Chapter 1

Jordan had always known the difference between justice and revenge—he just stopped caring about it somewhere around his twelfth birthday, when he found his father face-down in a puddle of vomit and his mother trading pills for favors behind a gas station. Now, years later, the city knew him only through whispers and blood trails: a faceless shadow that hunted the predators who slipped through the cracks of a broken system. By day, he was invisible. At night, he became the reckoning he never received. They called him a monster. He called it balance.

Jordan’s childhood was a slow-motion collapse, the kind you don’t notice until the roof caves in. His earliest memories were a haze of cigarette smoke, shouting matches, and the metallic clink of a lighter being flicked more often than a light switch. School was never a refuge—just another battleground. By the time he was ten, he had already broken a kid’s nose for calling his mother a junkie, and the fights never stopped after that. Teachers gave up on him early; cops knew him by name by thirteen. While other kids had bedtimes and birthday parties, Jordan had nights spent hiding under the kitchen table while his parents screamed and shot up. Their deaths came just before his sixteenth birthday—wrapped around a telephone pole at 3 a.m., veins still full of heroin. There were no tears. No funeral. Just silence, and a cold, hard shift inside Jordan that never quite let go.

Jordan’s first kill wasn’t planned—it was inevitable. He was eighteen, fresh out of juvenile probation and already tired of pretending to be anything other than what the world had made him. The victim was Marcus “Slug” Devane, a mid-level dealer who roamed the high school parking lot in a beat-up Cadillac, selling poison to anyone with twenty bucks and a death wish. One of Jordan’s few real friends, Tommy, had bought from him—just two pills to take the edge off finals week. The autopsy later found fentanyl. Jordan found Slug two nights later, alone behind a liquor store, counting cash under the yellow flicker of a busted streetlamp. There were no last words, no grand speech. Just a rusted crowbar Jordan found in a dumpster and all the rage he’d stored since childhood. It was fast, brutal, and final. When it was over, Jordan didn’t feel guilt. He felt clarity. For the first time in his life, he felt clean.

Jordan knew from the start that getting caught wasn’t an option—he had nothing left to lose, but everything to prove. Slug’s death barely made the news: a half-hearted segment buried between sports scores and weather, with reporters casually mentioning his criminal record and the likelihood of “gang-related activity.” The cops took one look at the body, the busted cameras behind the liquor store, and the junkie history of the victim, and moved on without much effort. Jordan had done his homework. He wore gloves, covered his face, and took the long way home through alleyways and backroads, changing direction every few blocks like he’d seen in crime thrillers. The crowbar, slick with blood and fingerprints, was dumped off a bridge into a deep, murky lake where no one would ever think to look. By the time he got back to his apartment, soaked in sweat and adrenaline, the city was already forgetting Slug. Jordan didn’t just get away with murder—he realized that in a place where no one cares about the victims, justice was his to deliver.

From that night on, something clicked deep inside Jordan—something cold, focused, and unshakably certain. He didn’t feel guilt or fear; he felt purpose. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t drifting—he was driven. Slug’s death wasn’t just revenge; it was a message to the kind of people who ruined lives like his parents’, who killed kids like Tommy with a careless hand and a dirty needle. Jordan knew then that this was why he was still alive—not to survive, but to clean up. If he was going to do this, it couldn’t be sloppy. He started devouring everything he could: true crime documentaries, forensics textbooks, police procedures, street psychology, even old FBI profiling manuals he found online. He studied cold cases and unsolved murders, not to admire the killers, but to understand what they did wrong. He learned how to hide footprints, beat security systems, scrub DNA, and vanish into shadows. Every night he trained his body like a soldier, his mind like a machine. If this was going to be his life, he wouldn’t just do it—he’d master it.

By day, Jordan lived a life so ordinary it was almost invisible. He worked as a commercial painter, spending long hours coating office walls and apartment exteriors with his two best—and only—friends, Liam and Brenden. They’d known each other since high school, bonded over detentions and shared smokes behind the gym, and now they spent their weekdays trading jokes on scaffolding and blasting classic rock from battered Bluetooth speakers. To them, Jordan was quiet but loyal, the kind of guy who never talked much but always showed up. No one ever asked about his weekends, and he never volunteered. He lived alone in a small, one-bedroom apartment with plain walls and bolted locks, kept his routines tight, and avoided anything that drew attention. He didn’t date, didn’t party, didn’t post on social media. Jordan was a ghost in plain sight—a homebody with a clean record and paint-stained hands. It was the perfect cover. After all, monsters don’t always lurk in the dark. Sometimes, they punch a clock at 7 a.m. and eat lunch out of a cooler.

