TWO
That saved a wretch like me…
JHAY
“Babe, you’ll be late for work if you don’t get up now.”
The delicate touch of Sydney’s palm sliding under my Cami tank and up my stomach to cup my breast had me smiling in my sleep.
Moaning my approval of her caress, I stretched and rolled onto my back.
Sydney flipped off the sheets and crawled on top of me, pulling my Cami tank up and off in the process, her curly blonde hair spilling down around her cherub-like face, her naked body warm and supple against mine.
“I really don’t feel like working tonight,” I grumbled, pinching her nipples. “Would much rather stay home and let you suck me dry.”
Though what I should have said was, “I really don’t feel like chasing Chad’s life tonight. I just wanna live a normal fucking life.”
Fatefully, this job had to be done.
Most importantly, it had to be done not just because it was an assignment that would grant me a payment I’d dreamed of for ten agonizing years, but because it was also a gift to myself. Tied with a neat little red bow, and a little black card signed with a blood-inked pen,“Sincerely, Revenge”.
For the past six months, I’d been in the States, studying Chadrick Niiveux. Yep, I literally had to study him because he wasn’t the easiest person to get close to.
He was a very important man. A very dangerous man. A very wanted man. A very hated man. A verylovedman. A very protected man.
He was Chadrick Niiveux.
The man who murdered my family. The man who once, when I was a stupid, stupid,stupidlittle girl, I thought of as…the rich, handsome prince I would grow up to marry one day.
He used to take care of me, buy me gifts. He used to read me stories, fall asleep in my bed. And I used to stare at him and dream of us together, because I used to love him.
Even though I was too young to know what love was, I’d known without a doubt that I loved him. Even though we were eight years apart and I was too young for anything like what happened in my fantasies to happen in real life, I still fantasized, becauseI loved him.
But then he turned into a monster. Into an invincible black spirit.
Death.
Pulling the rug from under my feet, he tookeverythingfrom me. My mother. My father. My brother. My freedom. My sanity.
Never again would I be the same, because of him. Never again would I trust, because of him. Never again would I believe in anything or anyone, because of him.
Chad needed to die. By my hands. Not because he murdered my parents. Not because he murdered my brother. But because he made me live.
He. Made. Me.Live.
And I wished like hell he would’ve done to me as he’d done to the rest of my family. Because death, I believed, would’ve been better than the heavy cloak I now wore; this hideous, insidious thing called life.
So I watched him from as close as I could get, which wasn’t very close. The guy didn’t have a pattern. His movements were never the same, always throwing me off, making it near impossible for me to snipe him.
Except for this one club of his, Empty Cage, which I deduced to be his haven. That was the only loop in his seamless life. Empty Cage was his only pattern.
But it was still difficult, because, even though I knew he would turn up on either Monday, Wednesday or Friday, I could never be sure which of the three days it would be each week; and sometimes he didn’t show up at all.
So I sought a job there. Which was perfect, as pole-dancing was compulsory as part of my training. And over the years it became my preferred method of exercise.
Metaphorical brush on my shoulders, I mastered the thing. An easy cover-up.
But my plan went only so far; stagnant at this point. For me to get any closer than that to him would take a whole new miracle.
