Alace

She stood on the threshold and stared, eyes slowly sweeping left to right, taking in the entire setup of Regg’s office before she stepped inside. She pulled out her phone and took a series of pictures, in case she needed to restore anything as she left. If she found nothing amiss, then Regg would never know she was here, and she’d work to gain back a trust he wouldn’t know had been breached.

Propping her phone on his desk, she tapped the display, thin latex gloves no barrier to the pressure-sensitive screen. The six cameras she’d deployed around Regg’s property were all connected and showing a whole lot of nothing. A condition she hoped would continue for the next day and a half. Regg and Lena had taken their kids to a family resort in Tennessee, a trip Alace had learned about through the reminders in Regg’s e-mail, and the reservation payment on his credit card.

He’d taught her well, maybe too well, because when she’d turned her talents to investigating Regg, she’d found he might have some of the simplest deterrents in place, but nothing she couldn’t best. Alace had learned a whole lot about the man she’d hooked her life to so many years ago. Offshore accounts buried in a trust in his oldest son’s name, property in Central America owned by Lena, darknet personas used to bid up auctions for work, others used to contract out to what amounted to the competition. There was so much more she wanted to know about, and Alace expected to find everything she needed here in his office today.

Her looping devices to bypass his video feeds had worked perfectly, even if they’d been fabricated out of parts never intended to work together for that task. Alace allowed herself a small smile. Regg had taught her that, too. Thinking out of bounds, following intuition to a path that granted success, no matter how ugly the tactics looked to the outsider. It ain’t sexy, that’s for sure. She settled into his chair and studied his computer setup closely. I got this one. Nothing out of the ordinary, his computer was utilizing a basic connection, nothing that tied to an alarm.

She glanced at the cameras again, then the panel beside the door where the lights all showed a steady green. “Here we go,” she murmured, turning the computer around and unplugging the hardwired connection. She followed sensible protocols, ensuring she had control of the computer before reconnecting it to the net. There were few files on the drive, which was not unexpected. It would be too much to think she’d find evidence of his guilt or innocence that easily. She quickly located folder after folder of shortcuts though, all cryptically named, which meant unless she could sort out his naming structure, she’d be shooting in the dark as to where each led.

Nothing for it. She rolled her shoulders and leaned in, fingers flying across the keyboard as she tracked down the electronic ghost trails left behind from Regg’s activities online. Three hours later, she had a good sense of what she was looking at, and her blood ran cold. Ten tension-filled hours after that and she knew for certain.

Regg was the monster.

Not me.

She had probably been his first hunter, since she could find no evidence any of this went back farther than her first contact with him. He’d been a good paper man, in high demand, which was why he’d been recommended to her in the first place. Over time, and she remembered each conversation as if they’d happened only yesterday, he’d steered her into dangerous waters. I went willingly. That was the argument she made on his behalf. She’d still been a young, heavily traumatized woman, struggling to find a way to survive after a horrific event that had been unsatisfactorily resolved. He’d listened to her and found what would help make her whole, and then guided her towards events that would heal her. Maybe he really was a guardian angel for a while.

Any pretense of him having her best interests in mind had stopped about ten years ago, when the first highly lucrative contract crossed his desk. She remembered the gig, remembered the mark, and had slept with the man’s death in her head for a long time. Since then, about every ten to fourteen months, Regg had sought out another high-dollar gig. She’d flipped through the pictures Regg had archived, recognizing face after face, shoulders hunching in as she stiffened in response to the overwhelming evidence that he’d played her.

Then she found a picture she didn’t know. One image of a dead man she’d never met. No matter how much she questioned herself, sifting through her memories, he didn’t exist in her world. That single aberration made her pause and consider, set her to searching around, and eventually she’d found Regg’s sideline business.

