“There better not be any other Webb siblings lurking around right now because I’m fed up to the back teeth with them.”
“Amen.” I twist myself on the couch, pulling my legs up so I’m lying more than sitting. Honestly. You couldn’t write this shit.
I bite the inside of my cheek as I realise something else. Something new.
Gabriel sent the destructive message. To me, sure. I understand he might have wanted to warn me before attaching myself to the man who shamelessly exploited me for his petty revenge. But to my dad? Tohisdad?
He didn’t send the message as a warning. He was running interference while escaping. A diversion to ensure there was enough chaos up here in Auckland for long enough that we wouldn’t think to check in on him.
Wouldn’t think to look his way.
It’s the last betrayal in a day that’s contained too much already. To think I wasted time feeling guilty for touching my fiancé when the boyfriend I felt that way for was busy screwing my stepmother behind my father’s back.
Oh, yeah. Better than any daytime soap.
Our conversation limps along for a few more minutes, then I hang up the phone and head to bed. It’s way too early. There’s no chance I’ll fall asleep, but that doesn’t matter.
I just need this day to be at an end.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
MICAH
Five days later, I’m staring at a man who’s tattooed to the eyeballs. I’ve got him pinned against the wall of his drug den when Montgomery’s ringtone sounds on my mobile. Not the best time given I have my hands full.
I punch the man in his stomach, hard enough that he bends over, torn between trying not to throw up his damaged guts and remembering how to breathe. As the pain wracks deeper—courtesy of the spiked knuckle-duster on my right hand rather than brute strength, I’m not delusional—he falls to his knees.
After wiping my left hand clean, I reach into my pocket to answer the call. He wouldn’t phone unless it was important to me. After so many years in my service, he knows better.
His blunt reply to my greeting is, “She’s trying to track you.”
The ‘she’ in question is obvious. The only ‘she’ I care about any longer, which is a pity since it’s also the ‘she’ voted least likely to reconnect with her arsehole ex-fiancé.
“How d’you know?”
“There’s about ninety screens of code I could talk you through or perhaps you’d just like to take my word for it. She’s initiated a trace through the same screen you access. Must have memorised the URL for the page, which is its own concern, and soon we’ll have to discuss other things you might have shown her, but just tell me if you want her to have access or not. She’s online right now.”
“Now?”
The man in front of me is bellowing so loudly that it’s hard to concentrate.
“Give me a second,” I tell Montgomery, then hold the phone against my chest as I punch the moaning prick on the side of the head, the spikes sticking so he follows my hand for one step until they tug free, and he’s no longer an immediate concern.
“Grant her access,” I answer, as though there was any other choice. “You can follow what she sees, right?”
“She’s on a laptop not her phone.”
“Can’t you—?”
“I’ll try. Give me a few minutes and I’ll get back to you.”
As I tuck the phone away, the pile of garbage at my feet makes a gurgling sound. I use the steel toe of my boot to turn him onto his back and scan his face. There’s some life there but not a lot.
Despite his greasy locks and the stain of green ink on half his face, there’s a slight resemblance there to Gabe. It disappears when I stamp my heel on his forehead, stoving it in until he’s no longer recognisable as human.
Until I’m not recognisable as human.
“Most of them ran off,” Kyree says, walking through what remains of the side door. “The ones who didn’t will serve as a graphic reminder not to fuck with our distributors again.”
