I’m feeling particularly vicious tonight after dealing with far too many drunken assholes trying to get to the band. Especially knowing Montana went home without me, and Indy isn’t there to make sure she’s okay.
When someone stumbles into me, I shove him away. He’s fucking lucky I didn’t take it further with the mood I’m in. The crowd is finally thinning the fuck out, and every second I’m forced to stand here and wait them out feels like pure goddamn torture.
It’s like thousands of ants are crawling over my skin, this itch to get the hell out of here and back home. I have to wonder if it’s some sort of intuition because the need is so intense I can’t ignore it.
A hand comes down on my shoulder, and my muscles tense, ready for a fight, but when I spin, I see it’s only Connor, who shoots me a sympathetic look. ‘Should only be another half hour or so before you can get out of here.’
He pulls his hand back and walks off, so I turn back to the thinning crowd, trying to shake the unease curdling in my gut. Indy catches my gaze from across the room, and I see my own concern mirrored back. What the hell has us both so on edge tonight?
It’s not like we’ve had to deal with Montana’s stalker in a couple of months, yet something doesn’t feel right. It’s like when you’re watching a horror movie, and one of the side characters goes off on their own. You know some fucked up shit is coming, and you’re holding your breath, waiting for it to play out.
There’s an anticipation in the air, a humming energy that feels malicious and destructive. Maybe it’s the full moon hanging low in the sky outside, or maybe I’m paranoid as fuck because of the baby. Things have been too good for a while now, and in my experience, that always means devastation is on the horizon.
As if on cue, my phone vibrates in my pocket, but since it only goes off once, I know it’s not a call, and I ignore it. If something’s wrong with Montana or the baby, she’ll call, not text. Still, with the foul energy in the air, I find my hand delving into my pocket and curling around the phone, bringing it out and opening my messages.
When a text from an unknown number sits at the top of the list, my blood runs cold. I can feel the darkness already creeping in on the edges of my already shitty mood, the craving for violence surfacing.
A body moves up beside me as I press play, and I know without looking up that it’s Indy. His senses are in tune with this bullshit the same way mine are, only he doesn’t look at Montana the same way I do. He’s looking over my shoulder as the video starts to play.
My heart pounds harder than Griffin on the drums tonight as a night-vision shot of Montana fills my screen as she climbs into bed.
Barbed wire wraps around my lungs and squeezes the air out as the video cuts out. She didn’t send this to me; it came from an unknown number which means he’s still watching her, and right now, she’s all alone.
The need to get to her now is all-consuming. I don’t give a fuck if I get fired or if anyone gets hurt because I leave. Nothing can stop me from getting the hell out of here, and my feet are moving towards the door before I even make the decision to do it.
‘I’ll update Connor and be right behind you,’ Indy calls out, meeting my eyes to make sure I heard him before taking off in the opposite direction. My feet won’t move fast enough as I rush out to the car and rip the door open, throwing myself inside. I slam my hand down on the push-button start, and the tires scream as my foot hits the floorboard, crashing the gas pedal as far down as it’ll go.
This is fucking deja vu of the first night Montana’s stalker tried to take her, when she’d called Connor, and I found myself rushing to her apartment. At the time, my focus was on catching the guy who did it, but there’s so much more at stake this time.
If he takes her, he’ll be ripping my heart right out of my chest. There will be nothing left but an empty husk of chaos and vengeance. Once I find him—because I will find him—and end him, my purpose will have been served, and I can follow my love to the afterlife.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, and she’s fine, but my teeth grind together because I knew it. I fucking knew it. I’ve been in the worst mood all night because this venue was the last place I wanted to be. My gut was fucking screaming at me to go home, to take off and get to Montana, but I ignored it as my normal possessive, paranoid bullshit. Turns out my instinct was right if the video is any indication.
The steering wheel vibrates under my white knuckles as I speed toward Montana’s apartment. Cold sweat trickles down the back of my neck as my heart pounds out a frantic beat. My mind keeps flipping back to the video and what I saw on it. The angle it was shot from, the way Montana didn’t seem to realize she was being watched.
If this is how he’s been watching her the entire time, every single scan Sebastian ran missed his camera. How is that even possible? I can hardly focus as tunnel vision pushes out any sort of logic other than getting to my girl. If he got to her before I could, I’ll tear the world apart to find her. I’ll leave nothing but ash and ruin in my wake, and there is no doubt in my mind that I’ll be successful.
