Staking Her Claim...: Book 1 in the Patricks' Brothers series (27 page)

One of, Alliance Inc.’s many faults was their sheer stupidity in hiring, Peter on as a department head. Actually, hiring him on at all was insane if you ask me. When Peter first started out in the business of private security, he had been driven and dedicated. He’d thrived on the long hours and the thrill of the chase. But less than a year in, his once enthusiastic attitude became a thing of the past. In its place, a conceited, egotistical jerk arose triumphantly.

I shouldn’t be surprised, Alliance kept him on, the majority of their employees were carbon copies of, Peter, after all. Sub-standard service, sloppy work, and pissed off clients were par for the course for Alliance.

Their management was lax, a fact their dwindling client base and rumors of imminent bankruptcy confirmed. EyeSee didn’t have cause to cross paths with them often, but when we did things never went smoothly. I didn’t see this client’s desertion being any different.

Rob left the penthouse a little after eight this morning, and with Peter and Max having left half an hour later, I was able to settle in to catch up on some reporting I’d avoided finishing for too long. But the silence in the apartment was strange after becoming accustomed to the noise the guy’s made just walking into a room. Seriously, you’d think they were doing it on purpose the way they sounded like a herd of baby elephants stomping around as they had a tendency to do.

Plugging my iPad into the docking station wirelessly connected to, Max’s surround sound system, I turned up the volume on, Skillet’s, Comatose, and got to work. The music helped to break up the monotony of what could only be described as; a painful death inflicted by mind-numbing administrative tedium.

I welcomed the distraction of the hard-rock blaring through the speakers if it would drone out my still whirling thoughts on what we were going to do if we didn’t catch a break on, Harper’s stalking case soon. However, if had a negative impact too. I didn’t hear my phone ringing and missed an important call that would have given me a heads up of what was soon to come.

Hunched over my laptop, I’d just typed my last note, punched in the final full-stop on my report when an alert signaled I had an email waiting for me. Opening the web browser, I logged into my email account and saw it was from, Simon Parkes, Brandt’s lab technician friend.

I don’t know how many times I read and re-read the what the email contained, but it had to be at least fifty. My mind was reaching critical overload when I felt the hot, heavy breath of someone leaning over my shoulder staring at the screen in front of me. Snapping my head around to see who it was, my lungs seized, but my body overrode the feeling of panic, slipping seamlessly into survival mode.

“I have to say; I’m a little disappointed you of all people didn’t put it together sooner, Alysia. If anyone should have known it was me, it would have been you. But no, you’ve been too focused on fucking your toy-boy to connect the dots.” Gesturing to the laptop, he sighs, “Looks like the cat’s out of the bag now, though.”

Images of, Simon’s report are burned into my retina’s as I repeatedly ask myself the same question; how did I miss this? How did we all miss this? The answer had been staring us in the face for weeks, and we’d failed to see what was right in front of us.

Scanning the room, I note the distance between me and my backup gun is approximately twenty feet. And because I apparently hadn’t realized I’d need it, my primary weapon, a Colt .380 Mustang, is safely tucked away in my purse in the kitchen.

There was no way I was getting to either of them before, Peter would make a move to detain me. Not that he’d necessarily be successful, but I wasn’t stupid, either. I was an unarmed woman facing off with a deranged, unpredictable sociopath on a power trip. The odds of me making it out of this unscathed were decreasing by the second.

Doing the only thing I could think of the delay a potentially deadly outcome, I try to get him to start talking. Guy’s like, Peter want their would-be victims to know why they do the things they do. They get off on it.

“Why? What was your end game when you started planning this?”

“You always thought you were better than me, didn’t you? Smarter? Faster? A better shot? Just better,” he asks pacing back and forth in front of me.

“No, I didn’t, Peter. Our skill sets are different, but I never thought I was better than you,” I lie.

“Bullshit,” Peter seethes, clenching his fists by his sides. “I felt like I was in constant competition with you, but without ever being given the chance to compete. Everything you touched turned to gold. You were the fucking poster child for perfection, and it wasn’t until I got you naked on your back that I realized you did have a fault after all. Do you know how fucking ecstatic that made me? To know you weren’t as perfect as you appeared to be, huh? But your physical flaws aside, everyone still thought the sun shined out of your ass and you shit roses. Hence, my choice of flower. Did you like that? I thought it was a beautiful touch, brought out the irony in the situation.”

Either, I’m not nearly as intelligent as he gives me credit for, or I’m missing a bigger piece of the puzzle here. Wadding through my memories, I look for times I spent with, Peter that would have heralded clues he was one short of a six pack even back then. I recollect all the times he wasn’t honest with me, refusing to give me a straight answer to specific questions.