He’d had other hunters. From what she could tell, there’d only been one in addition to her at any given time. But all told, there were four other people who had traveled the roads Alace knew so well. That being the sole thing they’d had in common, otherwise coming from varied backgrounds, representing different ethnicities and a variety of pre-Regg occupations. It hadn’t been until about an hour ago she’d found the last piece of the puzzle, and if she’d thought she’d been on edge before, this put every nerve on screaming red alert.

Five hunters, only one of which was still alive. His first. Me.

Her gaze flicked across the hidden cache of images she’d unearthed inside a secured folder. They were all very dead, bodies displayed for the camera, their killers identified only by codename. He’d used Xanadu for her, and she found the rest just as randomly cryptic. The last picture had shaken her, and Alace had fought to control her breathing for long moments. It showed Terrence Tresca, or Ranger Rick, as she’d called him. The wellhead had been removed and someone had gone down to reveal his face. Lips shading to a dark blue, Tresca’s jaw was covered with red-stained mud, but his features were unmistakable.

I killed him.

Her ambivalent feelings about what she’d done swelled, bile rolling up the back of her throat as she stared at the picture of the dead man. Then she set it aside, finding Tresca’s files and going through them one-by-one. What she learned went a long way towards settling her, because Tresca was no more a forest ranger than she was an elementary school executive assistant.

Regg had pitted him against Alace, and from what she read, Tresca knew what he was up against with her, having been fed a file that painted Alace in the worst possible light. He probably felt justified. She was a killer, with a high body count in the dozens. Tresca’s specialty was information retrieval, a classy way of saying he tortured information out of his marks before killing them. Military trained, she’d gotten that much right, since the backstory Regg had built for him blended the real and imaginary in creative ways, as he always did with hers. Just enough of the real to make it memorable and believable, but fantasy in the end.

She’d been sent in to kill Waterdrum because he had a business Regg wanted for himself. Tresca had been sent in to kill her so she didn’t fuck up that business by doing exactly what she’d done, destroying everything. She remembered Regg joking with her that she should think about partnering with Tresca—it was surprising that she couldn’t think of him as Ranger Rick any longer—and how she’d laughed it off. The whole time he was toying with me.

Now the chill that had settled into her frame was offset by the building heat of rage. He’s gotta pay.

She studied the pictures of Regg’s hunters again, frozen masks of death staring at her from the digital images. He did this. She turned the chair, staring at the images of his children mounted on the wall near the door. The juxtaposition of childhood innocence against what she’d been wading through for hours was surreal.

Regg was responsible for everything, when you boiled it down to the basics. Her first few gigs she’d been well content to expose the marks as liars and thieves, restoring sanity to the world their victims lived within every day. Would I have evolved to what I am naturally? Alace shook her head slowly. I am what he made me.

Greed.

She might not have caught on ever, if it weren’t for Regg’s greed.

Alace turned back to the computer and started again. She’d sorted out his naming convention, a mix of date and location, tied together with the code name assigned to his hunters. An hour later, she found it and stared at the screen in disbelief. That kind of payday would have set Regg up for life.

And she’d have still lived gig to gig, no home to call her own, and if Regg had his way, no Eric in her life to anchor her.

Regg would have had everything.

Alace’s eyes narrowed, and she began systematically saving documents and files onto the external hard drive she’d plugged into the back of Regg’s computer. “You won’t have anything when I’m done.”

Promise.

***

Alace watched as the family exploded from the SUV that had just parked inside the garage. On her small screen, the individual faces of the children were difficult to tell apart, while Lena and Regg were distinctive. She wondered for a moment at the distance held between the two adults, finally deciding they were in midargument, watching as they trailed the kids into the house. Lena opened the alarm panel and punched in a sequence intended to unarm the system, Alace’s override still in place meant it was already disabled, but there was nothing amiss to notice.

She observed via a combination of her screens and Regg’s security system, tracking them through the house as they went to their bedroom. Once the door was closed behind them, Regg swung around and asked Lena, “What do you want me to do? I can’t make it rain money.”

