“I’m sure it was.” But this isn’t our destination. “Come on.” I jerk one shoulder, urging him to follow me as we step behind the reception desk and enter the former staff door. We walk through several rooms until we reach the old kitchens.
“I’m totally confused right now,” Charlie says, watching me reach for one of the overhead cupboards.
“It’ll all make sense in a minute.” My grin is wide as I yank down on the secret lever and step back, taking my buddy with me as the entire front of the kitchen cupboards swings forward with a loud creaking noise, revealing the hidden entrance behind it.
“Fuck, Drew. This is some next-level shit.” Charlie’s grin matches mine as we step forward. I flick the light switch on, illuminating the stairs descending to the basement level. As soon as we’re both on the stairs, I hit the button to seal the entrance behind us.
The steps light up as we go down into the hub of the building and my home away from home. When we hit the ground, I turn left and approach the thick steel door, standing in front of the retinal scanner and letting it do its job. The lock unlatches with a loud click, and I yank down on the handle, pulling the heavy door open. “After you.” I waggle my brows and smirk at the look of shock splaying across my buddy’s face. Didn’t think there was anything that could shock Charlie after everything we have seen and done.
I wait until the door has shut behind us before typing in a code on the wall-mounted control panel and turning the power on. Lights switch on automatically throughout my basement lair, and the underfloor heating will soon have the place nice and toasty.
“Let’s grab a bite to eat first,” I say, heading toward the kitchen. I point out rooms as we stride along the wide corridor passing a myriad of doors on the left. “Living room. Office-slash-war room. Surveillance room. Bathroom. Bedroom. Bedroom. Gym.” I open the second-to-last door, which leads to the kitchen, and he trails me inside.
“You’ve got to give me some answers.”
“What do you want to know?” I ask, heading toward the coffee machine and switching it on.
“How long have you owned this place?” he asks, hopping up onto a stool at the island unit.
“I bought it the year we graduated RU. Spent a year fitting it out. Another year putting in security and surveillance systems and doing a few other modifications. That’s when I hired Ezra Blackwood, and he helped with the heavier technical stuff.”
“I can’t believe you did all this by yourself and that none of us knew.”
I shrug as the coffee machine churns to life, grabbing two mugs from the mug stand. “I did what I had to do.”
“Is this where you go when we think you’re away on business trips?”
“I do travel with work but not as much as I’ve led you all to believe. Sometimes I am holed up here. Other times, I’m overseas following a lead.”
“When did you start looking for her?” he asks as I grab a couple frozen pizzas from the freezer.
“I need to start at the beginning. From when I sent her away.” I grind my teeth painfully as pressure sits on my chest. I tried to prepare for this night. I spent my Saturday night at the fight club, expending a ton of pent-up emotion, and hours fucking Vixen Sunday night at the club in an attempt to destress and exert my control. While it helped, I’m still on edge. Dredging up the past will not be easy, but I promised Charlie I’d bring him in, and I’m a man of my word. If he’s going to do this with me, he needs to know everything, and that means I can’t hold anything back. He needs to know this story from the very beginning.
ChapterNine
Drew
Charlie watches silently as I turn the oven on and slip the two pizzas inside. I pour us both a coffee, half considering switching it for bourbon or scotch, but getting drunk won’t help, so I soldier on.
I claim the stool beside him and take a mouthful of the strong coffee as I prepare to spill my deepest, darkest secrets. An alert pings on my phone, and I open it up, checking the image of the hill at the back of my property, wondering what might have set the motion detector off.
Charlie glances over my shoulder. “Is that here?”
I nod, relaxing when I spot the red fox skulking through the brush on top of the hill. “I have hidden surveillance cameras, motion detection sensors, drones, and infrared alarms all over the exterior property in all directions. The feeds are displayed on multiple screens and monitors in my surveillance room, and all tapes are backed up to the cloud and never erased. I also own the house up the road, and I have a small team of men on standby in case of emergencies. All are ex-military and highly trained. They monitor the feeds constantly and alert me if there is anything suspicious.”
“Has anyone ever come here snooping?” he asks, and I shake my head.
“No one knows about this place. I mostly come here at night, and I have fake plates on the car I switch out every time in case anyone should notice me arriving or leaving.”
“It seems you have thought of everything.”
“I didn’t have a choice. The information I have uncovered is dangerous in the wrong hands.”
“Tell me.”
Ignoring the acid churning in my gut, I start spilling my guts. “That night, when I went to Jane’s dad, I told him everything that was going on because I needed him to understand the severity of the situation. I needed him to leave immediately, and I knew if he had the brutal truth he would go. Family was everything to him.” Charlie nods, already knowing this part. “He said he had a place to go, and he was starting to explain, but I stopped him. I told him not to tell me anything. That it was safer I didn’t know.”
I swallow thickly over the lump in my throat. “I told him I was getting a new cell and email and shutting the old ones down so Jane couldn’t contact me. I knew she’d try, and I couldn’t leave any way for anyone to trace her whereabouts. I sent four men with them for protection, gave them burner cells, and told them to send a coded weekly text letting me know everything was okay. They knew the only time to call was if there was an emergency, if someone had made them, and there was a threat to their lives.”
