Chapter 42 Chapter 42
Kai
I was sitting in front of the six stacked screens, eating the pasta she made. It was actually good. Not just okay, but genuinely satisfying. I don't know why that annoyed me so much. I hate that she can be so defiant and reckless one minute and then turn around and be this effortless little homemaker the next. It’s a distraction, and distractions are dangerous. Especially her.
Her apartment was on the main monitor. Dead quiet. I knew she was one floor up, with Jax packing for Bryce. I’d pulled Rob the second the elevator moved. Why have him watch an empty box? Plus, I needed the area completely clear for the main event that was coming.
Yeah, I saw her drinking with Rhyland earlier. And the way she worked him in the hallway that was pure, cold manipulation. I almost had to respect the speed of it. She dropped the little smirk on him when she hit him with the "You lied to me" line, then immediately said something about a microwave. Why were they talking about a fucking microwave?.
"Come down to my apartment tomorrow and we’ll talk." That wasn’t a casual invitation; that was a challenge. She thought she had power by dictating the next meeting. She was trying to call Rhyland’s bluff. "I live below you," she tossed it out there. It’s cute, but it’s pointless. I know everything she does, every breath she takes.
It doesn't matter. Let her make her little moves. The higher she builds her confidence, the harder she'll fall when I yank the rug out from under her. I pushed the plate aside, the cold glow of the monitors reflecting off my clothes. The prep time was over. Showtime.
I wasn’t watching her "for safety." I was watching the trap I built for Alex.
The goal is simple: eliminate Alex. No witnesses. No trace. "This finishes it all," she thought. "She thought I killed the wrong one, but she didn't know they were the same." I ran the final check on the surveillance. Every camera in Athena Tower belonged to me. The feeds in this room were secured. No security logs, no alerts, and the network was completely isolated from the building's main system. This was my private shooting gallery.
I made three critical moves in the last hour: Rob’s Recall: Tessa knows either Rob or Jax is glued to her side. By pulling Rob, I created a blind spot she didn’t know existed, since Jax is upstairs with her. Lockdown: I shut down the stairwell and service elevator access to the 43rd floor. The only way in or out, for anyone, is the main elevator, which I control. The Trigger: I disabled the emergency lockdown sequence for floor 43. I don't want building security involved when Alex gets here. This is my cleanup. This is my personal collection.
I wasn’t going to hunt Alex in the city. That's for amateurs. I let him think he’d won the game. I gave him the perfect opportunity to walk into the trap. I bet everything on his obsession.
I grabbed the scanner remote and swept the building. Clear. Just the usual low-level maintenance noise. I checked the parking decks, and nothing. The wait was killing me, but impatience is the fastest way to get killed.
Then, a quiet chime on the speakers. Not a standard alarm, but an anomaly alert from my personal unauthorized access from a known profile. My body went completely still. I shifted the view to the sub-levels. P3. The maintenance and service parking area.
There he was. A dark figure, moving low and fast between the columns. He was wearing the cliché gear: backpack, dark hoodie, and heavy boots. His movements were too practiced, too focused, and too predatory to be legitimate.
I zoomed the camera view. Masked, naturally. But the way he moved and the specific route he took around that pillar matched the old surveillance tapes exactly. That was Alex. The target. A slow, cold smirk spread across my face. He took the bait like a starved fish.
He moved to the service elevator and used a small device to override the keypad. Fast, sloppy work. He was heading straight up. He didn't even bother checking for security because he figures the security here is as lazy as every other high-rise. He was wrong. Tonight, I was the final authority.
I watched the floor numbers climb: P3... P2... P1... Lobby... 10... 20... He wasn't stopping. He knew exactly where I'd put her. I initiated a command to redirect the elevator. He was going precisely where I wanted him to go.
40... 41... 42... The system dropped him perfectly onto Floor 43, Tessa's apartment. Isolation achieved.
Rob’s ID flashed on a different screen. He was almost on the 44th floor, still thinking he was reporting to me for a meeting. Perfect. Jax was still upstairs with her. The floor was completely empty, a vacuum ready to swallow the hunter. The elevator dinged.
Floor 43.
Alex stepped out. He moved like a shadow, low to the ground, weapon already in hand. He scanned the empty hall. He moved right to Tessa's apartment, the unit I'd given her, the one she thought was her safe place. My jaw felt tight. This was it. Alex, the source of all her misery and pain, her anger, and the reason for her loss of peace and sanity.
He didn’t hesitate. He went straight for the lock. It’s a high-level smart lock, but I knew he had the tools. I watched his fingers move, focused and precise. I could have hit the alarm. I could have sealed the hallway doors and sent in my team for a confrontation. Too messy. Too much risk of noise that might get Tessa running down here from the floor above. No. I needed him inside the apartment. I needed the final play to happen where I could control it and end it with total certainty. I needed him to think, for one glorious second, that he had won.
He finished with the lock. The soft click registered on my console.
He slipped inside. He swept through the apartment, realized it was empty, and stopped in the middle of the living room, tearing the mask off his face. His expression was pure frustration. I leaned forward in the chair. He knows she's not there, but he knows she lives here. An ambush is better than a chase. An execution in an empty room is safe, but a rescue is profitable. This new plan was exponentially better. I grinned slightly, a cold, focused shift.
I looked at the clock feed. 11:35 PM. She was still upstairs. Jax had confirmed she had finished packing and was now just straightening up. This was perfect. Alex had to wait long enough to get desperate but not so long that he got bored and left.
I sent a single encrypted text to Jax: Proceed to 44th floor lobby. Wait for transport. Do not engage. Jax would assume it was a standard shift change, replacing Rob. This gave me a four-minute window with zero bodyguards on the 43rd or 44th floors.