Alace blinked. With what Regg had in domestic and international accounts, he’d amassed more than fifteen million dollars. Why would money be an issue?

Lena threw out a hand to the side, settling her other on a hip as she semishouted, “Just make it happen. Madison deserves to attend that school, Regg. I don’t care what it takes, you need to make it happen. That was the deal.”

“I know what the deal is, Lena.” Regg’s tone was scathing even over the speakers. “I’ve never regretted anything more in my entire life than I do the deal.” His hands came up and fingers curled as he made air quotes. “I’m not reneging on my side. Maddy will have everything she needs. Attending an exclusive school so you can crow about it to your rival at your next luncheon isn’t a need. It’s a greed on your part. Give it a rest and go home.” Go home? Alace angled closer to the screens, trying to see the expression on their faces. Where does she live if not here?

He’d turned towards the door, hand outstretched, all Alace had of him was an oblique profile, but she still registered his full body flinch when Lena retorted, “Daddy might have sold me to you for what you knew, but you don’t own me.” Lena straightened and threw back her shoulders, shouting, “I won’t come back this time.” Regg had blackmailed Lena’s father into…what? Handing over his daughter because Regg knew something about him? Alace let her memories trail back over the folders and information she’d studied. Nothing jumped out at her, but she didn’t know Lena’s maiden name.

“Jesus.” The single word was muttered. Then Regg was moving through the door, closing it soundlessly behind him. Regg was in the hallway, walking away when he shouted back at the closed door, “Do whatever the fuck you want.” Alace split her attention between screens, seeing Lena cover her face with both hands, an angry wail coming from that feed, while Regg stalked through the house, moving from camera view to camera view.

She knew where he was headed. He was coming to her.

Alace stood, rummaged in her bag a moment before she reclaimed her seat in the chair again. She shoved the gun under her leg and kept the Taser in hand. Either, or. Doesn’t matter to me. On the screen, Lena had pushed past her fit of pique and had left the sanctuary of the bedroom. It looked like she was supervising the repacking of bags for the children, all in the throes of what looked to be an epic case of post-vacation exhaustion. Lena must be cutting her losses, and Alace wondered if Regg knew she was actually going to leave, or if he even cared. “She’s my one.” His voice floated through her memories, having followed her into dreamland more than once as she carved out what she wanted based on what Regg said was important. One more lie.

Regg continued on his way towards the garage, and his office.

Bring it.

She was ready when the alarm panel lit up, indicating someone was accessing it from outside. On the screen, Regg’s head was tipped far forwards, gaze roaming across the floor as his hand moved by rote, fingers tapping the sequence to disarm the system. As with the one in the house, it gave no indication of tampering. So even if he’d been alert and paying attention, he wouldn’t have had a warning. Alace was good at her job.

She heard the click as the mechanism in the wall released, and a sliver of light appeared along the edge of the door. It slid quietly to the side, seating into the wall as, gaze still on the floor, Regg took a step inside. Alace tapped a single key, the smallest twitch of her finger initiating the sound of the door moving back into place. As expected, it surprised Regg and his head jerked up, eyes trained on Alace as she sat with Taser in hand aimed at the center of his chest.

He didn’t flinch, didn’t utter a sound. Gaze locked with Alace, he stood stock-still as the door locked behind him. The sound of the steel shafts seating in the wall was loud in the silence.

She stayed where she was, waiting. Her position relative to his was intentional, as was the information framed on the monitors. Would he realize all she’d put into building this scene for him? You made me. From the corner of her eye, she saw the view on the screens change, motion activated cameras taking over the display as Lena and the kids moved through the house and into the garage above them. Alace noted the silence in the room where she and Regg stood, no hint of his life falling apart could be overheard. Their remote view was blinded by late evening sunshine as the garage door opened, filters flipping into place to accommodate redrawing the vehicle as it moved. The SUV rolled backwards and out of range, the camera display changing to the front of the house as the garage door slid shut. A small white halo of a face was visible in the back window of the vehicle for a moment. Then it was speeding up the street and away from the house.

