10

My fox hasn't returned. The new floorboards creek beneath my weight from pacing for the last six hours, a warning from the universe that I'm going to fall through any fucking second now. It's four in the fucking morning, and according to my notations, no one in that trailer works tonight.

So where the fuck is she?

Two fucking times already, I had to stop myself from ravaging her. She was pushing my buttons. She smelled of vodka mixed with her usual citrusy scent. And I wanted to inhale every molecule and bottle it up. I could somewhat see past her working at Ribbons, but Nym-Pho?

She's allowed to do whatever the fuck she wants, of course, just as long as no one touches her. Getting onto their guest list is at the top of my list; I want to be there every night she is. Especially when her attire consists of a couple of fucking laces over her skin. Her pussy is just out there for anyone to see. It's one thing to know that her delicious curves are being gawked at. The new feeling rushes through me, and I can only categorize it as being possessive. I don't give a shit. They can look, yet touching what is mine is completely unacceptable.

Mine.

It should perturb me that I haven't questioned what's been stirring inside since that first day I laid eyes on her. The only obsession I've ever had is work. But with Niki, I refuse to be an agreeable alternative. I need to be her only one. Noah is already on my shit list, but if she's under the delusion that they're an item, I've made it my mission to show her otherwise. I can tell he hasn't had her. Niki isn't in love with him, and he wants her soul before he takes her body. I mean, I'd readily tell him that's impossible. But he'll learn soon enough. My fox will tell him herself.

Noah isn't in town, he's doing whatever the fuck it is he does three counties over. Which reminds me, I have to ask Jason for a file on him. It's a stupid mistake on my behalf to have deterred my attention, no matter how slight, from the man who calls himself Niki's boyfriend.

Pathetic. Each time I've caught him with his hands on her, it takes all my training to focus on restraint. To Niki, he's family. No matter how displaced her affections toward him are, I have to acknowledge that he's protected her as much as his pitiful abilities allow him to. I understand why he's obsessed with her. She's fucking perfect.

I'm drawn to the way she looked when she found out I was her new neighbor. The thought of her round and perky tits, that'll just barely fit into my hands, taunts me and my dick jerks in my sweats. Her discomfort was palpable. I can't get her out of my head–the way her little black shorts were hugging her thick thighs and how they slid up when she walked away. Fuck.

I knew something was off. I keep trying to pluck the image of her wearing nothing but six fucking belt straps over her creamy skin from my mind. I almost lost it that night. I'm pretty sure that was when I decided I had to be near her.

She wasn't going to tell me not to enter this trailer lot again. If I listened that first time, it was because her reasoning actually made sense. Niki's reputation means the world to her; I wasn't going to fuck with that. But then she asked me to let her walk alone, naked? No. Not a fucking chance, not happening. Ever.

I almost devoured her that night. Her skin, fuck, it's my very own entrance to the portal of a never-ending paradise. I wanted to wrap her legs around me and slip her thong to the side and pound into her so hard she screams my name in agony and pleasure laced into one damning assurance that she is mine.

Her touch grounded me and then shot me into the sky. I"d turn away from sin if she were an angel sent to deliver me to heaven. And I'd gladly sell my soul to Hades if it meant I'd get to spend an eternity with her in hell.

I barely heard her reproach, an inaudible and bleak attempt to push me away. She struggled with that. I saw it in her eyes then; she couldn't bear the idea of betraying Noah. He's too important to her. But not in the way he wants. She doesn't love him. But she will love me… someday.

And this delusional assertion is why I now live here and she can't tell me to leave.

I belong. More or less.

My hope is to be able to keep an eye on her. She's too devious for her own good, the trouble that woman gets herself into. You'd think she's searching for it, longing for it. Her tactics are unreputable, but they get the job done, as underhanded as they may be. And her survival skills and will to protect her family are by far unmatched.

I'm still wondering if she truly owns a Tec9. The street camera was down and I couldn't get footage of her from that night. I know it was her; one look into those big brown eyes and I knew. Matter a fact, I hope she does own a few guns. And if she doesn't, I'll buy her some. I'd feel a lot more comfortable knowing she's walking around loaded.

Niki's presence created a sort of vortex of cataclysmic proportions. It twisted my reality, took over my fucking thoughts and entire being. The disturbance is so intense that it's entered my system like a plague. Nothing else exists now, just her. Even Max was affected by her. I couldn't even be mad at him, she's a force of fucking nature.

I take my phone from the wooden table near the window in direct view to her place and Jason answers on the third ring.

"Do you know what fucking time it is right now?"

"That's precisely why I called," I growl. "I need a thorough background on Nikoletta Justice Fox."

"What you need is a CT scan, because I emailed you her file two weeks ago."

I had all the basic information. The precinct got her birth year wrong, therefore her age. It's a fucking mess, so naturally, I didn't trust the file they had on her. I'd already looked like a total fucking dumbass for assuming she was fifteen and asking to speak to her guardians. I knew keeping my distance wasn't the correct path to take. If I would've pursued her from the start, I wouldn't have been so clueless. Then again, I thought I was stalking an underage girl, so I guess it can be forgiven.

Jason's particular skills are far better than any police station, and he's allowed me a view no one else had on Niki.

Niki witnessed the murder of her parents at the age of fourteen; her brother was only six at the time. Court proceedings placed both kids in child protective services. But when the paperwork wasn't delivered on time, a letter was sent to the precinct for them to pick up the kids and drive them to a foster home. The dumbasses never picked them up. They did not acknowledge the case or lift a finger for them. They slipped through the cracks, and both Niki and her brother stayed in the trailer—without adult supervision. She dropped out of high school and uprooted her entire life for her brother.

