Chapter 4
FOUR
G RANT
By the time I get to Dakota’s apartment, I’m pissed. She didn’t show up to meet the handyman, so he called me to see if I could let him in. I’d had to excuse myself mid-meeting with my floor and resort managers to figure out what the fuck was going on. I expected that she was just in the basement of the bar counting inventory or had stepped in the shower and forgotten to take her phone off silent. But now that I’m here, she’s nowhere to be found, and she’s still not answering her phone.
The handyman is standing against the wall, bag at his feet in the back hallway where Hayley had sent him when he arrived. She didn’t have any idea where Dakota was, either, and hadn’t seen her this morning, assuming she was still in bed after a late night .
I unlock the door and ease it open, calling her name out as I take one step inside. I don’t want her to come flying across the room, baseball bat in hand, trying to smash my face in because she couldn’t remember she was having maintenance this morning. But there’s no response, and the apartment seems quiet and empty.
“Just give me one minute to make sure she’s not asleep or something.” I turn back to the handyman.
“Sure.” He nods, and I step the rest of the way inside, closing the door behind me so that her cat, Vendetta, doesn’t get out. The damn thing dodges in and out of the shadows like she’s part of them, and I don’t want to be responsible for her being loose in the bar.
There’s plenty of light streaming in through the living room and bedroom windows, but otherwise, the place is dark—no lights, no TVs. However, the place is in disarray. The lingerie from the other night is gone, but a new set of lingerie and clothing is strewn over the couch and one of the chairs. Papers are scattered on the table and a couple of boxes sit out on the counter. Dakota wasn’t the neatest person I’d ever met, but the last couple of times I’ve been in here, it’s been messier than usual. Like she’s too busy to even stop and put things away.
“Hartfield?” I call out for her as I approach the half-open bedroom door. She doesn’t answer, and I gently press the handle to push it open.
The bed is empty and unmade. There’s more clothing lying about on the footstool at the end of the bed and hanging out of the drawers in the dresser. The place almost looks tossed from this angle. My heart skips a beat.
Dakota has a temper and a habit of not giving a shit about who she’s talking to when she runs her mouth. She says things to me no one but my family would dare even think in my presence. I mostly let it slide, though, given that her brother was like a brother to me and left her in my care when he died. She’s as much family as anyone in my eyes even if she isn’t keen on the association. But I’m not the only asshole she’s threatened and derided, and if she finally said the wrong thing to the wrong person…
I hate to go into her room and invade her privacy. I’ve done my best to give her a wide berth for the last decade. The six months she’d been my ward hadn’t gone well, and she’s hated me pretty much every day of her adult life. If it were up to her, I’d never step foot in this place again. But I promised her brother I’d make sure she was looked after. The second she got financially stable, bought a house, or got married, I’d be happy to shut the door and let her live her life. Unfortunately for both of us, stable has never been a word close to her heart.
I grumble quietly to myself about being stuck in this position as I ease the door open the rest of the way and step inside. I needed to be sure there weren’t more signs of a struggle or that she wasn’t passed out in the bathroom.
I edge inside, careful not to touch anything, and step over the clothing items scattered over the floor. I call her last name one more time before I open the bathroom door. It’s quiet. No running water or humming or any sort of noise to indicate she’s there, and I’m half relieved not to find her lying on the floor. At least until I look up on the bathroom counter and see a handful of toys charging.
“Fuck.” I scrub a hand over my face and make a quick glance around the rest of the bathroom to make sure I’m not missing any vital details before I hurry back out.
I definitely didn’t need to know what kind of toys she enjoys. I pinch the bridge of my nose, hoping there’s some way I can forget the size of the double-pronged vibrator and the delicate rose toy sitting next to it. The question of whether she’s using them alone or with one of her college boys crosses my mind. A thought I curse myself for even having.
“Everything all right?” the handyman calls from the hallway, and I chase out the images that begin flashing in my head and pull my shit together.
“Yep,” I answer, hurrying around the corner and shutting the doors behind me. He doesn’t need the same eyeful I got.
Dakota’s always sort of stayed a kid in my head, even though it’s been a decade since she was anything close to one. Fuck, even when she was my ward for those brief few months, she was unwilling to be treated like she was anything less than grown—insisting on being involved in all the tedious details of her brother’s small estate, wanting to be responsible for all the bills, and begging me to let her take over the bar as soon as she was legally able to do so.
I wave the handyman through the door and point out the sink and the problems to him so he can get started. Meanwhile, I’m still surveying the room, and the more I look, the more nervous I get. Her laptop’s still open on the coffee table, a cup of coffee sits half-finished next to it alongside a half-eaten piece of toast on the plate. The spot in front of it looks mussed, like she had been sitting there and then jumped up unexpectedly.