Regg sighed, and his head slowly tipped to one side before he said, “Hello, Alace.” In person, his voice resonated, filled with a rich baritone range. A good voice, a kind one, and the dichotomy made her hair rise on end. Standing thus, he took up more of the room than she’d expected, even having seen images of him in the same chair she currently occupied. When she looked at Regg, it was as if the world was looping back on itself. This man was at once entirely unfamiliar, and at the same time as well known as her own face.

Alace wished for something profound to say, wanted to have it matter that this was the first time in their lives she and Regg were occupying the same space, but after everything that had gone on, and after hours of reading about betrayal after betrayal, she didn’t have it in her to care.

“Regg.”

Silence folded back in around them, heavy and suffocating with an edge of menace. Why isn’t he doing something? Alace studied him closely, gazes locked, and she saw his very breath was controlled, muscles held taut, but the giveaway, as always, was in the eyes. Pupils dilated, his eyes jerked back and forth as he tried to get a read on her. Tried, and failed. He didn’t know her. Not really. I know you, though.

“Madison isn’t your child, is she?”

Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t that, and the immediate rage filling his features told her she’d scored with that observation. Alace felt a mirroring pain in her gut, but stifled it with harsh control, governing her reactions. Chin tucked tight to his neck, Regg looked to be waiting for another hit, so she obliged.

“You’ve lost, you know that, right?” A fleeting change to his expression exposed fear, muscles in his cheeks pulling the edges of his mouth while his eyes widened the slightest amount, all of this there and gone in a blink. With his family leaving him, this house would be quiet and still and, if she knew Regg—and after all this time, she believed she did—he would want to throw himself into work to disappear. “I control the offshore accounts.” His nostrils twitched, but she didn’t pause. The money was the least of it, after all. “I have all the information from your servers. I know the names of everyone you’ve worked with since before me.” At that revelation, his eyes narrowed in question, and she didn’t leave him wondering long. “I’ve retired you. No existing contracts will be honored.” That was what had taken her the most time today, her reading and investigation worked in between her account and information updates to Regg’s various personas. “I might have missed one or two, but I uncovered enough that you’re effectively crippled.”

“How many?” His first words beyond his greeting showed where his true investment was. Regg wasn’t trying to talk his way out of whatever retribution she felt was deserved. He was focused on surviving it, and then would be getting right back to work. He wouldn’t stop, she realized now. And he wouldn’t leave her alone. Even if she left him like this, crippled without his network, he’d find a way to get back what he’d lost. Then he’ll come hunting.

She gave him honesty, still uncertain what the final outcome of this showdown would be. “Nine.” His lips thinned over clenched teeth, and Alace smiled, tipping her head to one side. “Oh, maybe I did get them all.”

“What do you want, Alace?” Syllables forced between tightly clenched teeth, she saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. His carotid pounded, blood rushing through causing the skin above to tremble with every agitated beat. Not as confident as he wanted to project, then. “What the fuck do you want from me?”

“Don’t you want to know what I’ve been doing? What I’ve done? Who I found?” Alace rose from the chair, leaving the gun on the seat and watched as his eyes flickered down and back up. Not for you, boyo. “Who I’ve talked to? Where I’ve been?” Tongue tisking in false sympathy, she looked at him and softened her expression with a slow shake of her head back and forth. “No, Alace it’s good to see you? No, who’s the lucky guy putting that glow on your face?” She shifted, feet braced strongly, leaning forwards at the waist, voice and features hardening. “You aren’t going to ask me anything?”

“I did ask you. What do you want? You want something, I know. Everyone always wants something.” Before he was even done speaking she was nodding.

