I needed her back.
I think I realized that I needed her more than I’d ever needed revenge. Life had been hugely funny.
The man that had destroyed my childhood, had given me the love of my life. I wouldn’t stop until she was back in my arms.
I just needed to find a clue on her whereabouts.
In my guts, I knew that Miguel was behind this.
He had burned down the shop too. He was going to find out why they called me the Vicious Wolf, very soon.
My bones in my shoulders cracked as I stretched. It’d been a long while since I’d beaten the life out of anyone.
Albie hadn’t counted.
I’m talking about beating a man till he needed medical attention, and then he coded on the operating table at least three times before he stabilized.
Coming into the kitchen, I found all eyes on me; Astrid shot me a sympathetic look that almost broke me.
“I just got a call,” I announced.
“Oh yeah?” Albie asked. “Well, I just found out some weird shit myself.”
He pulled out a Polaroid of Miguel and a woman that looked a lot like Simone, except she was more petite and more tan. They could have been sisters. Turning the flimsy photograph over in my hands I searched for something more. There was nothing.
“Holy shit,” I muttered.
“What was your news?” Valentin asked.
“The fire inspector called and said a man was on film entering and exiting. I think Miguel burned the shop down.”
Nova huffed. “You think? I am more than sure he took Simone now after seeing that.”
We all glanced back to the photo.
“Any idea where it was taken?”
“Maybe Texas,” Albie said. “Mallory said that was where he was from.”
Looking to Liam and Val they nodded, already ahead of us. A laptop was sitting open on the counter. We all crowded around and watched as they began a deep dive into the internet. Miguel Suarez was going to be a pretty common name.
“Fuck,” I grunted out.
The Google results began to return and within less than eighty seconds, there on the white screen we were all greeted with over seven million results.
“What about running a reverse photo search?”
A voice from behind us asked.
We all turned and found Des standing there, biting into an apple. Yara was beside him.
“What?” Nova asked.
“Has anyone tried to take the photo and do a reverse search on it? It could be sitting on a database somewhere…could be a profile pic.” Desmond looked between us.
“We’re not stupid,” Yara volunteered timidly.
“Yeah…we know Nova’s friend is missing,” they both shrugged.