It was a blistering afternoon on the roof of a half-finished office complex when Liam wiped sweat from his brow and said, almost casually, “You see that thing on the news? That scumbag Slug got smoked behind a liquor store.” Jordan didn’t flinch. He kept rolling a fresh coat of primer along the edge of a ventilation shaft, careful and steady. “Yeah, I saw,” he said, voice low, neutral. Liam shook his head with a dry laugh. “Good. Guy sold death for a living. Heard some kid OD’d off his pills last week. Whoever did it? Probably saved a few lives.” Jordan gave a slight nod, the corner of his mouth twitching just enough to pass for agreement. “Sometimes people get what’s coming.” Liam didn’t press. Just took a sip of water and went back to work. But inside, Jordan’s thoughts burned. Thank you, he whispered silently, for saying it out loud—for proving that it mattered, even if no one knows it was me. There was no medal, no headline, no applause. Just quiet validation from the only people he trusted. And that was more than enough.

The bus groaned to a stop, brakes hissing like it was exhaling after a long, miserable day, and Jordan stepped aboard, slipping into a seat near the back where the flickering overhead light gave just enough glow to keep the shadows alive. The air smelled like sweat, cheap liquor, and something sour that clung to the plastic seats. A cracked-out couple slumped across from him, heads lolling, skin pale and twitchy—one of them drooling onto a stained hoodie. A few rows up, a guy in a grimy tank top kept glancing around like he was deciding who to rob first, his hand buried deep in his coat pocket. Jordan sat still, unbothered, hood up, eyes scanning but empty. St. Louis never changes, he thought. The rot is everywhere. Out here, you can feel the weight of everything that’s broken—like the whole damn city’s just waiting to collapse. Lately, the numbness was heavier. The satisfaction he used to feel after a job—after the cleanup, the quiet walk home—was fading, replaced with something colder. Not doubt. Just ... fatigue. How long can you carry justice alone before it starts feeling like a curse? He watched the city blur by through a grime-smeared window, his reflection barely visible in the glass, like even it was trying to look away.

Jordan got off the bus three blocks from his apartment, his boots echoing down the cracked sidewalk as streetlights buzzed dimly overhead. The neighborhood was quiet in that tense, waiting way—like the calm before a gunshot. He climbed the steps to his building, unlocked three separate locks on his front door, and stepped inside to silence. No music. No TV. Just the low hum of the fridge and the comfort of solitude. He microwaved a frozen dinner—some forgettable mix of chicken and rice—ate it straight from the tray while leaning against the kitchen counter, then stripped down and stepped into a scalding shower, letting the heat burn the filth of the city off his skin. Afterward, wrapped in a towel, he settled into his desk chair, the glow of his computer screen cutting through the dark room. He opened a private browser, typed slowly, methodically: “unsolved violent crimes in St. Louis,” then narrowed the search. He wasn’t looking for victims. He was looking for patterns. Dealers, traffickers, abusers—the kinds of people who slipped through cracks the size of alleyways. This was his ritual. His hunting ground. He told himself he was doing this to save people. To keep someone else from ending up like Tommy. But deep down, he knew it was more than that. It was the only thing that made him feel alive.

Jordan leaned closer to the screen, the pale light casting sharp angles across his face as he scrolled deeper into the corners of the dark web—places where law enforcement rarely bothered to look, or if they did, it was already too late. He wasn’t just searching for another name to cross off. This time, he wanted to send a message. A string of takedowns—louder, bolder, undeniable. He wanted the city to know someone was out there tipping the scales. He found the forum buried under layers of encryption, a quiet link embedded in a seemingly innocent post about prescription pills. When he clicked it, a login screen appeared for a private text chat room labeled simply: “Local Trades.” He created an account using one of his many burner identities, routed through a maze of VPNs and spoofed IPs that would have made a hacker nod in respect. As the chat loaded, the screen filled with filth—posts from users offering drugs, weapons, fake IDs. But then it got darker. Threads from people selling things no human being should even think about—explicit offers involving children, traded like currency in cold, coded language. Jordan’s jaw clenched, his blood boiling in that quiet, familiar way. This was it. These people weren’t just criminals—they were predators. He picked a thread and started messaging one of the users, keeping it vague, careful, acting curious. His fingers moved calmly across the keys, but his pulse had already shifted into hunter’s rhythm. This wasn’t just a hit. This was a purge in the making.