“I want the past twelve years of my life back.” He froze in place, and Alace shrugged. “Or at least the last five or so.” She paused, studying him. “Or, maybe, just since Alabama. That’d be good. Can you give me that back? I’d take even that much.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about how you had this, all of this—” She pointed to the screens. “—and I’ve been doing what I’ve done.” He looked genuinely puzzled, and Alace barked out a harsh laugh. “Holy shit. You don’t get it. I told you. I’d met my one. Of course”—she affected an eye roll—“at the time I thought I knew what it meant to you. I know what it means to me. When I told you that, it meant I’d met the person who could heal me. Eric’s helped me in ways he won’t ever know, just by being with me when I needed it.”

“Jesus, Alace.” Now it was Regg who rolled his eyes, and she suppressed a grin at his attempt to create a posture resonance between them. Oldest trick to gain confidence in a target, make them believe they’re just like me. I’m just like them. Twinsies. “It’s not real. Nothing is real. Just like the little quirky personalities you put together to build a lie, we’ve been living lies for so long, it’s all we’ve got.” He took a step forwards, and Alace went on alert again, waiting. “Your life is a lie. You don’t even exist in this world. No birth certificate, no history. I’ve wiped out what little of you there ever was. It’s all a lie.”

“Eric’s not a lie. The lives I’ve ended weren’t lies.”

“Fucking hell, are you really this stupid? How are you this stupid?” It was his turn to shake his head. “I’m assuming you’ve gone through my things. So, after doing that, how can you not know that—” His torso inclined towards her an inch, increasing the sense of menace. “—the things I told you were lies. I deal in lies, it’s what I do. I deal in them, you live them, and together we make things happen.”

“No more. I’m done.” His eyes widened and stayed fixed, pupils growing to cover nearly edge to edge, opaque white of his sclera and blackness, sucking in her words. Her words had terrified him. The end of the golden goose? “I won’t be taking any more gigs.”

“Is that what you came all the way out here to tell me? You could have said that on the phone.” He pulled in a heavy breath, visibly attempting to control his palpable panic. “It’s good to finally meet you, though.” Regg took another step forwards, and Alace gestured with the Taser still in her hand, watching as his gaze landed on it and then saw him note and discard any belief she’d electrocute him with the device. Even knowing what she was, he clearly felt himself to be exempt. After everything said and implied in the past ten minutes, he still believed himself untouchable. He took another step and spoke again, voice pitched low to create a sense of intimacy. She knew this, after all, she’d used the tactic countless times. Can’t con a con woman. “Alace, I’ve wanted to meet you for so long.”

She was ready, and when Regg lunged, she stepped to the side and back towards the door, leaving him to fall across the chair and to the floor. He came up with the gun, the thing she’d known was his target through the whole act. Staring into his eyes, she aimed the Taser as he lifted the pistol, and the air in the small room was filled with the glittering sound of electrical discharge as Regg roared.

***

Regg

Jesus, she did it.

His thoughts scattered as his body thrashed against the hard floor, but Regg held onto the idea that Alace, his Alace had pulled the trigger. The sharp ticks from the Taser fell away, silence except for a bass groaning he realized came from his throat. As the spasms rocketing through his muscles began to subside, he realized she was still standing. No blood, no holes in her beautiful face. Still breathing. He lifted and gripped hard, finger tugging at the lever and heard the empty click of the gun in his hand.

Fuck.

She’d set him up, leaving an unloaded gun available. He’d fallen for it, never really expecting she’d hit him with the weapon. No coming back from this. He shoved that idea aside, playing for time.

Jaw clenched, a burning pain from the contact points still resonating throughout his body, he swore. “Fuck, Alace, you fucking shot me.”

“You shot at me.” Her voice quavered, and he looked to see disbelief on her face. He’d watched enough video of her to know this emotion was real and raw. She’d crafted the scene, but hadn’t really expected what happened.

