“Fuck.” I watch the footage again. There’s no frame where his face is visible.
No one lives in that unit. If someone had signed a lease, moved in their things, I would have seen it. I would haveknown.
Which means…
A knock on my security room door has me turning in my chair. Alec doesn’t wait for me to answer. He just pushes the door open and storms in. Like usual.
“We have a problem,” he says.
I raise an eyebrow at him. “Aside from you fucking up our lives with your psychotic control issues and lies, you mean?” I ask, my voice cold.
Alec stills, expression darkening, fist clenching at his sides. I can tell he’s biting back a lecture on “my place” and “disrespect.” But the fucker deserves a little disrespect after the shit he pulled.
I wonder how he’d feel if he knew I could still smell her on my skin, still taste her pussy on my lips? If he knew I made her come more than any other man she’s had before?
I turn my attention back to my screens, so he can’t see the smug look on my face.
“I already solved your problem. All three board members have been replaced, and your assistant is drafting the press release,” I tell him. “You won’t have any issues with the newest members. We have enough on them to?—”
“We have adifferentfucking problem.” Alec crosses my room and tosses a photo on my keyboard.
I pick it up and stare at it.
And stare.
And stare.
It’s Sydney. My Sydney. Curled on her side in a ball on her couch, face angelic in sleep.
“Where did you get this?” I ask. It’s a miracle my voice remains steady.
“It was addressed to me, sent to our office,” he tells me through clenched teeth. “Hand delivered, it didn’t go through the mail system.”
My hands are steady. My breathing is calm. No one would ever know the monster inside of me is clawing at my skin, screaming to get out.
I put the photo down.
Alec paces the room as I pull up the live footage of her shop, my heart thundering in my chest until I find her. Safe. Chasing her kitten around the café, Jade doubled over in laughter.
“I’m done waiting,” Alec snaps. “And I don’t give a fuck what’s going on between the four of us right now. Put it aside. Dante is escalating, and we need to bring him down. Now.” He glances up at my screens and then back to me. “Where’s Viper?”
“At this exact minute? No idea. You know he doesn’t like to be monitored,” I mutter. He was there earlier, at her shop, but I haven’t seen him since.
“Ash?” Alec presses. Ashton is just as pissed at Alec as I am, maybe more. But Alec is right, our anger can wait. Protecting her can’t.
“Licking his wounds, probably. Sydney is still icing him out, and he got his ass handed to him in his last fight.” I shoot him a look. “I doubt he wants to see you right now. And I don’t blame him.”
I sure as hell haven’t forgiven him yet for lying to us. For making me think this was my fault.
“Find him and get his ass back here. I don’t give a shit how pissed off either of you are right now. I need all of us together on this.”
“Fine,” I tell him. “I have something else, too. Might be related. I found some camera footage from the ‘traffic incident’ Sydney mentioned.” His jaw ticks at the mention of her name, body tensing, but I continue. “I don’t think this was random. The car blew through a red light, and when she sprinted across the street, they went right for her, jumped the curb. It was… closer than I’m comfortable with.” Close enough just remembering it makes that monster in me rise, remembering the fury I’d felt when I watched the footage I’d pulled from the city’s red-light cameras. Then I remember her rage, that beautiful anger as she threw a brick after the car, and my dick throbs.
“License plate?”
“Ah, nothing.” I adjust myself subtly, under my desk. "There was no license plate visible from the cameras, and it was a black Honda Civic. Not exactly a rare car.”
“I don’t like it. Anything else?”