I can’t think like that, though. Not when I don’t have all the facts. This could’ve been a warning, and she’s fine, sleeping in our bed, and I’ll walk in to find her safe.
Somehow I don’t think that’s what I’ll find.
With all the equipment, the expert personnel, and years of experience between Indy, Asher, Sebastian, and me, how the fuck does this asshole keep finding ways to slip through our protection? Through the boundaries we meticulously set up?
The only thing that comes to mind is routine. Routine and procedure are what set us apart. While we have well-defined parameters we operate within, he doesn’t. No, he can think outside the box, and the realization is enough to make me push on the accelerator even harder.
Where the fuck is he hiding? Where has he been?
Whether I find Montana in our apartment or not, I do know the outcome of this video message won’t change—I’ll be dedicating my days moving forward to tracking him like an animal until I find him. There is nothing else, nowhere else I have to be and nothing else I have to do. I have one focus, and it’s bringing this bullshit to a bloody end.
I’m so focused on what my next step will be, for every possible scenario I might find when I get to my destination, that I don’t even realize I’m there until I jam my foot down on the brakes. My car screeches to a stop in a no parking zone. I don’t give a fuck, and shove the door open, sprinting into the lobby. The guard eyes me warily now, but he knows better than to start shit.
My thumb rams the up button again and again as the numbers count down so slowly it’s agonizing. When the doors slide open, I slap the button for the sixteenth floor and hold my breath while the car rises. The elevator slows and then stops on the ninth floor, the doors starting to glide open, so I reach out and push the close door button earning a scowl from the man about to get on, but the look I give him back is filled with so much menace, he flinches with his hands held up in front of him and backs away slowly.
Smart move.
There are no more interruptions, and as soon as I step out onto her floor, I know something is wrong. There’s a trail of blood splatters and drips from the middle of the hallway leading to where her door stands halfway open, the frame broken like someone used a battering ram to get in.
As I take in the scene, my heart stops for a beat or two and then plummets straight out my feet and joins the bloody trail on the floor. A coldness sweeps over me, and all emotions evaporate, leaving me hollow, a perfect weapon meant for one thing—retribution.
My phone is out of my pocket and in my hand, but I’m moving on autopilot. I dial Indy as I move into the wrecked apartment and a swell of pride rises in my chest before it’s extinguished by the nothingness currently residing in the place my emotions should be. My girl put up one hell of a fight, that’s for damn sure.
‘Did you find her?’ he says by way of answering, and based on what I hear in his surroundings, he’s already in the car on his way here.
‘Not yet, and by the looks of the place, I’m not going to.’ I inch inside, careful not to step on anything that might be used as evidence. The living room is fucked up beyond repair, the furniture in twisted, broken heaps scattered across the floor. A puddle of black cloth is the dress she wore to the show. A glacial fury starts to build in the nothing, like a snowball rolling downhill until it’s an avalanche of murderous intent and burning rage.
‘Fuck,’ he hisses out. ‘I’ll be there in five minutes. Don’t do anything stupid until I get there.’
He doesn’t wait for me to agree, probably because he knows I won’t. I’m not capable of restraint right now, and the only reason I’m still here is because I have to see for myself. I have to see that she’s gone, and I have to see if he left a trail.
The hall is relatively unscathed, but when I get to her bedroom, I have to grip the wall to hold myself up while my legs practically give out. She’s not here as I expected, but what’s got my heart in my throat is the bed. It’s destroyed and soaked in blood I could smell from the hall.
Saturated in crimson that drips onto the floor in a sticky puddle.
There’s so much blood, whoever lost it is no doubt dead now. For one second, I let myself despair. I let myself sink to the floor with my back against the wall and gasp for air that won’t fill my lungs. For just a second, the fury is replaced with grief so all-encompassing, it’s like a void I’ll never escape. Now isn’t the time to sink into it, though.
Now is the time to claw my way back and find her, find Montana, because one thing is crystal clear—she’s not here, which means he has her.
The monster lurking in the shadows who waited patiently for his chance until we got complacent. He dragged her, kicking and screaming by the looks of this place, back to his lair. The question is whether or not she’s still alive, and if she is, how long he plans to keep her that way.
On shaky legs, I stand to flip on the light to get a better look. It doesn’t help. If anything, it’s so much worse this way now that I can see the tangled sheets and trail of blood on the floor.
‘Ronin?’ Indy calls out, his voice edged with panic. I don’t blame him. If it wasn’t for the wrath coiling up inside me right now, I might be lost to the panic. As it is, I’m focused and deadly, a weapon ready to be unleashed as soon as I find the direction to point.
