Chapter 3
GHOST
A car honked its horn at a convertible at the intersection where I sat. The shadows of the alleyway cloaked me.
A favorite perch of mine.
Not this alleyway specifically. But darkness. I understood Brutus in that regard. The darkness always gave us advantages. It gave me the ability to slink around and witness things that people would otherwise like to keep hidden.
Or, in the instance of the road rage brawl happening in the middle of the street, I got front row seats to a good bit of entertainment.
I grinned as I slipped a piece of popcorn beneath my mask.
I watched the two middle-aged men with socks pulled up to their knees try to throw hands like they were something. The first punch told me everything I needed to know about the man who honked at the convertible. Just another man, trying to prove his worth while breaking his knuckles.
Watching him howl made me smirk as I slid another piece of popcorn beneath my mask.
“One broken knuckle for you,” I muttered.
Only for the man in the convertible to try to punch back before howling and holding his hand.
“And two broken knuckles for you,” I said with a chuckle.
I relaxed back on my bike, my boots kicked up on my handlebars.
The sky above was overcast, giving me the perfect cover about ten feet from the entrance to the back alley.
My eyes roved over the police officers who showed up to disburse the angry men who honestly needed to get back to their lawnmowers and leave the fighting to the professionals.
It was weird what people considered to be a man nowadays.
When I got bored of the commotion, my gaze slid back to the building behind them.
My head tilted back to recount the stories of Langley, Pierceson, and Dahl.
Twenty one stories. That motherfucking building was the tallest one in downtown Bryersville.
It loomed over everything else, casting hard shadows whenever the sun moved.
Its black reflective windows shimmered in the sunlight, reflecting the world back to the people below instead of giving us an inside look at what was going on.
Intentional, to say the least.
Looks pretentious as fuck.
I flipped up my mask and let the wind catch my scars. My eyes fluttered closed before I took another bite of my popcorn. Whoever said scar tissue never regrew sensation was stupid. I always felt the wind on my face.
Doc said it was phantom sensations.
I said he’s full of shit.
After finishing my popcorn, I pulled out my cell phone.
I wiped off my fingers on my pants before pulling up the encrypted internet browser on my burner phone.
Ranger was able to get me access to the employee records of the entire company, which popped up as a list document when I typed in a certain URL.
I checked the timer on my phone. Two more hours.
I had access to this document for two more hours before it was coded to scrub itself from my phone.
There were hundreds of people employed to this fucking place.
It honestly boggled my mind. I shook my head as I flipped my mask back down and scrolled through its contents.
There were headshot pictures sitting by names, addresses, phone numbers, and emails.
There were paralegals, secretaries, freelancers, web designers.
Fucking hell, they even had bodyguards on payroll.
I thought that was interesting.
Why would a law firm need bodyguards on payroll?
Figuring out who the fuck I would approach was a task in and of itself, and I had less than two hours to make my decision. I automatically eliminated anyone at the very top or the very bottom. The top wouldn’t talk, and the bottom wouldn’t know anything. But that still left…
Jesus fuck, that still left over three hundred motherfucking employees.
The fuck was going on inside of this building?
Law firming the entire Midwest?
I chewed on the inside of my cheek as my eyes darted from the building to my phone and back again.
I wanted to do some more research on this company.
Specifically, I wanted to visit their website.
But that would be for another time. My attention needed to be present, and this list in my hands on my phone would rip my attention away from the building enough.
I’d been perched for damn near three hours, trying to figure out my next move.
That was until a blacked-out town car with the firm’s logo attached to it pulled up to the curb.
I watched as a driver scrambled out from behind the wheel.
He rushed to the back door closest to the curb where a very expensive-looking man stepped out.
He glared at the driver, buttoning his suit coat before turning and walking up the stairs toward the entrance to the law firm.
I watched two of the bodyguards they had on payroll flank either side of him, walking with him up the steps like he was a toddler who needed help.
I almost dipped my head to figure out who in the fuck that guy was, thinking he was important enough to have that shit.
But I was glad I didn’t.
Because then I would have missed her.
“Who the fuck—”
The instant she stumbled out of that car, I froze.
The assistant from the footage, Jasmine.
The one I’d already suspected didn’t belong in that place.
Her brown hair wafted in the breeze that kicked back up, and I flipped up my mask mindlessly to feel it.
Her hair blew about, smacking against her tan skin while she dug her things out of the back seat.
The driver already climbed back into the vehicle.
She pulled out a purse and another bag, along with a couple of binders that she tucked close to herself.
And when she looked up, surveying the road in front of her, I could have sworn she caught my eyes.
She looked dead at me, and those caramel brown eyes of hers sparkled in the sunlight. I stared right back, but I knew she didn’t see me. Not with the way the darkness cloaked the space behind the dumpster where I sat. She looked so lost. So tired.
I wondered why.
I snapped a photo for identification. She was easy on the eyes, that much was for certain. She jerked a bit, as if someone had ripped her out of a trance, and then she closed the car door.
The driver practically sped away from the curb.
I waited for two other bodyguards to come out of the woodworks. I waited for her to be flanked like that other guy was. But no one came out for her. I furrowed my brow as she clicked up those concrete steps in her high heels. She was sharp and professional despite the long day written on her face.
My jaw tightened.
When she finally entered the building, I forced my gaze to drop. I pulled up the employee registry and searched for the name I already knew.
Jasmine.
Ranger had zoomed in on her picture during the meeting. I’d said her name out loud. I hadn’t forgotten it.
Caramel brown eyes. Bronze skin. The kind of woman who didn’t belong in a building like that.
But she wasn’t in the registry.
I scrolled slower this time, checking every face. Paralegals. Assistants. Executives. Contractors. No Jasmine with those eyes. No Jasmine with that skin tone.
Which meant one of two things.
She wasn’t officially on payroll.
Or they didn’t want her traceable.
My jaw tightened.
I pulled up Dahl’s profile instead. Smug smile. Expensive suit. Veneers so white they practically glowed. The kind of man who thought money made him untouchable.
She’d stepped out of his car.
That wasn’t coincidence.
I already knew she was close to the ring. The footage had proven that much. What I didn’t know was how deep she was in.
Best case scenario? She was leverage.
Worst case scenario? She was trapped.
Either way, she was my way in.
I clicked the phone screen off and slipped it back into my pocket.
Then I switched my mask for a black bandana since people tended to talk to me more when I had the cloth instead of the full mask.
I cranked up the engine of my bike, feeling the vibrations between my legs as I slowly eased myself out of the alleyway.
The downtown area was so busy with bustling people trying to get somewhere that no one even took a second look at the man with the black mask over his face.
It played in my favor, because one look across the street showed me that there was a parking garage behind the building with arrows and signs pointing me toward the five-dollar-an-hour parking.
Five. Fucking. Dollars.
“Fuck that shit,” I growled as I turned out onto the road.
There was a McDonald’s right beside that fucking law firm.
I’d park there, for fuck’s sake.
And no one would be any the wiser.
You know, since most of the people around me had their faces stuck in their phones anyway.
Thank you, technology.
Fucking made my stealth work easier than usual.