Barely ten minutes passed before a notification pinged in the corner of the chat—Private Message from user: LilDaddy47. Jordan opened it, heart already beating faster, and what he saw made his stomach knot with a kind of rage so quiet it bordered on clinical. The message was short, direct, disgusting: a request for a child—specific acts, specific price. Attached was a grainy photo of the man: mid-40s, greasy hair, smug grin, posing like this was just another Tuesday. He even listed his name—Eric Downs—and his city neighborhood, just a few blocks away. Jordan’s breath steadied as his fingers hovered over the keys. This guy’s done this before. Too many times. He responded, pretending to be the father of a 13-year-old girl, coldly playing into the man’s sickness. Said he was desperate for money. Said he’d “bring her” tonight if the price was right. The man jumped at it, sending an address to a run-down motel near the edge of the city and insisting they meet within the hour. Jordan stared at the screen, a mix of adrenaline and revulsion surging through him like wildfire. This was real. He didn’t have time to plan. No time for a clean setup. But none of that mattered. There were lines even monsters like him couldn’t tolerate. He typed back, “See you in an hour,” and got up from his chair already knowing—Eric Downs wasn’t going to make it to morning.

Jordan moved with precision, every motion practiced, his body slipping into the cold ritual like muscle memory. In his bedroom closet, behind a false panel, hung the gear he reserved for nights like this—when justice demanded something more than patience. He stripped out of his casual clothes and pulled on a black compression long-sleeve shirt, tight to the skin to minimize snags, followed by reinforced tactical cargo pants with deep, silent pockets. Over his hands went Kevlar gloves—cut-resistant, tight-fitting. Next came his combat boots, broken in but silent, and then the black gator mask he pulled over the lower half of his face, paired with a plain black ball cap pulled low to shadow his eyes. No skin. No prints. No identifiers. He opened a lockbox beneath the bed and pulled out the essentials: two fixed-blade knives, balanced for grip and precision—one for the front pocket, the other strapped to his boot. His Glock 19 came next, cleaned and fully loaded, a round already chambered, safety off. Finally, the most important piece: a coil of chicken wire, thin and strong, enough to strangle or bind depending on the need, looped and secured in a pouch on his belt. This wasn’t revenge. This was a mission. A necessary purge. As he zipped his gear bag and slung on a lightweight tactical jacket, Jordan looked into the mirror—not at his face, but at the absence of it. What stared back was no longer a man. It was purpose wrapped in darkness.

The motel was even filthier in person than it looked on the satellite map—half the lights in the lot were dead, the other half flickering like a dying pulse. Jordan parked three buildings over and approached on foot, keeping to the shadows, the soft crunch of gravel under his boots masked by a passing train in the distance. The room—#208—sat at the far end, just below a busted security camera that hadn’t blinked in years. Through a gap in the flimsy curtain, Jordan spotted him: Eric Downs, sitting on the bed, scrolling through his phone, expression calm, casual, like he was waiting on a pizza delivery. Arrogant bastard. Jordan crouched below the window and sent the text: “Parked behind the building. Come out back. Got her waiting.”

Barely a minute passed before the door creaked open, and Eric stepped out, eyes darting, oblivious. Jordan moved fast, sliding into the room just as the door eased shut behind the predator. Inside, it smelled like mildew and regret. He crossed the stained carpet silently and entered the bathroom, turning the sink faucet on just enough to create a steady, noticeable trickle—the kind of sound you can’t ignore. Then he waited in the darkness, pressed to the wall beside the doorway, chicken wire in hand, loop already formed. He heard the door creak open again, heard Eric muttering as he stepped inside. “Hello? The hell is that sound?” The footsteps came closer, hesitation in every step. Then the bathroom light flicked on. The second Eric crossed the threshold, Jordan lunged, slipped the wire over his neck, and pulled back with brutal force. The struggle was short—frantic, breathless—ending in a gurgling wheeze before Eric slumped to the tile, unconscious. Jordan moved fast, binding his wrists and ankles with the same wire, propping him in the motel chair like a puppet on display. He sat across from him, patient and still, waiting for the monster to wake up. When he did, they’d have a very different kind of conversation—one where only one of them would walk out alive.

