Page 9 of Anathema
At least… not anymore.
Chapter 3
Derek
ThefirstthingIdid this morning after I had woken up was open the app I had been using to track Alexis’s movements to see where she had been over the weekend. She couldn’t have gotten into too much trouble without her laptop, and I looked forward to seeing her pissed-off face when she came to the CIA office to reclaim it.
When everything had loaded up, I couldn’t stop the frown that creased my brows. I noticed that the location logged over the weekend wasn’t her apartment, and it wasn’t Madison’s townhouse—not that she had been there lately. It was a new address.
Where the fuck did she go?
Throughout the past several months of tracking her, Alexis had never visited the newly registered address, and she spent almost two full days there, leaving late Sunday afternoon to return to herapartment, where she remained for the rest of the evening and through the night.
A primal and possessive part of me began to burn with jealousy and rage, my hand gripping my phone so tightly that it trembled.
That address had better not belong to another fucking man, so help me...
I’m fully aware that I had made her come all over my hand and then left her in that back alley without offering her more, but I wanted Alexis to understand what I could do to her, make her beg for me, to hate me.
She was mine to toy with, and I would make sure she understood that to the fullest extent.
No one was going to fuck Alexis but me if I had anything to say about it. I did my time, waiting for a woman like her to come along, and I was not about to go down without a fight.
I sat parked in my truck, a block away from the address she had stayed at over the weekend. It was a shit hole of an apartment complex; I couldn’t imagine her being with a guy who lived in a place like this. I knew she had standards, but I didn’t think they would ever sink this low, even if she were desperate for a good fuck.
Eventually, she will learn to come to me when she wants to find release, and I will gladly give it to her.
After spending most of my morning watching the main entrance of the building and the tenants who came and went, I gave up and headed to the office.
No one stood out to me as someone she would have been staying with. They were all either older people or young college kids. AndI know for a fact that Alexis was into older men—not that I’m old in any sense of the term, my thirty-one to her twenty-four—but she would never sleep with someone younger than her.
She liked an experienced man in bed, and I discovered that information when I looked up all of her old boyfriends and previous dates. After pulling phone numbers and old messages from her phone, it wasn’t hard to figure out who they were.
It was possible that I was overreacting, and she wasn’t there with another man, fucking around behind my back, but I had to be sure. I needed peace of mind that no one else would get in the way of my ability to claim her for my own.
I may need to work on keeping her on a tighter leash, ruining her so that I am the only man she wants, needs, and thinks about at all hours of the day.
Chuckling to myself at the thoughts that filtered through my mind, I exited the parking garage, stepped into the elevator, and headed up to the fifth floor of the CIA.
My office was next to AJ’s, and while he was gone, Marcus was using it. I didn’t mind having him in the room next to me, but he was so loud I could hear most of his conversations through the wall that separated us.
The guy had a broken volume dial when it came to discussions with Dean and whatever woman he was currently fucking. His current hook-up called him almost every day. At this point, I felt like I was part of their relationship as well.
Once inside my room, I dropped into my chair behind the desk and turned to gaze at the late morning skyline.
There was one thing I loved about being here, and it was the skyline views of Minneapolis. The evenings were beautiful, and the sunsets were unmatched as the sun played off the buildings, casting an array of yellow, orange, and pink across the city. However, the sunsets up north were even more breathtaking, especially in Duluth, where AJ was living. Fall was my favorite time to go up there, seeing the leaves change from green to red and orange, and when the sunset hit Lake Superior just right, it was like watching a living painting. The same colors as the city, dancing across the water, a serene escape.
With the thought of the sunsets up north, I checked my phone to see if I had any new messages from AJ. It had been almost a week since I’d last heard from him.
He proposed to Chyler during his absence, and of course, she accepted. He mentioned that they planned on doing a long engagement until they could find a place to settle down permanently.
AJ also mentioned they would move back to Minneapolis temporarily in a couple of weeks before searching for a home just outside the city—close enough that he could commute to work but far enough out to have a little more land.
That lucky son of a bitch got everything, and I couldn’t be anymore happier for him; he deserved Chyler and the life she offered him.
But now it was my turn.
I was going to get my own happy ending, no matter the cost, and Alexis was it.
