The woman giving him head didn’t know who or where she was, and that was how it was meant to be. The bulk of her errands were done now, and once she completed this final task there would be no further use for her, so it was in her best interests to make it a good one.

Otherwise who else would remember her when she was gone?

She was a bit sloppy, probably hadn’t done this much, which for someone her age was a bit of a let-down. He already couldn’t be bothered to recall her name, but maybe if she pulled it together at the eleventh hour he’d at least pay attention to her face.

While she worked, he did too. She had collated all of her information into a single document, and he slowly read through it on a tablet. Who knew where she’d got it from. It was probably hers. There were some cutesy kitten stickers on the back of it that were faded with time and handling.

Footsteps approached from his right and he glanced up from the tablet. He had few independently mobile possessions within his sanctum, and this one brought coffee. She placed it on the table to his right, then bowed.

“Will that be all, master?”

“For now.”

She bowed again and retreated, careful not to step on any of the sigils burned into the floor.

He reached for his coffee and gulped it down. She knew to let it cool before she brought it to him, so there was no risk that it might burn.

The heat around his cock tightened. She swallowed, and the sucking got a bit less sloppy, so maybe she was learning.

The document contained a few photographs, though they were generally useless. He already knew what Grant’s property looked like these days. The boy thought that hiding in a sanctum forever would protect him, but that was patently ridiculous.

Access, though. That was the tricky part. None of his vassals could enter, and he himself preferred not to leave his own sanctum for too long. There was little point going to the effort of chipping out an entire reality from a separate plane of existence if it wasn’t gonna get used.

That’s where her notes came in. She wasn’t a great researcher by any means, but she’d done plenty.

Someone new had been coming and going. Someone other than Jenkins.

A pretty boy, with hair like a cherub’s, and with a truck with his employer’s name plastered all over the side.

It wasn’t the boy’s fault. He wasn’t to know there were eyes on the sanctum he kept coming and going from. But he did keep coming and going, and he had a bird with him at all times. A growing young raven.

The shop was in San Diego, and only the slightest digging had turned over an interesting stone. The boy was Eric Riley’s son.

It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together. Without his father, Riley had been forced to seek another tutor to learn from, and he’d picked Grant.

She swallowed his head a few times, almost mechanically, and it tore his attention from the tablet as his nuts grew heavy. He put it down, coffee cup next to it, and grabbed her head so that he could fuck it and finish himself off.

She didn’t fight it, didn’t struggle as he suffocated her and came down her throat. When he was done he pushed her off and picked up the tablet again. If she was still alive in a few minutes’ time he’d have it taken care of.

The document had a few pictures of Laurence Riley. She’d cribbed them from social media, and most of them had another pretty boy in them, the two often arm in arm.

Shopping.

Dining.

Laughing.

It was sickening.

He tossed the tablet aside. It slid across the table and fell over the edge, then clattered on the wooden floor. “Marcella,” he called. “Fetch me something sharp.”

Marcella was at his side in seconds, a Bowie knife in her hands. She placed it on the table with a bow. “Will that be all, master?”

“You may as well stick around. You’ll need to take out the trash soon.”

“Yes, master.”

He grabbed the knife and hopped down from his throne. The bitch wasn’t damn well dead. Either she had lungs of steel or he’d finished fast, so he had to do the job himself.

As she lay on the floor, gazing sightlessly at the ceiling, he idly pressed the tip of the blade against her breast and poked around until he found the space between two ribs, then he leaned his weight against the hilt and forced it down.

It sliced through intercostal muscles and into her heart, and he whipped it out again so that the heart could fail more quickly. Then he jabbed the knife into her gut to store it.

He walked away as Marcella dealt with the aftermath. The tablet still worked, so he gazed at the pictures on his way to the bathroom.

“Laurence Riley,” he murmured. “Has a nice ring to it.”

Years of waiting would finally pay off. And who would have thought Riley’s boy would be the one to bring everything to a close?

Eric would be spinning in his grave soon enough.