Eric’s eyes fluttered open again, blinking through the haze of pain and fear, only to find himself in the same nightmare—still tied, still trapped, still face-to-face with something far worse than the law. Jordan stood over him, silent at first, arms crossed, a silhouette of cold judgment. Without warning, he struck again—open palm, across the face—drawing a sharp yelp of pain from Eric’s cracked lips. “Wake up,” Jordan snapped. “This is happening. You earned every second of it.” Eric squirmed in the chair, voice rising into a panicked scream, but Jordan stepped forward and jammed the rag back into his mouth, cutting it off like flipping a switch.

“You don’t get to scream,” Jordan said, voice razor-sharp and quiet. “You don’t get to beg. You’re not a victim here. You’re filth. And by the time the sun’s up, what’s left of you will be in garbage bags, drifting downriver with the rest of the city’s waste. The world will be lighter without you in it.” He walked behind the chair, pacing slowly. “Tell me,” he said, leaning down close to Eric’s ear, his voice almost a growl. “What else have you done? This can’t be your first time. Guys like you don’t just wake up one day and decide to buy a kid.”

Jordan stepped forward and, with a sudden roar of force, kicked the chair hard, toppling it to the filthy tile floor. Eric hit with a thud, groaning, the wire biting into his skin. Jordan crouched beside him, pulled the rag from his mouth, and stared. “Speak.”

Eric gasped, chest heaving. “Please—please—I’ve never hurt anyone—I swear! I just looked—I didn’t do anything! I’m sorry, man, I’m so sorry—I need help—I need—”

“You need to disappear,” Jordan said flatly, eyes dead calm. “And I’m going to make sure you do.”

Jordan listened in silence as Eric’s sobs broke down into wet, panicked gasps—nothing more than instinctual pleading from a man who finally understood he wasn’t walking away. “Please ... please don’t do this,” Eric whimpered, voice shaking, tears mixing with blood. “I—I can change ... I swear, I can ... just don’t kill me...” Those were his last words. Jordan didn’t respond. He didn’t flinch. He simply slipped the wire back around Eric’s neck, pulled tight, and held it—cold, methodical, unmoving—until the man’s twitching stopped, until the last pitiful breath rattled out of him and silence filled the room like smoke.

There was no hesitation after that. No ceremony. Just the steps. The cleanup. The body was wrapped tight in plastic sheeting Jordan had brought in his bag, duct-taped to seal in the mess. He hauled it, heavy and limp, to the back of his truck, parked in an alley behind the motel where no one was watching. An hour later, headlights cut through the woods outside a remote cabin Jordan had purchased under a fake name a year earlier—a place originally meant to escape the noise of the city, now repurposed as something darker.

Inside, the cabin smelled of pine and bleach. The tools were already laid out on a thick rubber tarp—bone saw, heavy-duty knives, industrial garbage bags, lye, gloves, plastic aprons. It was a system now. A ritual. Clean. Efficient. He turned on the radio in the background, low and steady, a distraction from the meat-grinding reality of the work. By dawn, Eric Downs would be in pieces—bagged, weighed down with cinder blocks, and fed to the murky undercurrent of the river that had swallowed others like him. Justice, in Jordan’s world, wasn’t a courtroom. It was a blade. And tonight, it was served. The drive back into the city was long and quiet, the kind of silence that sat heavy but familiar. Jordan kept the radio off, his thoughts as still as the dark two-lane highway winding back toward St. Louis. His hands gripped the wheel, steady, no adrenaline left—just a deep, cold calm. The job was done. Another predator erased, another name that would quietly disappear from the filth-ridden corners of the internet without a trace. When he finally reached his neighborhood, the streets were still empty, bathed in the dim orange haze of early morning streetlights. He parked, climbed the stairs to his apartment, and locked the door behind him with practiced care. No lights, no noise. He peeled off his clothes, tossed them into a sealed bin for burning later, then stepped into the shower. The water was hot, but it didn’t relax him—it just cleansed. He dried off, laid on top of the covers in nothing but his boxers, and stared at the ceiling for a few minutes, the faint hum of the fridge the only sound.

