Chapter 7 - Ghost
GHOST
I popped a chip into my mouth and leaned back in my chair, my regular mask flipped up while my boots rested on the edge of the desk in my room at the clubhouse.
The glow from the monitors painted everything in pale blue light, five screens angled just right so I didn’t have to crane my neck to see what I needed to see.
Entryway.
Living room.
Kitchen.
Hallway that led toward her bedroom.
And one exterior angle I’d managed to snag from across the street.
That was enough.
I could’ve put one in her bedroom. It would’ve been easy. In and out in under thirty seconds.
I didn’t.
There were lines, and I wasn’t interested in waking up one day realizing I’d become the kind of bastard we were trying to hunt down.
The cameras weren’t there for kicks. They were there for leverage.
For patterns. For knowing who came and went and whether she was being followed or pressured or cornered in ways she didn’t even realize yet.
A woman tied to the top floor of that building wasn’t just a secretary or a paralegal or whatever title they slapped on her.
She was proximity.
And proximity got people killed.
Still, if I was being honest, which I usually wasn’t, there had been something else that made me go through with it. The way she’d looked stepping out of that car. The way she’d scanned the street like she expected something bad to happen.
That look didn’t belong on a woman who was supposed to just be filing paperwork.
So yeah.
Intel first.
Peace of mind second.
Jasmine pushed through her front door looking like she’d just been dragged behind that town car instead of riding in it. She locked the deadbolt, then the chain, then tested the handle like she didn’t trust the damn thing to hold.
Smart.
I crunched another chip and watched her drop her purse onto the counter like it weighed fifty pounds. Her shoulders sagged, and for a moment she just stood there staring at nothing, like she was trying to remember how to breathe.
“They’re running you ragged,” I muttered to the screen.
She kicked off her heels and rubbed the back of her neck, rolling it side to side before wandering into the kitchen.
The pantry door opened, and suddenly she was rearranging cans that had no business being rearranged.
Rice got shifted. Pasta got straightened.
Labels got turned so they faced forward like she was running inventory at a grocery store.
Stress habit.
People who couldn’t control the big shit tried to control the little shit.
I’d seen it a thousand times.
She made ramen, but she barely ate it. Fork lifted, dropped, lifted again. Her phone lit up once with a notification, and she snatched it up so fast it was like she’d been waiting for it.
Or dreading it.
That thought stuck with me.
She eventually drifted down the hallway toward her bedroom, and the hallway camera caught her pause at the threshold. She stood there for a few seconds, shoulders tight, like she was gearing herself up to walk into something unpleasant instead of her own damn room.
Then she disappeared inside.
That was where my view ended.
On purpose.
I leaned back in my chair and stared at the blank space on the monitor where her bedroom door had closed.
I told myself that was enough. I didn’t need to know what she did once that door shut.
I didn’t need to know what pajamas she wore or whether she slept on her side or her back or face-down into the pillow like she was trying to suffocate the day out of her lungs.
That wasn’t why I was here.
A few minutes later she came back into frame, changed into sweats, hair loose around her shoulders, face scrubbed clean of whatever makeup she’d worn to that damn office. She looked younger without it. Softer. But not relaxed.
Never relaxed.
She dropped onto the couch instead of going to bed and just sat there, elbows on her knees, staring at her phone like it was going to explode.
Then it lit up.
She froze.
Not startled.
Not surprised.
Resigned.
That was worse.
Her spine straightened as she answered. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but I didn’t need to. The tension in her posture told me enough. Her jaw tightened. Her free hand curled into her thigh.
“Yes,” I saw her mouth.
She hung up and stared at the wall like she was counting backward from ten before standing up.
Then she moved fast.
Down the hallway again. Out of frame. Back into frame in fresh clothes that had no business being worn at ten o’clock at night. Blouse. Skirt. Heels back on. She wrestled with a pair of pantyhose and swore when something snagged. Yanked them off. Grabbed another pair.
Urgent.
Not planned.
“The fuck are they dragging you back in for?” I asked the empty room.
A paralegal didn’t get summoned at ten on a Friday unless something was wrong. Or unless someone wanted to remind her who held the leash.
That thought made something low and ugly settle in my chest.
She grabbed her laptop bag and purse, slung both over her shoulder, and walked toward the door. Her hand hovered over the knob for a second longer than it needed to.
Like she didn’t want to open it.
That hesitation hit harder than I liked.
“Ghost?”
Cap’s knock came before he stepped inside.
“You good?” he asked, eyes landing on the monitors.
“She just got called back into work,” I said without looking away.
“At this hour?”
“Ten on a Friday,” I replied, leaning forward in my chair. “She didn’t look thrilled about it either.”
Cap moved closer. “You think it’s connected?”
“I think she didn’t look like she had a choice.”
That was the part that stuck.
He studied the screens. “You get audio?”
“No.”
“Phone cloned?”
“Not yet. Earlier was tight. Cameras came first.”
He nodded slowly. “Then get the phone.”
I was already standing, mask sliding back down over my face.
“She wasn’t in the official registry,” I reminded him. “They’re hiding her for a reason.”
Cap’s jaw flexed. “Then figure out why.”
I shut down the monitors, but not before watching her lock the door behind her and disappear down the hall outside her apartment.
Thirty-five minutes if I took the back roads and didn’t hit traffic.
Forty-five if I behaved.
Tonight didn’t feel like a behave kind of night.
As the engine roared to life beneath me, I told myself this was about infiltration. About leverage. About dismantling a ring that treated women like commodities and thought they could buy silence.
But somewhere between the clubhouse and Bryersville, I had to admit something that didn’t sit entirely clean in my chest.
If someone was pulling her back into that building at ten o’clock at night like she belonged to them—
I wanted to know why.
And I wanted it to stop.