“No, I didn’t. I fell and you hit me with that damn thing.” He let the useless gun fall from his grip. “Instinct, that’s all.” Propping up on one arm, he wiped the sweat from his face with his sleeve. “Jesus, that fucking hurt.”

“You shot at me.” Stronger now, with a tone of anger bleeding through. Gotta control this. “You didn’t fall, you went for the gun.” Her back straightened with a snap and she stared down at him, face a cold mask. “I wondered, you know. When I saw what you did with the others.” He licked his lips, trying to decide what tactic to take next, when she floored him with the depth of her knowledge. Fucking hell, she’d found everything. She gave him names, not only of his dead hunters, those individuals who hadn’t lived up to the Alace legend, but also of the men he’d used to deal with his discards. Let the information fall from her lips like ritual prayers, threading in locations and other information, ages, and things he didn’t even know. Children’s names, wives, and loved ones.

“What are you saying?” Attacking was his only option. He had to get her off balance, tilted out of control so when he came at her next, he could topple her easily. “Are you saying I wanted to kill you?” He laughed, pulling his legs up and twisting so he knelt on the floor, one hand propped on the overturned chair. “I fucking made you. Why would I want to kill my greatest creation?”

“So now you’re Frankenstein?” He startled, her words making no sense, and he wondered for a moment if the current had scrambled his brains.

“I’m not the monster, Alace.” He scoffed, watching her eyes narrow into green slits at his words. “You are.”

There was a dead silence in the room, and her voice had taken on a tone of amusement when she finally responded. “Frankenstein was the scientist. The one who dabbled in human flesh for his own amusement.” Her head tilted to the side, gaze pinning him to the floor as effectively as any shackles. “You’re right, I’m a monster. Regg’s monster.” She leaned back, shoulders against the locked door as she blocked the only egress from this hellhole, and shook her head. “You’re done, Regg. Give it up and I’ll go away. Just tell me, monster to monster, that you’ll lay everything down and leave me alone.”

“Leave you alone?” He was surging to his feet when the room swung around him and his head bounced hard against the floor. Flashes of light hit the inside of his eyelids, and he wrestled his eyes open to see her standing over him, hands held at the ready to attack again. A flicker of fear trailed down his spine, curling his balls tight to his body. He hadn’t even seen her move. Jesus, she’s a freak.

“Yes, Regg. Leave me alone.” She answered him like there’d been no interruption in their conversation. “That’s all I want. Your word.”

There was a reason Regg worked best from behind a keyboard, where it was easier to temper a response, where words could be edited and shaped to fit a function. Where it was acceptable to spend time molding phrases to fit the need, toning down knee-jerk reactions. In person, his filters frequently malfunctioned. That was the case right now, addled by being electrocuted and the fall, he didn’t consider how Alace would take his discard of her demand.

“Fuck you. You think you’ve got the upper hand? What do you think will happen when people find out about you? What do you think will happen to your precious Eric when they learn all about you? I know too much to back down, honey. You want me to give it up? Fuck you, you give it up.”

“You leave Eric out of this.” The tremor in her voice should have been a clue, but Regg didn’t notice, pushing past what he took as a sound of weakness.

Certain he’d won, Regg thought, She’ll come crawling back. “I’ll fuck with him in ways you can’t even conceive. You think you’re the only hunter I know? Fuck you. I know hundreds, and I’ll have them working on this job before you even get home. Hope you kissed him goodbye before you rolled out, honey, because that’ll be the last you see of him. Ashes and death, that’ll be what rains down over you the rest of your life.” He lifted his head and spat, seeing the spatter of blood as it hit near her shoes. “Ashes and death, and you’ll be sorry. You’re gonna be so sorry you crossed me, Alace.”

“Leave him out, Regg. I’m telling you now, he’s off limits.”

“You think you can make the rules? You? Alace Sweets? You can’t make me do shit.” She brought her hand out from behind her, and Regg had a moment to recognize the silhouette of the gun. “What—”