Claiming Felicity (Ace Security #4)(29)

It had been simple to check out Megan’s apartment before she and her protector had gotten home. He’d taken his time, gotten a feel for who she’d become in the years he’d been looking for her. Joseph had seen enough for a plan to start forming in his head for how he was going to bring her to heel.

A gleam entered his eye, and he robotically ran the mop across the floor as he imagined her chained up, scared, and spread out for his use. Yeah, Megan Parkins would rue the day she dared call the cops on him.

And now that he’d been inside her apartment, he knew exactly how he’d get to her.

But first he’d play.

He smiled as he put the mop back into the closet. Megan and Cole would find out soon enough that their regular cleaning lady wouldn’t be able to continue in their employment.

He’d made several copies of the keys she carried already and could enter and exit the building at will. The stupid janitor had given him the code to the alarm after only one small cut on her neck. He hated weak women. He much preferred they stand up to him before he broke them.

He smiled as he let himself out of the gym. He’d be back. This was going to be fun.





Chapter Nine

Felicity heard Ryder on the phone the next morning as she lay in bed. She heard him say her real name, the one she’d revealed the day before. She wasn’t surprised. She’d known when she’d told it to him that he’d be reporting it to his friends. Instead of feeling nervous or scared about it, though, it felt . . . freeing.

For the first time in ten years, she didn’t have the urge to constantly look behind her. Oh, she knew Joseph was out there somewhere. He wouldn’t have sent her that note or the newspaper article if he didn’t want her to know he was near. It wasn’t his way to pop out of the bushes with a gun. No, he liked to torment. To scare. And he was damn good at it. He’d found her right after she’d left Chicago, and it had been traumatizing enough for her to figure out how to acquire a new name and try to disappear for good.

She couldn’t hear Ryder’s exact words anymore, he must’ve moved into the kitchen, but she could still hear the low rumble of him talking. Felicity’s eyes roamed her room. Keeping everyone out had become second nature, a part of protecting herself. If the living area was pristine and barren, her bedroom was the exact opposite.

She had a picture of her and her mother on the table next to her queen-size bed. Books lay in disarray on the floor, as she didn’t have a bookshelf to keep them on. She’d kept a few of her old physics textbooks, and they were interspersed with crime thrillers, how-to-live-off-the-grid instruction manuals and, of course, her sci-fi books.

After she’d gotten her latest tattoo, she’d overheard a group of college girls talking about her, saying that she looked scary and how she probably had posters of motorcycles and guns on her walls. It was the impression she wanted to give strangers. She’d purposely done her best to change the image she projected. She’d always been the good girl—the nice one—and look where that had gotten her.

The short hair, the muscles, the tattoos—it was all to transform herself into the opposite of who she once was. But . . . it hadn’t really worked. She still felt like the same person inside. She didn’t like people to be scared of her, didn’t like to constantly be snarky and closed off. It hadn’t kept Joseph from finding her. Hadn’t kept him from killing her mom. All it had done was make her feel more alienated from everyone around her.

But who was she, really? Her bedroom was the one place in her life where she could be herself. Truly herself.

On her walls were cheap posters and pictures she’d picked up in discount stores and from Goodwill. A poster of Monet’s Woman with a Parasol, a watercolor of a field of bluebonnets that she’d picked up when she’d been hiding in Texas, a piece of notebook paper tacked up on the wall with a picture drawn by Joel of an alien being shot by an astronaut, a newspaper clipping with the story about Grace’s mother going to jail, complete with a picture of Margaret Mason in handcuffs being led into the courthouse, and an eleven-by-fourteen portrait in which she and Grace were standing with their arms around each other at Grace’s wedding. They were both laughing hysterically, their heads thrown back, huge smiles on their faces. It was one of Felicity’s favorite photos. She’d never seen Grace so happy before then.

Then there was her bed. She’d collected embroidered pillows from the thrift shops in the area and had even scored a queen-size quilt that looked handmade. It had pastel squares all sewn together to make a huge multicolored daisy. Her mother hadn’t made it, but she liked to pretend she had.

Her sheets were the one thing she’d bought new. They were top of the line, high thread count, and so silky smooth against her body, it felt as if she was lying on a soft, puffy cloud. She had lugged with her the first stuffed animal her mom had ever given her when she’d run away so many years ago. It was a giraffe whose neck had to have been sewn back on at least ten times over its lifetime, but it was precious to Felicity, and literally the only thing she had left of her old life.

Overall, her room was a lived-in, comfortable mess, and Felicity knew Ryder would take one look and know for a fact that her tough bravado was merely a facade. But he already knew. He’d told her as much. For the first time, she didn’t mind the thought of letting someone in. Letting Ryder in.

Grace knew she liked to read science fiction, but not how much she loved physics. Or that she’d been well on her way to a career in that field. Felicity had to be the strong one in their relationship—constantly pushing Grace to get away from her parents. She hadn’t been able to let her best friend know how scared she herself was.