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“If this is about you and Charlie breaking up,” Dave started, “no offense to you, but I’m glad she finally came to her senses.” He held my stare, his sneer turning into a smug look, one I’d take great pleasure in wiping off his face.
But I held back. Barely.
I moved my foot off the coffee table, leaning forward and setting both elbows on my knees. “Oh, Charlie and I didn’t break up.”
His eyebrows lifted, and his smug, superior attitude faded just a hair as he asked, “Oh, you didn’t? That’s odd. I could’ve sworn Charlie told me and her parents last night that she was going to end things with you.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “See, now I know you’re full of shit. First off, Charlie would never break up with me. Second, she wouldn’t tell her parents or you anything about it. I know Charlie better than you.”
His smirk was back, only this time it was a sleazy kind of smirk. “I doubt that.”
“And why is that?” I wanted the man to admit he’d been stalking her, terrorizing her, taking advantage of her vulnerable self, but all he did was continue to smirk, matching my hunter’s smile with his own. “Tell me, Dave, why did you have Charlie’s letter and her blade in your room?”
“That’s none of your business, Ian.”
“Oh, but it is.”
“Not anymore. You’re not her boyfriend anymore, Ian.”
I rubbed my hands together, barely resisting the urge to leap up, dash over to him, and wrap them around his. I’d choke this motherfucker so hard his eyes would pop out from the sheer force of the attack.
“You’re very insistent on me not seeing Charlie anymore,” I said. “Is there a particular reason why? Share with the class. It’ll be confidential, I promise.”
Dave chuckled, and he mimicked my posture by leaning forward. “Let’s just say you and that now-dead ex of hers were only a distraction. Neither of you could make it with her. Charlie doesn’t need a boyfriend when she’s got Uncle Dave to take care of her.”
The way he said it made my grin crack. There was an underlying meaning to his words, something he wasn’t saying that was becoming crystal fucking clear. The smile fell off my face.
“The shadow I saw in Charlie’s room last night wasyou,” I growled out, breathing harder than I had mere moments ago. It was like I had blinders on. All I could see was the asshole ten feet away, and all I could think about was how stupid I’d been for listening to Charlie last night.
“I’m not saying you did see anything, but I would imagine if there was a shadow in her room, that shadow got real acquainted with her—every part of her.” He flashed me a set of white teeth, and I wanted to knock them out, one by one, until his face was a bloody pulp. “Now do you understand why it’ll never work between you and Charlie? Or, hell, Charlie and anyone.”
He got quiet, his brown gaze darkening as he finished, “Charlie’s mine.”
I stared at him for a while. It took absolutely everything in me to not rush at him. Couldn’t do it here. The air in the room was thick with ill intentions from both sides, and I broke the tension with a vicious chuckle. “It’s so funny.” I pointed at him. “You’re a pretty funny guy.”
Dave continued to smirk like he thought he’d won, and I went on, “You think you have this in the bag, don’t you? You think you’ve won. You think you’ve turned me off Charlie because you’re a fucking rapist? Take a look at me, Dave. Take a long, hard look and tell me what you see.”
He was still too confident. “I see an asshole who can’t take the hint to fucking leave.”
“Look harder.” When he didn’t say anything to that, I told him, “If it helps, picture me with blond hair.” Moments went by. “Still nothing? Damn. I always thought no one knowing Clark Kent was Superman was the stupidest thing ever, but it turns out people don’t really pay much attention. They’re too stupid to put two and two together. Here, one last clue: my name’s not Ian.”
It was obvious Dave wasn’t expecting me to say any of this, because his features twisted and he stared at me like I’d grown a third eye. Just out of the blue, random, in the middle of my forehead, Doctor Strange style.
“Look, I don’t know where you’ve been before dragging your sorry ass here, but maybe you’ve heard about what happened in Eastcreek. My finest work, if I have to say, even if all the kills weren’t mine,” I spoke, my smile slow to return.
This time, the smile wasn’t about posturing. No, this smile was the smile I saved for when I was on the hunt, when I was seconds away from making a kill.
His confusion changed into realization, and I stood up, moved around the coffee table, and extended my hand toward him. “I’m Brett Banks, serial killer and wanted man.” He didn’t get up, nor did he go to shake my hand.
Finally, Dave realized how deep the shit he’d stepped into was.
“Maybe you should call the police,” I spoke, taunting as I dropped my hand to my side, “because I have the feeling when it comes to life and death, I have a lot more experience than you.”
He knew his only escape would be to run; I was damn near a foot taller than him, and much, much wider. He could never take me down one-on-one.
Dave leaped to his feet, and he tried to dart around me, but I grabbed him by the back of the neck, having anticipated his cowardly nature—all prey was cowardly in the end. I whipped him back toward the chair, only he didn’t land on it. His knees hit the bottom half of the chair, the part that came out when you reclined, as he stumbled forward, and that action took him to the ground as he fumbled to try to stand.
I pounced on him, straddling him after rolling him over to his back. Now he tried to fight me, throwing blind fists every which way, fists of which I caught easily, and I responded in kind by punching him right in the chest, over the heart and lungs. The single blow weakened him, and he blinked, gasping for air.
