The Prey by Allison Brennan Page B

marked the chosen for death. Nothing could now alter their fate. He was a god; fate would run its course. Then he and Rowan would meet again. She would know him and know fear.
    And beg for her life before she died.
    He waited until dark, then left. He had another flight to catch.
     

CHAPTER 5
     
    He waited for Tess to close her apartment door, then clamped a hand over her mouth. Thinking fast, she swung her laptop around hard and hit him on the shoulder, but the momentum of her attack enabled him to twist her wrist. He forced her to drop the computer and cruelly bent her arm back. He felt her wince and try to pivot for control. But she’d already lost.
    He let her go and flipped on the lights.
    “I’ve told you a thousand times that an attacker can use your momentum against you.”
    “John! You bastard!” Tess tried to slap him, but he grabbed her arm. “How did you get in here?”
    He gave her a quizzical look. “Your locks are child’s play, but I actually got in through the window in the bathroom. I’ve told you to put a security lock on it at least a dozen times.” He smirked. “Now, now, you lost fair and square. Give it up.” He pulled her into a bear hug. “I’ve missed you, sis.”
    “I missed you, too, until about two minutes ago.” She leaned back, surveying him like a mother would a wayward son, love and concern etched on her pretty, pixie-like face. “You’ve lost weight.”
    “South American jungles. What I can eat and drink I sweat off.”
    “Let me fix you dinner.”
    “Thought you’d never ask.” He followed her to the small kitchen, checking windows as he went. “Have any juice?”
    “Orange juice.” She nodded at the refrigerator. She grabbed a pot out of the dishwasher and filled it with water. “You know the only thing I can cook is spaghetti.”
    “Some things never change. But I love spaghetti.” He actually didn’t care much for the eating process except to provide fuel for his body. He took out the juice container, shook it, and guzzled its contents, then tossed the empty carton into the trash and looked back in the fridge. He took out a water bottle and drank half in one gulp.
    Tess watched with a half-smile. “Yes, some things never change.”
    “Tell me more about Mickey’s case.” He pulled out a chair at the small kitchen table and sat, leaning against the back until the front legs lifted off the floor.
    She shrugged and poured a jar of sauce into a pot. “There’s not much to tell except another woman died. A florist.”
    “Mimicking Smith’s book?” At the airport in Mexico City he’d bought the latest bestselling Rowan Smith novel,
Crime of Corruption
. He read it cover-to-cover on the plane, hooked. He admired the protagonist, a no-nonsense FBI agent with realistic faults, and the villain was pure evil under a face as normal as, well, his.
    If he hadn’t known such malevolence existed, he’d have thought Smith exaggerated. But he’d known murdering bastards so twisted and deranged that he was sincerely amazed that their evil couldn’t be seen on the surface.
    Even Satan had once been an angel.
    “John?”
    He shook his head and grinned at her. “Just daydreaming.”
    “More like a nightmare,” Tess said. “You okay?”
    “I didn’t get Pomera.”
    Her eyes conveyed sympathy. “Was it because I called you? Pulled you out too soon?”
    He shook his head. “I had to go after the warehouse or tons of drugs would be hitting our coast next week. At least we pulled a major plug. It’ll take them some time to recoup their losses and rebuild inventory. One, two months maybe.”
    Tess’s jaw dropped. “And then they’ll be back in business? After just two months? What’s the point? No matter what you do, how many tons of drugs you destroy, there’s always more.”
    That was the grim reality in the war on drugs. No matter how many men they killed, how many tons of cocaine and heroin they destroyed, there were always more daring criminals, an