Whatever she left for came up quickly. It must have been important that she would take off without finishing her breakfast or closing her laptop. Her place was messy the other day, so it didn’t shock me that some things were lying around, but this seems borderline chaotic. Like someone else was rushing her out.
The blood chills in my veins, and I can’t shake it. I call her one more time.
It rings once, twice, three times, and then it goes to voicemail.
A bleak feeling creeps up my spine .
I glance back, and the handyman’s working away under the sink, completely unaware that I’m worried the tenant might have been kidnapped. I pull out my phone and shoot off a text to my brother Levi.
Can you check the cameras at Seven Sins?
Dakota and I have never discussed the security system at the bar in much detail, so I never bothered to tell her that I’m still plugged into it and can view it remotely from the casino. I promised myself that someday when she got proper bouncers at the door, I’d stop checking in at night. But then she was adamant that she and her bartenders could handle it all just fine and that the baseball bat under the counter was security enough. I’m hoping like hell it was if something happened last night.
My phone dings, and my heart skips at the prospect of it being her telling me to go fuck myself for bothering her in the morning. But it’s Lev’s name on the screen.
LEV:
Sure, anything in particular I’m looking for?
Find what time Dakota goes into her apartment last night, and when she left. If she’s alone or not.
We have a problem?
She’s not here, and I had to let the handyman in. The place looks… messy. More so than usual.
On it.
Thanks .
“All right. It’s just a few quick parts that need to be swapped out. I think that’ll have her up and running again. I just need to run to my truck for one I don’t have up here,” the handyman announces.
“Sounds good.”
“Is it all right if I leave the back door ajar so I don’t have to ring again?”
“Sure thing.” I nod. I could keep an eye on it from the apartment’s front door anyway, and hopefully, this guy would be quick.
“Thanks.” He disappears out the door, and I hear the clod of his boots on the steps.
I take the time alone to survey the room again, and my eyes land on her computer once more. I’m torn. The last thing she was doing could give me a clue about where she is. But I could be reading too much into everything I’m seeing, and then she’ll be furious I invaded her privacy.
I pick up my phone again and dial her number. This time, it doesn’t even ring. It goes straight to her voicemail. My chest feels tight. I barely register the handyman’s return as my mind reels with possibilities.
I fucked up when I couldn’t protect her brother. I can’t do it again. If something’s happened to her, I’ll never fucking forgive myself. He’d never forgive me.
I return to the couch without considering the consequences any further. I move the mouse, and I’m immediately stymied when the computer screen is locked with a six-digit passcode. I rack my brain for ideas. Unless…
I type one, two, three, four, five, six into the screen… and it unlocks .
Fucking hell. We’ll be having a conversation about that the second I find her.
The screen lights up, and my jaw drops.
My heart stops.
I’m not sure I’m even breathing anymore.
That conversation would have to wait because this one… what I’m seeing right now is going to be a much harder one to have. One I could have lived the rest of my life without having.
“Fuck me.”
“What?” The handyman is back to work on the sink, and his brow furrows as he looks at me from across the room. I can see the skepticism written all over his face.
“My sister. She’s just buying a ton of makeup and clothes again. We’re gonna have to discuss her credit limits.” I lie through my teeth like it’s second nature.
“Oh shit. I got one of those. Not a sister but a daughter. She always wants something new. First, it was them big steel cups, and now it’s shoes. Always somethin’.” He shakes his head, a grin on his face as he gets down on the floor to fix the sink.
“Yeah. Always something,” I agree absently.
My mind’s too busy processing what I’ve just seen. I have to look again. I need to be sure I didn’t just imagine it. I angle the computer screen away from the kitchen, opening it and checking to be sure that he can’t catch a glimpse before I enter the password again.
The screen lights up, and I’m greeted with an image of Dakota. She’s spread out on her bed, mostly naked with a strategically placed cowboy hat just below her navel. Her face is cut off. Her tattoos have been edited out. But otherwise, it’s her.
There’s a ding, and a conversation window pops up, a small icon of a sword in a stone next to the screen name.
Swordmaster782:
You’re on early.
Couldn’t stay away?
I scroll upward and realize the photo’s on a website. It’s a subscription site—Dakota’s subscription site.
Or rather, RideHimCowgirl’s subscription site.
I’m through the fucking looking glass and in alternate reality where Dakota has a subscription site where she posts naked photos of herself and pretends to be a cowgirl living on a ranch when she’s not entertaining her subscribers. Our family ranch, judging by some of the photos I see in her feed.
I ignore the message from Swordmaster and go to the inbox. Dozens of messages are there. Some opened, others not. A few of them look to be much longer chains, and I open one with another subscriber. This one is GirthyGuy1020. There are messages of them saying goodnight to each other, but when I scroll up, there’s a much more heated conversation. One where he’s asking her to tell him how she’d ride him. I see a dozen voicemail attachments from her. I skip them for later; it’s not like I can listen to them with the handyman here.