By 7:00 a.m., his alarm buzzed, soft but firm. Jordan rose without hesitation. No groaning, no stretching, no dragging himself into the day. Just silence and motion. He dressed in worn jeans and his work boots, pulled a hoodie over his head, and grabbed his lunch from the fridge like it was any other Monday. Another shift, another building to paint. No one would suspect a thing. To the world, he was just Jordan—another man with a trade and a quiet life. But deep beneath that still surface, the river was always moving, always hungry—and he was the one who chose who fed it.

The job site was already buzzing when Jordan pulled up, the sharp scent of fresh paint and sawdust hanging in the morning air. Liam and Brenden were leaning against the work van, coffee in hand, mid-conversation and grinning like idiots. As Jordan approached, Brenden lit up. “Okay, settle this, bro,” he said, already animated. “Would Vader beat Kylo Ren in a straight-up duel? No Force tricks, just lightsabers.” Jordan blinked. “Who the hell is Kylo Ren?” he said flatly. Liam burst out laughing, nearly spilling his coffee. “Goddamn, man, do you live under a rock?” Brenden groaned, “He’s like the new Vader, dude—how do you not know this?” Jordan shrugged, deadpan. “I don’t watch space wizards with daddy issues.” That made both of them laugh so hard Brenden had to set his cup down.

As the laughter died down, Liam elbowed him. “What’d you get into last night? You vanished like usual.” Jordan smirked just enough to pass. “Not much. Just stayed in. Slept like a rock.” Brenden rolled his eyes. “Of course you did. You’re like 80 years old in a 30-year-old’s body.” Jordan gave a lazy shrug, and that was enough. No suspicion. No deeper questions. Just three guys clocking in. Moments later, they were geared up and dragging ladders toward the scaffolding, the air filled with the buzz of drills and the scrape of metal. Another normal morning. Another job. As far as anyone knew, Jordan was just a quiet guy with paint-stained hands—not a shadow who made monsters disappear.

The sports bar was loud, full of clinking glasses and the scent of greasy burgers and fried everything. Jordan sat in a booth across from Liam and Brenden, the three of them crowded around a basket of wings and nursing sodas like it was a Friday instead of just lunch. The waitress—young, sharp-featured, and clearly used to being ogled—walked by again, and Brenden couldn’t help himself. “If she brings me one more refill, I’m proposing,” he whispered. Liam snorted. “You’d just scare her off talking about lightsaber forms.” Jordan smirked slightly, but his mind had already started drifting. His eyes wandered, unfocused, thoughts slipping back to last night—the weight of the body, the drag of the bags, the cold rush of the river. It should’ve been far enough. Deep enough.

Then the TV hanging above the bar caught his attention. The words “BREAKING NEWS” flashed across the screen, cutting through the noise of the room like a blade. He blinked up just in time to hear the anchor say: “Three plastic bags containing human remains were discovered this morning by a family fishing on the east side of Horseshoe Lake. Authorities have not identified the victim, but they are calling it a possible homicide...” Jordan froze, hand gripping his glass a little too tight. He didn’t need to hear more. He already knew who it was. Liam nudged him, laughing. “Yo, Earth to Jordan—don’t tell me she hypnotized you too.” Jordan looked back down, face unreadable, nodded once. “Yeah,” he muttered, forcing a smile. “Something like that.”

Liam let out a low whistle as the news segment continued, showing a blurred shot of police tape near the lake. “Damn, that’s wild,” he said, leaning back in the booth. “Bet you anything it’s another creep. Maybe the same dude who took out Slug.” Brenden chuckled, half in disbelief. “Yeah, what is this, some vigilante Dexter-type out here? Saint Louis turning into Gotham?” Jordan gave a small, forced laugh, but didn’t say a word. His jaw had tightened, and his eyes had gone distant again, locked on the flickering TV screen without really seeing it. Liam noticed first. “Hey, man—you good?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

Jordan blinked, then quickly shook his head, waving a hand. “Nah, just didn’t sleep great last night. Headache’s creeping in.” He forced a half-smile and stood up. “Gonna hit the bathroom real quick.” Without waiting for a response, he pushed through the bar crowd and slipped into the restroom. Inside, it was quiet, dim, the hum of the overhead fan the only sound. He turned on the tap and splashed cold water onto his face, gripping the edges of the sink to steady himself. They weren’t supposed to find it. Not this soon. Not at all. He stared into the mirror, water dripping from his chin, eyes locked onto his own reflection—hard, empty, calculating. For a moment, his breathing stuttered, but then he forced it down, steadying himself again. This couldn’t shake him. Not here. Not now. He had to stay invisible. Calm. Ordinary.