I can remember thinking it was strange he didn’t visit his parents or sister who only lived a twenty-five-minute drive from our apartment. And I clearly recall all the occasions his temper got the better of him, ending with me breaking up more than my fair share of bar fights and apologizing to patrons and owners alike. But nothing that would tip me off to the storm brewing inside him that would eventually lead him to this.

Curious, I ask,

“If your target was always me, why pretend it was, Harper? Why not just send me the notes and flowers?”

“That would’ve been too easy,” he scoffs, looking at me like
I’m
the crazy one. “You wouldn’t have given it a second’s consideration if I’d sent that shit to you, Alysia, and you know it. But your family and friends? You’ve always been ready and willing to lay your life on the line for them. Your brothers wouldn’t have flinched if I’d used them, either. Those motherfuckers think they’re invincible, they wouldn’t have flexed a bicep balling up my notes to toss them in the trash. That left the beautiful, naïve, Harper. Who better to use against you than your best friend?”

“Still, that doesn’t make any sense. Harper doesn’t even know about any of this, so how was she going to be useful in your plan to get to me?”

Lacing his hands together, flexing them outward until his knuckles pop and crack, Peter freezes in place, his breath billowing out like that of a raging bull. That’s what he reminds me of at this moment in time; a pissed off slightly crazed animal.

“I hadn’t considered you’d all decide to keep it from her when I was in the planning phase, but in the end, it didn’t matter. Actually, that worked to my advantage. I wouldn’t have been able to deal with her ass here all the time, bitching and whining about being scared, and still be able to watch you too. It’s no secret, Harper’s hated me since the day we started dating, if she were here she’d be dragging you off to fuck knows where and I wouldn’t be able to keep tabs on you.”

Needing to know, I ask the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.

“When you did finally get me alone, what did you plan to do to me?”

Some people might consider me stupid for asking my stalker what he has in store for me, but to those people I pose this question; Wouldn’t you prefer to know what was coming than not?

Peter’s strides eat up the short distance between us, him coming to a stop a mere foot from me. Every line of his six-foot-two, muscular build is vibrating with tension and unadulterated anger. And it’s all directed at one person; me. His shoulders are back and squared. His spine a rigid column, ready to snap at any minute.
 

Each flex of the muscles in his arms hint at the pain he’d all too willingly inflict given half a chance. And his thighs are twitching under the weight of holding him steady and still. Everything about him screams, danger, yet I can’t bring myself to be scared of him.

Keeping my body fluid and relaxed when he bends down encircling my throat with one of his large hands takes effort, but I know if I fight it will only make things worse for me. Another thing to know about men like Peter is; they are aroused by women who fight back.

It’s no good for a man who gets off on power to have a woman cooperate with his every demand because he doesn’t get the rush he needs to prove once and for all he’s the dominant in the room. No, men like, Peter, want the fight, they crave it. Their desire to overpower a woman, make them submit, so that they can exercise control over them is all-consuming, and the only thing that will inevitably satisfy them.

And that’s what I refuse to give him the only thing he needs more than my demise; the fight.

I allow my body to go limp, my lack of protest must confuse him, because as my weight sags into him, Peter tightens his grip, cutting off the flow of air into my lungs. The burning sensation the lack of oxygen provides narrows my field of vision. I can see the hazy shades of gray encroaching slowly from the corners of my eyes.

My body aches to struggle, to tear at the hand squeezing my throat, ripping it free until I can breathe again. From experience, I know it only takes ninety seconds before oxygen deprivation begins to dull your senses and hinder the brain's processing capabilities. By my count, I have thirty-five seconds, tops, before I’m unconscious. Nothing will save me from him doing whatever he wants to me then.

Concentrating on the room around me, I muster the last of my waning energy to find a way to distract him or break free of his hold. I get one chance at this, so it better be good. Eyeing the travertine based lamp sitting on the side table at one end of, Max’s sectional, I lean in its direction. Under the belief I’m about to collapse, Peter aids my efforts, lowering me onto my side within arms-reach of my goal.

Fluttering my eyelids, simulating the stage before slipping into the abyss of nothingness, I slow my breath until it’s coming in short, harsh pants. My muscles start to twitch, first my arms, then my legs, followed by full-body spasms I have no hope of controlling.

Waiting for the opportunity to make my move, Peter begins getting restless, edgy at the amount of time it’s taking for me to surrender. Timing it perfectly with his distracted glance at the clock hanging over the fireplace on the only solid wall in the penthouse, I snake my arm out quickly, clutching the lamp in a tight fist and swing.

But I have no idea whether I connected with my target or not before everything goes black…