I scroll further down, and there’s another image. She’s in a set of pale-peach panties with her fingers slid under the waistband.
GirthyGuy1020:
I bet you like to ride ’em big.
What’s the biggest dick you’ve ever had?
I bet I’m bigger. I bet I could bust that pussy wide open.
I bet I could break his fucking neck without even trying.
I slam the screen shut .
“That bad?” The handyman chuckles from under the sink when he hears the loud clink of plastic on plastic.
“That bad.” I grunt.
My thoughts are racing. She’d been smart in lying about who she was. In getting rid of the identifying marks on her body before sharing the photos. But there’s enough there. Enough that she could be identified by someone who was really trying. Lev could find her in minutes if I asked him to.
So what if they were tired of teasing photos and texts? Maybe they wanted her for real. My gut twists.
I have a high tolerance for a lot of things—cruel, gruesome, horrible things. But imagining what the wrong person might do to her has my stomach on the verge of retching and my blood pressure through the fucking roof while I think about tearing the imaginary man limb from limb.
I grab my phone back out.
You have anything yet?
LEV:
Takes a bit to get through all this footage. Forwarding as fast as I can.
Can you still track her phone?
I put tracking software on her phone last year when she disappeared for a long weekend and didn’t let anyone know where she was going. She has a right to do whatever the fuck she pleases, but if something happens, I need to know how to get to her. If I need to get to her.
LEV:
Theoretically.
Do it. Do we have anyone we could pull to put on the streets?
Do you want to read me in on what’s going on?
She’s gone. The place looks like it could have been tossed. And I just found out she has a dangerous side hustle.
What kind of danger?
I fire off the website and her screen name to him.
LEV:
Fuck.
Can you hack into it? I want the names and addresses of every single one of these fucks. And I want the site offline.
Yeah. But you want the footage first, right?
The phone first. Then the footage. Then the site.
Got it. Give me two.
The two minutes pass at an impossibly slow pace. I’m listening to the sounds of the handyman’s wrench turning and the shuffle of plastic and the tear of cardboard while I wait to find out if she’ll ever be back to use the sink again.
LEV:
Last location on the phone is the ranch.
Our ranch?
Yeah. It’s not tracking. Looks like it lost her headed into the woods.
My mind turns on that one. No way would some guy be able to drag her onto our ranch to harm her unannounced, not after the additional security measures we put into place last year. And there’s absolutely no chance that anyone on our ranch would touch a hair on her head. So she must be safe.
LEV:
Coverage is spotty out there. Possible she’s on a hike.
Or a horseback ride?
Yeah. Would make sense.
She does go horseback riding with Hazel at least once a week when the weather holds up. I’ve seen her on the ranch enough times to know that much. But it doesn’t explain the state of the apartment.
I’ll call Ramsey.
“I’m just gonna make a work call really quick. Back in five?” I say to the handyman as I head for the door.
“Sounds good. Should be wrapping up by then.”
“Perfect.”
I slip into the hall and walk down toward the far door, the one that gives access to the outer stairwell that leads to the back parking lot, before I hit the call button on Ramsey’s number. It rings twice before he picks up.
“Hey.”
“Hey. Have you seen Dakota today?”
“Yeah. Got here an hour or so ago. She and Hazel went out on the trail. Need something?”
Oxygen seeps back into my lungs, and my heart starts to beat again at an unsteady pace. A frustrated sigh leaves my lips before I can stop it. I highly doubt Hazel or Ramsey know about Dakota’s side hustle. If I had to guess, no one knows.
“She just forgot an appointment with the handyman,” I explain. But as the dread recedes, anger fills the crevices it left behind. “Will you let me know when she leaves?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t tell her or Hazel I was looking for her.”
“Okay…” Ramsey trails off, sounding skeptical of my intentions.
“I don’t want her coming up with a list of excuses before she talks to me.”
“Fair enough,” he concedes.
“You doing all right?” I ask. The man is in the last few weeks of the run-up to his second wedding. “No cold feet? We could always run off to Monte Carlo for a few weeks. Take a yacht up to Portofino.” I know he’ll say no to all of that but as his brother I feel like I need to make the offer.
“Nah. Too excited about being able to call her the little wife again.” Ramsey laughs.
“All right.”
“See you tomorrow?” We’re meeting for drinks along with Levi. Ironing out some business details and talking about what he wants for his bachelor party.
“See you then.”
We hang up, and I close my eyes, pressing my phone to my forehead while I breathe a sigh of relief. She’s fine. She’s safe. On the family ranch out on some trail riding horses with her best friend. Not locked in some psycho’s basement as his personal plaything.
Except now she has another problem. Me.