Jordan emerged from the bathroom with his face dried, expression reset into something neutral, but his mind was still racing. He returned to the table, forcing a faint smile as he slid back into the booth. “I think I’m gonna call it a day after lunch,” he said, reaching for his drink but barely touching it. “Feel like crap—migraine, nausea, the whole deal.” Liam frowned. “Damn, for real? You sure it’s not the wings?” Brenden leaned in, mock-suspicious. “Or maybe it’s heartbreak from that waitress walking past without looking at you?” Jordan chuckled lightly, just enough to keep the mood light. “Yeah, that’s probably it,” he muttered, then stood up and grabbed his jacket. “Let the boss know I’ll finish up the trim tomorrow. I just need to sleep this off.”

They both gave him a quick wave and a casual “Feel better, bro,” before diving back into the news and their plates. Jordan walked out of the bar into the bright afternoon sun, but there was no fog in his head, no headache, no illness. His body felt fine—it was his mind that was wired, pulsing with one thought: They found the body. He couldn’t afford even the smallest mistake. He climbed into his truck, started the engine, and pulled away from the curb with a plan already forming. Before anything else, he had to get back to that motel. One last sweep. One last walk-through. If there was even the slightest piece of evidence left behind—hair, blood, a fiber—it had to be gone. He wasn’t going to be a headline. Not yet. Not ever.

Jordan pulled into the back lot of the motel just before dusk, parking in the same shadowed corner as the night before. The place looked the same—run-down, quiet, and barely alive. He moved quickly but carefully, hoodie up, gloves on, eyes scanning every angle as he approached Room 208. He’d brought the spare key card he’d snagged from the front desk drawer that night, just in case. The room was exactly as he left it—musty, untouched, dead quiet. He stepped inside, shut the door behind him, and began his sweep.

Every surface was checked: baseboards, under the bed, between the mattress and frame, the sink drain, the floor corners, the vent grates. Not a drop of blood, not a single hair. He’d cleaned it perfectly. The plastic sheeting had caught everything, and the chair—the one he’d used to restrain Eric—had been wiped twice and repositioned exactly as it had been before. No cameras on the property, no guests nearby that night, and the front desk clerk barely conscious half the time. Everything was just as he’d planned. So how the hell did the bags end up on shore?

Jordan stood still in the middle of the room, jaw clenched, running through the logistics again. He was sure the current should’ve pulled the body farther downriver—deeper, lost. But something had gone off-course. Maybe a shift in the water level, debris, or maybe the bags weren’t weighed down enough. Either way, it was a risk. A mistake. Not one he’d make again. He exhaled slowly, then gave the room one final look before slipping back out the door like he was never there.

As Jordan approached his truck, the weight of the night’s events still heavy on his mind, he spotted something odd in the distance—just a flash of movement. A figure, standing near the edge of the parking lot, watching him. Jordan’s instincts kicked in immediately. He couldn’t tell if it was just someone passing through or if the man was staring at him on purpose, but something about the way the figure stood still, just a little too far to make out any details, set off alarms in Jordan’s head. His heart rate quickened, and before he could stop himself, he started moving toward the figure, his feet carrying him forward without thought.

But as he neared the spot where the man had stood, the figure was gone. No sign of him, just empty space between parked cars and the quiet shadows of the lot. Jordan stopped, eyes scanning the area, every muscle tense, feeling a spike of unease creeping up his spine. He took a few cautious steps forward, searching for any sign—movement, a shadow, a sound. His breath came steady, but his mind was racing, replaying the image of the man’s silhouette, trying to piece together what had just happened. No footsteps. No noise. It was like the man had vanished.

Jordan stood still for a moment longer, his back straight, senses on high alert. His hand rested near his belt, close to the hidden knife he always carried. He’d learned the hard way to never assume anyone wasn’t a threat, but even with the hairs on the back of his neck standing up, there was nothing. The lot was empty. Quiet. Just his breathing and the hum of distant traffic. With a heavy sigh, Jordan reluctantly turned back to his truck, a gnawing feeling still tugging at him. Someone had been watching him, and for reasons he couldn’t explain, that thought alone unsettled him more than anything.