Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 147801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
They fall toward me, their cold, suffocating weight pressing down on my chest like a thousand unseen hands. The air thickens with their presence, a crushing force that makes it harder to breathe or move. Their dark forms press into me, the cold creeping deeper, dragging me under as if the darkness itself is trying to swallow me whole.
Die already.
Die.
Just die.
The weight on my chest is choking, a crushing force that pins me to the bed. I gasp, but it’s as if the very air has been stolen. My body is frozen, unable to move, every breath shallow and labored.
The shadows in the corners of the room twist and loom, dark shapes that distort into her face.
Her blood-soaked face.
I gasp awake, staring at the white ceiling devoid of the sticky shadows.
Or the bloody face.
But the weight over me isn’t gone, because I’m staring at a different face.
In the darkness, Carson’s pretty features loom over me like a fucking demon. He’s straddling my waist and holding a syringe as his lips tilt in a creepy smirk.
“Hello there, Professor. It’s time to pay for your fucking sins.”
And then he jams the syringe into my neck.
6
GARETH
I’ve been patient.
Extremely so.
Even when the impulse to inflict pain mounted and multiplied, reaching heights I hadn’t experienced since that time six years ago, I repressed it all.
Leaving no room for mistakes.
This needed to be perfected. To a fault.
There’s no way I’d be caught off guard like that night I was literally brought to my knees.
So I watched him—my criminal professor who’s teaching criminal law.
I learned his habits to a tee and gathered some basic info about him through a private investigator. I had to hire someone who came recommended through dark web research myself, opting not to use the mafia’s resources. If I went that route, the news would get back to Jeremy or, worse, my parents.
The private investigator Nadine, a serious-looking American woman who’s ex-military, is reliable and already came through with some info.
Kayden Lockwood is boringly typical. He comes from a middle-class upbringing in Boston to a lawyer dad and a college professor mom.
He practiced law until a couple of years ago when he decided to take up teaching. He still helps with his father’s medium-sized law firm, Lockwood & Associates, and owns a large portion of their shares.
He has a dull, meticulous life where he repeats the same events every day at the same time, like a fucking clock.
His morning starts at six when he goes for a swim in his building’s pool then works out in the communal gym. Then, for breakfast, he only drinks coffee that he personally brews while reading physical newspapers like a grandpa. He walks to campus—for fucking forty-five minutes like a psycho.
He does his lectures. Talks to professors and students, then walks again to the town center. Shops for coffee beans every day—again, like a psycho. Spends most of the afternoon in a chess club. Then he goes home to listen to loud classical music as he brews the coffee he bought, usually throwing away the full bag right after.
Then he has a drink. Showers. Spends time at his laptop, and finally goes to sleep just to repeat the mechanical cycle again.
And again.
I swear, if I watched the monotonous events one more day, I’d stab my own eyes.
The only reason I kept coming back was because he knew I was there.
He even smiled when he engaged in soul-crushing small talk, as if he’d figured out it annoyed the fuck out of me.
I’m not sure when he found out I was following him around, but he did, and he was completely at ease with it. As if he expected me to.
As if I were predictable.
Well, he couldn’t have predicted this scene.
Because since I knew he knew, I hid my cards.
And because he didn’t seem to care that I was shadowing him like a grim reaper, he was careless enough to let me see the code he puts in the elevator to reach his apartment.
I didn’t even have to figure out a way to hack into security systems or befriend the concierge and, instead, kind of just walked in here—after I made him believe I’d left for the day.
In fact, I’ve been on the side of the building, patiently waiting until the lights in his apartment went off.
Then waited some more until he was fast asleep.
And it was worth it.
Because now I’m on top of him, my knees on either side of his waist over the sheet, and my syringe is in his neck.
The black snake on his naked chest peeks out from beneath the sheet that’s fallen down to his abs as if it’s real and will jump up and bite me at any second.
But I’m the only venomous snake here.
As I slowly push the plunger, taking my time in enjoying this, his sleepy eyes, which were confused a second ago, slowly sober up. There’s little light coming from the streetlamp outside, so I can’t see him clearly, but I can make out his eyes.