Rage.
I’d known rage all my life, but until the days spent in the FBI, they’d been countered by acts of goodness. Maybe I’d gone into the FBI more naïve than I’d originally thought, jaded almost immediately by the acts of violence I was forced to handle.
Maybe Steven was right. I was more like him than I’d ever wanted to believe because right now, the rage wouldn’t allow me to think about anything but finding the woman I was falling in love with.
And killing him.
That was it.
Two primal needs that had collided together.
There were several distinct differences in what had occurred years before, one being that I had no patience left. Not only that,I had no time to waste. The monster was closing a chapter to create another.
He didn’t seem to care that his identity would be exposed. And why? Because he believed his secrets would die with his brother. And his mother certainly wouldn’t blow his cover. Neither would his fucking father. Why did I have a feeling Jameson was on the list?
“Calm down,” Chase told me.
“How can I be calm? We don’t know shit about what’s happening.” The team had met me at the parking lot of where Alexia worked.
“We know Samuel’s house was owned by a conglomerate set up by Steven, a shell company that led to him,” Hudson offered. “But without our hackers, we wouldn’t have found it.”
“Big deal. So he owned the property.” I paced the parking lot, trying to rationalize what the hell had just happened.
“I’m still cross referencing everything we know about Betty Landers,” Chase added.
“Alexia’s life is on the line. We can’t sit here wasting time.” When I started to open my car door, Kendrick stopped me.
“Where the hell are you going? You can’t drive around the city or head toward the Everglades. That’s not going to work.”
“Damn it. I need something. Now!”
“He’s playing a game with you. You are his number one adversary. You beat him. He wants to see if the score can be evened. Now he knows how much you care about her. He’s usingit against you.” Chase was using his calm voice. As if that would matter at this point.
He was right, but that didn’t make me feel any better.
“Where the fuck did they find Ashley Boudreaux’s body?” I threw out.
“Trust me. From what I learned, her body floated through the system for a few days. It appears she was killed right after she was taken. Maybe not Steven at all.” Gabriel had managed to call in a couple of favors even though it was an ongoing case.
I ripped off the fucking bowtie, shoving it in my pocket. Next were my sleeves, rolling them past my elbows.
I laughed. “Steven took the girl. He wanted to scare Alexia. And tempt me.” Fuck. I had to figure this out. “Give me something, Chase. Anything, for fuck’s sake.”
“Calm down.” He heard a blip on his phone and I was on pins and needles. “Hold on. We might have something.”
The four of us waited as he read over an email.
“It’s a long shot, but the only one we have. Betty Landers owns a place in Everglades City near the Big Cypress National Preserve.”
“That’s close to where I found her thirteen years ago. Given his surprise at my appearance, he needed a location that wouldn’t cause issues. That’s gotta be it.”
We looked at each other and I was the one to nod. We’d done this before, saving lives and terminating the monster involved.
I’d felt damn good about what we’d accomplished without realizing how doing so had affected me. But I wasn’t fixing the darkness inside. I was fueling it instead of repairing the guilt.
The only way of doing that was to put an end to the nightmare once and for all.
I’d changed over the years, barely able to recognize myself. I’d been angry when Steven had compared us, but he’d forced me to question all I knew about myself.
