I decide, then and there, to run.
They will be better off without me. They can all find normal women and marry them. They don’t need to all share someone as fucked up as I am.
CHAPTER 15
Ella
It’s remarkably easy to get out. I just wait until Aiden is occupied with work, and Luke is at the gym, and Leo is off presumably killing someone and taking a piece of them as a trophy. They are busy men.
As soon as I have some time to myself, I take some cash and a car. But I leave the car parked neatly and I mail the keys back to them, so it’s not grand theft auto; at least, not for long.
I ensure that I take a good amount of money. Not enough for them to really miss, but enough for me to get around with. Ten grand. Okay, it’s kind of a lot by normal standards, but these guys aren’t normal and ten grand is nothing to them.
I still don’t have much of an appetite, but I get some sushi, and I sit in the shop with a little suitcase at my feet and I watch the world go by and I wonder if I will ever feel like I am actually part of it. I’ve seen too much. Too much has happened to me. I’ve done things I should never have done. I see a young woman about my age walking past with a stroller that she’s pushing withone hand, and an iced coffee with whipped cream in the other. I feel so much envy for her, and what I imagine is a simple, but satisfying life.
I’m going to find one of those.
Leo
“Sorry,” Aiden reads the note.“But I’ve gone away. Do not follow me. It’s best for all of us.”
He puts it down. “Cameras have her leaving the property while we were occupied. She took cash from my office, around ten thousand dollars in unmarked bills. She took the car, then dumped that, and got a ride share, then a bus.”
I snort. Smart move. She must have realized how easily we’d follow the car.
“Cameras aren’t actually everywhere yet?”
“I think she put a mask on,” he says. “And a hat. The loose cell network would have picked her up if not.”
One of the tools certain agencies and people have at their disposal is the ability to tap into cameras on cell phones and have them as a kind of remote surveillance. You get a lot of insides of pockets and bags that way, but in a day and age when people are taking pictures and videos all over the place, or at the very least looking at their phones, it’s quite easy to get interesting little bits of data here and there.
“How does she know about that?”
“She worked for BP for a long time. I’d put money on her knowing a lot of things. It may not be easy to find her.”
“What has gotten into her?” Luke asks. “Why did she run?”
“You’d have to find her and ask her, but I imagine, based on what she said before she left, that she thought she would feel better once we punished her thoroughly, but as it turns out, even the hottest sex isn’t a substitute for therapy,” Aiden drawls.
The three of us are standing in his office. Luke looks crestfallen, Aiden has his usual impenetrable mask on. I am feeling a mixture of things. Irritation that she thought something as pedestrian and avoidant as running away would possibly work, and fear of what might happen to her, or what she might do.
“We have to get her back,” Captain Obvious, I mean Luke, says.
“And we will,” Aiden replies. He is quite determined.
“I’m gonna spank her ass,” Luke growls. “We’ve been through all of this, and she runs away? Like a teenager?”
“Running away from home is an ageless act,” I deadpan. “And it’s in right now.”
“Oh, yes,” Aiden agrees, playing along in one of his rare demonstrations that he has a functional sense of humor. “Abandoning one’s loved ones is so hot right now.”
I smile.
“What’s funny?” Luke demands.
“It’s a bit like a treasure hunt, isn’t it?” I say. “One of us will be the first to find her.”
“If it’s a treasure hunt, what’s the prize?” he asks. It’s a damn good question.
