Unknown: Tick Tock. I’m coming. Ready or not.
Glass shattered, and I cried out, crawling out of the bathroom to find what looked like a bullet-shaped hole in my bedroom window.
I slammed my hand over my mouth, struggling to hold in the scream swelling in my throat like it wanted to strangle me. Mytears flowed freely, dripping off my chin and onto my top as I planned my next move. Because one thing was clear, I needed to get out of here. I wasn’t safe, and I should run while I had the chance.
39
ROMAN
“So,you stopped watching her when she ended it with you?” Jarrid asked from across the training room as he threw mats onto the already padded floor. I’d told him everything after Hana broke up with me. I thought he’d be shocked, but he told me it explained a lot about my level of obsession with her, and then we went about our day, like I hadn’t just admitted to stalking Hana for six years because her brother asked me moments before he was murdered.
“No,” I scoffed. “But I’ve not contacted her, not seen her face to face since. That’s space, isn’t it? That’s what she wanted when she ended it with me.” Even talking about her safe wording me ripped my heart open once again. I’d been a shell of my former self since she’d walked out of my life, which meant I was watching her even more than usual.
He rolled his eyes as he straightened. “Not sure a court of law wouldn’t still class that as stalking 101, but you do you.”
I pointed to the floor. “What are you doing?”
“Lacy needs to burn off some shit, and I offered to help. I’m trying to make sure she doesn’t make the back injury she refuses to talk about any worse if she decides she wants to try and take me down.”
My laugh was soft. “Are you sure Amber won’t mind you wrestling with another woman?”
His expression darkened, his lips turning down. “We can just add it onto the list of things I’m omitting to tell her.”
“Still not told her about your job?”
He turned his back on me as he heaved another massive padded mat from where it rested against the wall and tossed it onto the ground like it weighed nothing. “Nope. And it’s eating me alive. She keeps asking me what’s wrong, so it’s probably obvious I’m hiding something.” He turned. “And the longer I leave it, the worse telling her feels.”
“Drinks after work? We can drown our sorrows and work out how to keep the girls we’re in love with.”
He kicked the pad into place. “As long as it doesn’t involve locking them in a cabin in the woods until they forgive us, then I’m down.” Before I could reply, Lacy appeared looking breathless, waving a card in the air like a fan. She came to a stop in front of us.
“Why did you tell Wren this was a dog?”
I glanced at Jarrid, who looked as confused as me. “Isn’t it?”
She scrunched her face up like I was an idiot and she couldn’t believe my stupidity. “This is a dog.” She pointed to one of the two animals standing next to the lobster. “Thisis a wolf.”
“Okay, Lacy,” I said slowly. “It’s a wolf.”
She turned and started walking, leaving Jarrid and me in her wake. She glanced back, her eyes pleading. “Come on. You’re going to want to see this.”
We hurried back into the tech room, where Wren stood under the wall of monitors, clicker in hand, so he could change the images displayed. I shut the door, and the two of us waited for someone to explain. Lacy took a seat, her lip twitching with what I imagined was pain as she did, but she sucked in a breath and began,
“Wren and Lev cross-referenced everything on the tarot card with the banking information they took off Preston’s hard drive, but some numnut claimed these were dogs, so they didn’t find anything. But it’s a wolf.” She shook the card at me again, like I should be fully versed in tarot symbolism. “And he got a hit.”
Just then, a mugshot popped up on the screen. “This is Jean Wolf. Was a high roller in a gang until just over six years ago, when the police received an anonymous tip-off that landed him in prison for a twelve-to-eighteen-year stretch. Mr Wolf appears in this group in a number of ways—he was particularly close with Larson, and we think he trafficked guns and drugs through his buildings, using them for storage or drop off points. Wolf was also associated with a number of missing people that, knowing what we now know, probably ended up as part of the foundation in Larson’s buildings. Then there are a number of large payments from him to Preston, but also from Preston to him, which makes me think he was on the payroll.” Lacy clapped her hands. “And, Wren, tell them the rest.”
Wren blew out a breath. “He’s dead.” The glimmer of hope I was feeling about cracking this case was immediately doused. “I’m not sure why Lacy is so excited about this fact,” he added.
Lacy huffed, shuffling back in her seat. “Because it’s too good to be a coincidence. He dies—stabbed in the exercise yard earlier this month—and then all the others in this little crime ring die too.”
“We don’t know how many were in the crime ring, so we don’t know if they’re all dead,” I reminded her.
“We’re already checking anyone in the prison who got out recently to see if they’re our killer, and we’re also looking at visitors, phone calls, emails, letters Wolf sent or received. We’ll know more in a couple of hours.”
Before I could thank Lacy for her wolf insight, alarms pierced the air.
Jarrid snapped into protector mode, storming past me and ripping open the door.
