Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
CAIN
“Jesus fucking Christ! This has got to be the master of all clusterfucks.”
I fling myself back in my seat and fist my fingers in my hair, pulling tight and hoping the pain will distract me from the horror story unfolding before us, as Gray finishes the call to Primal Fantasies, pressing to disconnect with visibly shaking fingers
It doesn’t.
Nothing will.
What the fuck have we done?
“Goddammit!” Erik, normally the most chilled of all of us, roars, grabbing his coffee mug and launching it at the wall so it explodes in a spray of splatter and shards.
“This means we basically abducted and assaulted a complete stranger,” he yells, ending on a wheeze, his tone ripe with a combination of disbelief and self-loathing.
I feel bile bubbling in my gut and scrambling up my throat as he voices what none of us can deny.
Just the thought is abhorrent.
“It was an accident,” Gray replies, his eyes wide and voice thin, like he’s trying to convince himself more than anyone else. Although there’s no excuse, I can empathize, because the ugly alternative is that we’ve done something so dreadful none of us can put it into words.
I rub my hands over my face, wishing I had something a whole lot stronger than coffee to drink, right now. “Christ, no wonder she seemed so authentic.” The words leave my mouth as a whisper, like they don’t want their reality to be laid bare, out in the open for all to hear.
“Fuuuuck!” Gray stares at the ceiling as if it will give him answers, but we all know there are none.
“She tried to tell us... She tried to tell us, and we just thought it was part of the game.”
Silence follows my statement, heavy and oppressive. We may not want to acknowledge it, but none of us can deny it, and I have to stuff down the urge to punch something, because I know it won’t help.
“What the hell do we do?” Erik asks, his eyes haunted. “How do we make this right? The things we did to her…”
He can’t finish the sentence, but he doesn’t need to. I know we’re all thinking the same thing.
“We need to find her,” Gray finally states. Though how we’re supposed to do that, God only knows.
Erik nods. “Hopefully Tina can pinpoint a number. Hell, I’ll personally dial every single call that came in this morning, if we need to.”
“Do you think she’ll even see us?” I wonder out loud. “After what we did…”
Gray shakes his head, his expression harrowed. “Who knows, but… she called, didn’t she? That has to mean something.”
“Yeah, probably that she’s about to have us all arrested,” Erik spits, derision in every word.
“I’m not sure she’d give us any forewarning of that,” I say, trying to ease the dreadful shadow that’s engulfed the room. It falls flat, only making things worse.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Erik replies with barely restrained anger, which I know is aimed at himself. “She probably wants to check she has the right people, at least.”
We’re interrupted by Tina who stops short when she sees the mess Erik made, then, like the consummate professional she is, stoically ignores it and places a neatly written note on the boardroom table in front of us.
“I believe this is the number you asked for,” she tells us, casting a furtive look at the wall before she leaves.
This is exactly what we wanted, but now we have it, the three of us just stare at the innocuous slip of paper like it might bite.
“Ah… this doesn’t seem like the kind of conversation we should have over the phone,” I tell my friends as I commit the number to memory. Gray isn’t so subtle. He inputs Sierra’s details into his contact list.
“So how do we handle this?” Erik asks the question we’re all mulling over in our minds.
“Think we track her down and go see her in person,” Gray says, decisively.
“Yeah, ‘cos that’s not at all stalkerish, after everything we’ve done to her”, I goad, even though I agree. I’m just not sure what kind of reception we’ll get… But actually, that doesn’t matter, does it? Because what we do need to do is man the hell up and try to make this right.
If that’s even possible.
“And if we end up on the wrong side of a jail cell?” Erik challenges, though I have no doubt he’s also on board with the plan.
I huff out a resigned breath. “Then we do the only thing we can. We tell the truth.”
Gray finds another contact on his phone, and I listen with half an ear, my mind wandering over various scenarios.
He supplies the IT guy who ferrets out information for us with Sierra’s name, phone number and a description, telling him he wants a last name and an address as soon as humanly possible.
Nobody mentions how all this could tank the company, endangering the jobs of hundreds of people.
How it might cripple our reputations to the extent that no amount of money can insulate us from the fall out.
Or how we really might end up in prison because of a mistake that had such dire consequences.
Well, if that’s the way things go, then it’ll be our cross to bear.