‘In here,’ I yell back, surprised how even my voice sounds, even if it’s almost as if I’m detached and hearing someone else speak.
‘Jesus fuck,’ he bites out when he steps up behind me into the room, and his intelligent gaze sweeps across the mayhem. ‘I’m calling Connor and Ash. Fuck, I’m calling everyone.’
I figure he’ll step into the hall, but he doesn’t. It’s like he doesn’t trust me by myself, and maybe he’s right not to. When he’s done with his calls, and we’re sitting in the silence, breathing in the coppery tang of recently spilled blood, he looks over at me.
‘We’re going to get her back.’
‘You saw the bed.’
‘It could be his blood.’
I’m trembling but not from the cold or from fear. It’s the rage, the spikes of adrenaline racing through my veins in anticipation of the hunt that’s coming. ‘If that was his blood, he wouldn’t have been able to drag her out of here. Not with how much she fought.’
‘Montana’s a fighter, Ro. I’m sure her and the baby-‘
‘Don’t,’ I snap. I’m right on the fucking edge of losing it. It’s too much; hearing her nickname for me, thinking about the little life we created inside of her and what might’ve happened. I can’t think about any of it right now. ‘This is why I didn’t want to get attached. This. Right now. Every fucking time I let myself get attached, they’re stolen from me. Why the fuck did you meddle? Why couldn’t you have let me get over my feelings, huh?’
I’m panting by the time I’m done, my fingers curled into fists that ache to pound into flesh. Black tints the corners of my vision as I glare at Indy like all this is his fault.
Instead of backing down, he turns so he’s in my face, our toes touching while he shoves his finger into my chest. ‘Stop feeling fucking sorry for yourself. Your girlfriend and your baby are out there with a psychopath, and they need you to hold your shit together. You don’t get to fall apart, and you don’t get to have regrets, because we’re going to find them and end this bullshit. So, suck it the fuck up, punch me if you need to, but get over yourself. They need you, and I’m not going to allow you to let them down.’
He’s breathing just as hard as I am, and in the depths of his stormy grey eyes, I can see he needs to find her, too. Somehow Montana got under his skin like she did mine, and the desperation to find her radiating off of me is reflected in him. ‘Give me your phone,’ he demands, removing the finger from where it’s pressed into my chest and holding his hand out.
I don’t know what he’s thinking, but whatever he’s up to, it breaks a bit of the tension having something else to focus on besides the tension rolling through both of our bodies. Yanking my phone out of my pocket, I slap it into his hand after unlocking it.
Standing back, I lean against the wall while he does whatever it is he’s doing, but my thoughts start to swirl in terrible directions, so I find myself creeping closer until I’m watching the video of Montana play over his shoulder.
‘Wait, slow it down,’ I tell him and watch it again. Being in the same room where the footage takes place gives me a new perspective, one I never considered before. ‘Let me see the phone.’
When he hands it to me, I hold it up as if I’m looking at it taking place live, trying to figure out the angle it was recorded from, the vantage point where his camera is hidden. I step around the carnage of the room, lining up the shot until I’m standing in front of her dresser directly across from the bed. I spin around and look at the wall. She has a mirror hanging above the dresser, and I check all the edges, running my fingers along the smooth surface of the brushed metal frame.
Indy moves across the room and takes the other side, catching on to what I’m doing. It’s only seconds later when he curses and points to a spot right next to the frame. ‘Shit, there’s a hole here. It’s tiny, like a push pin and right next to the frame.’
‘What the hell’s on the other side of this wall?’
Indy and I look at each other and then charge out of the room toward the front door. I get there first and race through it, hauling ass out into the hall and to the next door down on the right. Indy catches up as I’m banging my fist on the door. ‘Open up,’ I yell, a throwback to my days in uniform.
No one answers, and after I try a second time with the same result, I step back and nod at Indy, who’s already poised to kick the motherfucker in. He raises his boot and stomps his foot against the section just above the lock, and the door flies open, the frame splintering under the assault.
If our assumption is wrong, we’ll deal with the fallout later, but as we step inside, it becomes clear we’re not wrong when the smell hits me like a fucking fist to the face. ‘Christ,’ I mutter as Indy covers his nose and mouth with his arm.
Blood and gore cover half the couch, and I’m pretty sure I see a tooth on one of the cushions, but there’s no body. It’s fucking clear as day what happened here, though.
