do anything that bad. What did you mean by sort of when I asked if she kicked your ass to the curb?”

“She knows it’s wrong, but I think there are some feelings there. Or maybe I hope there are, somewhere in this big mess.”

“This is the first time I’ve ever seen you like this,” Nikolai says. “You should try to make it work.”

We park, then walk into the restaurant. The security guard stares in disbelief as we swagger in. This is a power play, letting Conrad Vale know we can waltz into his businesses any damn time we want and there’s nothing he can do about it.

He can make moves from the dark, but he can’t challenge us openly.

We sit and eat and stare at the security cameras. Ironic. Now, I’m the one being watched.

Later, I check my texts as we wait for Anton to meet us at my office. Lia hasn’t sent anything else since yesterday.

Anton joins us a minute later, a grim look on his face.

“We vetted everyone,” he says. “There are no leaks at the data center.”

“How did Daniel look in the security footage, like someone was pulling his strings?”

Anton nods. “A Vale hand up his ass.”

Nikolai laughs. “We know this already.”

“How did he get access to the building?” I snap, glaring at my brother. “That phone had an automatic data wipe on it. If the GPS registered it left the building, it was supposed to wipe itself. Considering the trouble that Vale is going to, I’m assuming they somehow disabled that. How did he know where it was, even? Somebody must’ve leaked something.”

Anton nods. “I agree, boss.”

“Then find them,” I growl. “There are millions of dollars at stake. The integrity of our organization. Our whole fucking world. And you’re telling me we know nothing?”

“Relax,” Nikolai says quietly. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. Somebody must know something.”

“What about Eli?” I demand, referring to the lowlife who tried to attack Lia in the parking lot.