Niki dabbled in trades, from cleaning services, deliveries, manufacturing companies, public works and sanitation, to hauling fucking metal at the junkyard. Her latest, and my least favorite, exotic server. Her friend Jasmin is no different. Same age, she'd been unofficially adopted by Niki's parents when she was eight years old, and after they were killed, she stayed working in the club scene. She'd gotten well known and even moved up to a supervisor position at Nym-Pho. Julius Junior was an excellent student and only stepped away to help out with bills. They were tightly knit and unified by one tragedy after another.

Hell, Jason even provided a list of Niki's previous relationships. If you can even call them that. My fox was incapable of settling down. She'd lost her virginity to some idiot at sixteen and then entered a long line of one-night stands. She never took anyone home or slept with anyone more than once. Her last sexual partner was six months prior, and she only started dating Noah three months ago. They'd been a steady item. For now.

"Yes, I know, you fucking idiot, but that was a basic search. I need you to give me everything."

Jason sighs, and the background noise tells me he's lifting himself up and out of bed. "You don't need to get all touchy." He drags out the last word and I grind my teeth. "I did that, too. It's on standby, but now that you ask, I'll send it over."

"Why the fuck didn't you send it before?"

"I don't know, maybe be specific next time?" A familiar tapping tells me he's on his laptop.

"I also need everything on Noah Allan, and this time, I do mean everything."

Jason chuckles darkly. "What happened? You lost your girl?"

I grind my teeth so hard I think my jaw is going to snap. "Just do what I pay you to do."

He lets out an exasperated sigh. "Noah Allan," he drags out his name slowly and his breathing hitches. "Well, you aren't gonna like this."

Fuck. The precinct doesn't have an existing file on Noah. Just bullshit gossip between grown men about him being a snitch bitch. Which basically means he stands up to them on occasion. And I gather he works alongside Niki in unveiling the precinct's corrupt ways. He was born and raised in this county. He's an only child to Miriam Allan. She works cleaning offices, and she takes a couple of shifts working as a nurse's assistant at the local hospital. Noah's father, Alfredo No Last Name, is a joke. He wracked up an obscene amount of debt and wasted away the family earnings in whatever slap house would allow him entry. But other than what is spoken between the fuckers at the station, there is no official file on Noah Allan.

"Your boy Noah hangs out with the Warlocks."

Your boy. I want to evaporate into practically nothing so I can enter the radio waves as my very own frequency to pass through Jason's ear canal and blow him up from the inside out for his little joke. But I let it slide because what he found is interesting.

"Go on," I say through clenched teeth.

"The Warlocks tracked Noah down two years ago and they blackmailed him. He's paying off Alfredo's debt. He's now their little bitch—whatever they want, he delivers."

"Fuck."

"Yea, he's dug up graves, delivered fingers to instill fear in those that owe money, collections–"

Jason goes on, but I'm no longer listening. I'm staring at the tiny screen of my cellphone, reviewing the email he sent me regarding Niki. My little fox owns property and three vehicles. I GPS the location of the lot and it's sixty odd miles out of city limits.

"I want you to send a drone to the farm on Niki's file," I interrupt. I'll deal with Noah later.

"I'll send you a link to view the live feed."

I grab my earbuds and plug them in, then grab my laptop, and it flickers to life. Twenty agonizing minutes later, the video feed comes to life. The sun is rising just in time to catch the perfect image of the stretch of land that's as big as eighteen football fields. I need the drone to keep its distance and it flies over twice, capturing images in its wake. Four structures that appear to be big ass multi-leveled houses, a small body of water that looks more or less like an oversized puddle, a stable and a fucking field of some vegetation. She's even got horses trotting about.

What the fuck?

"What do we know about this land?"

"Just what I sent over. The alias before hers belonged to her father, Julius Senior. It's stayed incognito since the Fox's took ownership, which was when Justice turned two years old. Purchased in cash."

Julius Senior came from a prestigious family who chucked him when he married Flor during his last year in med school. They met when she'd gone to the free clinic to get checked up. He knew what she did for a living, and it didn't matter to him. But his family had some serious opinions and ultimatums. They went as far as getting him exiled at every hospital he attempted to get work. The only place they couldn't touch was a free clinic two counties away where Niki's trailer home was located. Then one day he was offered a job on the wrong side of town. He sewed up some guys for the worst kind of people. But Julius was a good guy with a conscience, and when he refused to continue to do the work, they came for him. Niki only survived because her mother hid her in a crawlspace; her brother and Jasmin had been at a friend's house.

I paid the motherfuckers a visit last week, surprised them in the same way they had Niki's parents. As much as I wanted to take my time with the pair, I didn't change up the method they bestowed upon the Foxes. I touched their temples to my gun and blew their fucking brains.

They'd been the pawns used to take out a man and his family that had seen too much and was refusing to work for them. I'd gotten enough information from them about who sent them, and that's all they were good for. I'd send my Niki their fingers if I knew it would give her satisfaction to know that their corpses are now rotting away, but I didn't think she'd like that very much.

Jason's voice brings me back. "She got the latest tech in security cameras installed on the outside of the property. It's double gated, and she's got motion sensors."

What are you hiding, fox?

"Damn, your girl has major trust issues."

A text comes through from the police chief at the station and I thumb the screen.

I tap back a quick response. Carlton wants to talk about his daughters. According to him, the elder one ran off and took his youngest. They've been missing for some time and he wants someone assigned to hunting them down immediately. He's had the local cops comb the city, but he requested someone with more experience. I can find them in five clicks, but I prefer to handle that line of work in the customary way. I'm not here to find runaway brats. Detective work is just a cover.

"Jason, I have to go. Find a way to keep an eye on the farm and send me an update once you do."