‘He’s been right here the whole fucking time, hasn’t he?’ Indy asks, pulling down his arm as we adjust to the sweet coppery scent lingering heavily in the air.
I can beat myself up over this shit later. Right now, we need evidence to find out exactly where this bastard is. Shit would be so much simpler if he used his actual name rather than some shitty alias I have yet to figure out. He’s always been smart—using cash to pay for things, never leaving even a hint of where he might be holed up or a picture we could track or trace. If I hadn’t noticed a pattern in the disappearances, I would have no idea who the man was stalking my woman.
But I do know. I know him and the name he used to use. Too bad that doesn’t do shit for me now because he sure as fuck isn’t going by that name anymore, and he’s not leaving any electronic paper trail behind. I’ve had Sebastian tracking him for months, and there hasn’t been one single transaction or paper filed. Not one.
‘Ronin,’ Indy says, and the disturbed tone of his voice has me hurrying in the direction of the dining room, which would be on the other side of Montana’s bedroom. Like he once did to her, this room is wallpapered with pictures of Montana, but an overwhelming sense of relief washes over me when I see he’s taped his own face over mine in all the pictures I’m in.
‘Delusional bastard,’ Indy mutters, as I step up to the wall and gingerly pluck one of the photos down.
‘Sebastian’s on his way, right?’
‘Yeah, I called him in. Can we please get the fuck out of here? It’s like a textbook serial killer hideout, and my fascination only goes so far,’ Indy says, eyes darting around.
I’m hardly noticing any of it, so focused on his picture, and I was fucking right. This right here? This is Levi Briggs, the same piece of psychotic shit who killed my sister, though Levi doesn’t go by that name anymore.
Indy starts walking toward the door and notices my hesitation, and I stare down at the picture in my hand. ‘This is the motherfucker who took my sister from me, and I’ll die before I let him take Montana and the baby, too.’
He moves back toward me and rests his hand on my shoulder. ‘We won’t let him. I’ll be right there with you.’ The fire behind his eyes is burning bright and hot, and I know he’s got violence inside him he tries to contain just like we all do.
Tonight, though… We’re going to get to let it out.
‘Let’s get the fuck out of here,’ I say, and we move toward the door, meeting up with Sebastian in the hall. There’s no sign of Connor or Asher yet, but Sebastian looks unfazed as always.
His intelligent eyes scan us over, and then he spots the photo hanging from my fingertips. ‘What’s that?’
I hold it out to him. ‘That’s the sick bastard we’re looking for. How long until you can find a location?’
‘I’ll have to run facial recognition, but lucky for you, I built a program that’ll scan all city cameras at the same time. Give me an hour.’
‘We don’t have a fucking hour!’ I roar, and Indy grabs my arm and yanks me back into Montana’s apartment. Sebastian follows behind and calmly closes what’s left of the door behind him. When he spins back around, he wrinkles his nose at the mess and then walks back to Montana’s office without saying another word.
‘Sometimes I want to punch him in his pompous fucking face,’ I seethe, pushing away from Indy and pacing like a caged animal.
‘I do, too, but we need him right now, and if you knock him out, it’ll only take that much longer to find her.’
‘And where the fuck are Connor and Ash? Shouldn’t they be here by now?’
Indy checks his phone. ‘They had to stay behind at the venue until the band left.’
Time feels like it’s moving backward as I pace, and Indy tries to keep me calm. He has to hold me back from storming back to Montana’s office and getting in Sebastian’s face at least five times, but eventually, the man himself comes out with a smug smile on his face. ‘I’ve got him.’
My phone goes off in my pocket at the same time Indy’s does.
‘That’s where you’ll find him, but you’d better hurry. No telling how long he might stay.’
That’s all he gives us before spinning and walking back toward the office.
‘The fuck are we waiting for?’ I growl and rush toward the door. I almost collide with Asher coming inside while I’m trying to get out.
‘Either come with us or step aside,’ I say, not caring to stop and update him on what’s happening.
‘Shouldn’t we wait for Connor?’ Indy asks as we wait for the elevator.
Asher pulls out his gun and checks the clip before locking it back in place and sticking it back in the holster at his back. I know mine’s good because I checked it while we were waiting for Sebastian, but I’m not going to use the gun tonight.
No, tonight calls for something more personal, more bloody.
Sharper.
Tonight, I’m going to make Levi Briggs pay for stealing everyone I’ve ever loved from me, and I’ll take that payment in nothing less than violence and his annihilation.
