“He’s harder to kill than I thought,” he muses. “But he won’t be the second time.”
I freeze. “What are you talking about?”
“I told you I was taking everything from her!” he yells. “You think you got away? Come on, Zane. Did you think I was giving up that easy?”
I need to be careful about what I say so I don’t escalate the situation. All my cop training is still deep in me whether I work there or not. “No. I didn’t think you gave up,” I soothe, bile rising in my throat. I think through my options, flipping the phone to speakerphone. I pull up a text screen for Gage. It’s just after seven in the morning, so I pray to everything he’s awake. I need their hacker to try to find thiscall.
Problems. Being watched. Bring your hacker.
“I’m letting her think she won. Then I’m going to break her down all over again.”
“Why can’t you leave her alone?” How does someone go so far off the rails thinking it’s okay to kidnap, torture, and touch someone without their permission? All the while claiming they love them?
Gage
On my way.
He chuckles. “You don’t get it, do you? Precious is fucking mine. Not one of you motherfuckers will stop me next time. Stay the fuck away from her.”
The line goes dead, dread filling my stomach. With the way Gage drives, I know he’ll be here in record time, so I get dressed, go to the living room, and wait.
Ten minutes later, he’s pounding on my front door. I open it, and he barges in with Holden and Dex.
“What’s going on?” Gage asks, looking around. I don’t miss the Glocks under his button-up shirt.
“I got a call.”
Dex’s head whips to me. “Jay?”
I hand my phone to Holden. “He called. Said he was watching me. He saw Les here last night.” Holden takes it and doesn’t waste time going to the kitchen table and setting up his laptop. I rattle off the Wi-Fi password when he asks; I guess it’s quicker than hacking into my network.
I fill them in on what was said, and Gage uneasily looks around again. Quietly he pulls a device from his pocket, running it over everything in my apartment, looking for any type of camera or listening device.
He walks down the hallway, shoving it back in his pocket. “There’s nothing here. Must have been watching from the outside.”
“You think he was here?” I ask, motioning them to the living room. Gage and I sit on the couch with Dex in the recliner to our left.
“That or he was looking through personal security cams. There’sone across the road,” Holden answers, pointing out the living room window. There’s a pawn shop across the street, which would be the only place it could be.
“That motherfucker is still around here,” Dex says darkly.
Holden whips around. “If he’s watching him, does that mean he’s watching Les?”
I thought about that too, but I know the only place she’s been is here and home. From what I know about Holden, there’s no way Jay is watching inside that house, so he’s waiting for her to leave. I don’t like that he already figured out she would eventually come to me.
“What do we do?” I ask, sitting up on the couch. This isn’t going to happen again. “He knows you guys are here.”
“Holden’s been tracing back where his money is coming from,” Gage answers. “His dad hasn’t given him a dime since he joined the force. He’s getting it from somewhere. We find the trail; we find him.”
“Les told me the first day we were there; he said she wasn’t the only one with resources,” I tell him, remembering what she told me when they shoved me back into that room after saving me from dying. I had a punctured lung that was rapidly filling my lungs with blood. They knocked me out and took me to a hospital room, where they shoved a chest tube in.
“Who’s going to fund something like this?” Gage asks.
Dex frowns in thought, then looks at Gage. “We fucking know who.”
“Who?” Gage asks. “Oh shit,” he finally says when he figures it out.
“Care to share?” I ask when they don’t elaborate.
