The Risk (Mindf*ck Series #1)

We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.

—Albert Einstein

New York isn’t prepared for me when I arrive. It’s dark when I finally set about the task of planning my ambush. My sweatshirt is on, my head is covered, and I prop up in an alleyway.

This place gets dangerous in dark alleyways, but after slamming a guy’s face into the brick wall hard enough to knock him out, most of the regular thugs give me a wide berth for the rest of the time that I wait.

“Hey, sweetheart,” says another stupid thug who is holding a knife at me as he grins a rotten-tooth grin.

I say nothing.

I guess he missed my earlier demonstrations, unfortunately for him.

He takes a step closer, and that’s when I smirk at him. He looks confused for a split second before my hand darts out, colliding with his throat. A pained wheeze escapes him, and he swings the knife.

Midair, I catch his wrist, spin under his arm, and listen with pleasure as a satisfying cry pierces the night. The knife falls to the ground, and I slam my foot into his spine, still wrenching his arm behind him so tightly that I feel it when the bone crunches in my hand.

A shudder of pleasure ripples through me, listening to the way he screams and begs for mercy. It’s not as satisfying as it is to hear as the ones I want dead, but it’s still a high to punish someone like him who preys on the weak—or who he thinks is weak.

With a hard thrust, the knife slices through his back, the skin tearing, and his screams grow louder. People scatter by us, pretending they don’t see anything in typical city-alley fashion.

As he starts gurgling on blood, I release the knife with my gloved hand, and let him sink to the ground with a hard thud. Right beside the dumpster, all that’s visible from the streets are his feet. The city is too loud for the sidewalk dwellers to overhear him.

Even if they did hear, they’d keep walking. That’s what people do. They tell themselves they’ll just die too. They tell themselves their life is more precious than the person dying close to their feet.

They just don’t give a fuck, in short.

A dark smile curves my lips as he stares up at me in surprised horror.

He came into this alley as the predator.

He’ll die as the prey.

I tug the sweatshirt over my head, careful not to disturb my blonde wig from its careful placement on my head. I toss it into the dumpster, then shrug out of my sweatpants, revealing the dress I had concealed, and tug on my heels.

It’s time to do what I came to do and quit fucking with the scum in the dark that people try to run from. The monsters in here can’t compare to the monster I am.

A few eyes swing toward me, but I’m not concerned as I strut by them.

No one will talk about the blonde hooker that just killed a man with very little effort. They’ll pretend they never saw a thing.

Even the groups of guys scatter away, stumbling over their feet in their haste. A gun is tucked into the backs of most of their jeans, but they just saw me gut a guy with his own knife. I’m sure they’re not feeling too confident the same won’t happen to them.

True story: Most people are more terrified when they see a knife than when they see a gun. It’s a psychological thing, but it works out in my favor at the moment.

I turn the corner, emerging from the long alleyway onto the busy sidewalk. No one even bats an eye or notices me through the hustle and bustle as I toss the bloody gloves into my purse.

The darkness helps.

I smirk as I see Lawrence stepping out of the building, and I cross the street and slow my pace, letting him get behind me.

Lawrence is predictable.

He’s also a pervert.

A sick feeling and the taste of bile rises in my throat when the predictable happens. A warm hand is suddenly on my ass, and I whip my head around, trying to act surprised.

“You,” he says, grinning. “Thought that was you. No blind date tonight?” He grins like his joke is hilarious.

I bat my lashes at him, and start tugging on his tie, even though my stomach is ready to explode with disgust.

“No date tonight. You trying to pick me up, pretty boy?” I ask with that fake southern drawl I used the last time I was dressed like this.

“I think you must have wanted me to pick you up. New York is too big to run into each other by chance twice,” he says smugly, smirking down at me.

“Maybe it’s just fate.”

His smirk bleeds into a leering grin.

“Your place or mine?”

“Well, that was easy enough.” I arch an eyebrow, leading him by his tie as I start guiding him to a parking garage.

“Where are we going?”

“My car is just around the block,” I say sweetly.

Parked in a parking garage with no cameras. I leave that juicy morsel out of the conversation.

“You’re the kind of girl that makes a guy do something dangerous like get into a car with a stranger,” he says, though there’s a hint of teasing in his tone, as though he finds me too weak to be of any danger to him.

“You can back out,” I say, moving to the right. I release his tie, but he speeds up his steps, still following me into the parking garage.

“I’m not worried. I think I can handle you.”

I hold back the snort of derision.

“Baby, I can promise you that you won’t survive a girl like me.”