Chapter 15
Carter
Thank God I get a moment to myself. This day has been exhausting.
Between D going missing, Zeke trying to kill Satori, then stopping John from killing Satori once he arrived, and managing to get everyone back over here to the Attic…
it was a terrible time. Everyone is on edge, and I can’t shake the feeling that something horrible has happened.
John can feel it, too. Just when I thought I had seen the darkness in Damien’s eyes, of course his father had to prove that there’s always something more terrifying.
Holy hell, Ash about gave me a stroke. The moment we heard her scream, we all raced outside with guns drawn, thinking someone had hurt her.
She wasn’t, at least physically. The pain on her face and in those sobs would’ve broken any grown man, though.
I haven’t seen Zeke so frantic since the day Taylor died, and I could see the worry on his face when he had to carry her back inside.
Even Serena cried some, and she had to talk to me about possibly giving Ash a dose of diphenhydramine to calm her down.
Thankfully, it wasn’t needed, and she and Zeke got Ash to settle down enough.
The Attic is in chaos, and everyone knows something big with D is going down.
We haven’t shared details with everyone yet, but we might have to soon if we don’t find him.
I know what the protocol says to do. That’s what I should do.
It’s what the old me would’ve done, but I can’t now.
There just isn’t a world where this organization exists, and Damien doesn’t.
I’ve gone over hours of surveillance feeds, and I have facial recognition scanning street camera footage, but nothing is picking up D after he left the Attic.
The cameras see him leave, and then nothing.
He’s not seen again anywhere. The clock is ticking, and we’re running out of time.
Our chances of finding him after twenty-four hours go down significantly, and each minute that passes only heightens my fear.
A stampede of letters, numbers, and flashing images fly across the screen.
The lights are super bright, and the non-stop flickering is giving me a headache.
It could be because I’ve done nothing but stare at this damn screen since before we drove over to the Attic, but I can’t look away.
If the roles were reversed, Damien wouldn’t eat or sleep until he found one of us.
He proved that with his wife. I can’t waste a second.
I’ve never felt this level of worry before.
Damien has put me in some messed up situations, but this is by far the worst. He’s gone—vanished without a trace.
I should’ve asked where he was going earlier, but I never thought to.
Normally, he just tells me. So, when I told him I’d see him at the house, I figured he would say something if he was planning on going somewhere else.
I finally take my eyes off the screen and look towards D’s office, knowing Serena is inside with Ash.
She’s a wreck, and rightfully so. She needs him just as much as he needs her, and I don’t know what to do.
D? I’m used to him. He lashes out and starts committing arson when he’s away from her for too long, and all it takes is some talking down to at least get a little break.
But that dead look in Ash’s eyes? I don’t know how to help with that.
Satori has been shoving this ‘Damien left on his own’ idea up our asses every chance he gets, and it’s only making her more upset.
That only triggered John. He went on some rant about her and Leanne both not leaving his sight, but the three of us argued with him.
If D is anything like his father, then John is going to want blood.
A lot of it. Ash doesn’t need to be around that, and if he’s too occupied with torturing someone, how do we know he’ll be able to protect her if need be?
The protocol says we take care of her. We watch her.
One of us is to be by her side at all times until we get him back, and when I privately shared that protocol with him, John finally backed down.
If Damien’s wish was for him to protect her in an event like this, that’s what he would’ve done.
I’m sitting across from my normal seat at the conference table so I have a clear shot of the office door.
There’s nothing behind me but the wall, and I’m sure to keep my chair pushed back enough to ensure no one tries to slip past me.
No one should see what is flying across my screen right now.
It would only make Ash more upset, Zeke would blow a gasket, Alex would give me some long, stern talk about loyalty, and it would only boost Satori’s already too-good-for-shit ego.
As much as I hate this, I have to do it.
Satori’s theory makes sense, and that thought makes me want to bash my head into a wall.
The fact that he’s right doesn’t sit well with me.
I don’t trust him, and I know Damien sure as hell doesn’t.
That doesn’t change the facts, though, and as an analyst, I’m bound to look at them as gospel.
Damien was logged in when his permissions were deactivated.
His username gave the command. His phone was on at the time he left the Attic, but somehow, it’s turned off now.
The video feed to the house was looped back to make it appear like nothing was there, and the loop started ten minutes after D left the Attic.
There was no security breach. No unauthorized activity.
Nothing. None of it makes any sense, and all the signs point to him leaving.
There’s no way he didn’t hear what Satori screamed last night.
It was like he was trying to convince us all that Damien’s crazy.
Well, news flash, asshole: we already knew that.
We just don’t give a shit. D’s the type of crazy that you don’t normally have to worry about.
He’s not going to hover over me while I sleep, or slice my throat for stealing a piece of pizza.
That’s more like Zeke.
He’s another worry of mine. I know Zeke’s been through a lot lately, but I don’t have time to babysit, and Ash isn’t in the right mind to take care of him.
He’s acting like his normal self. He’s heated up and ready for action, and I’m shocked by how clearly he’s thinking.
So, as much as I probably shouldn’t, I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt and allowing him to help.
There was a time when I thought D was losing it.
I’m not going to lie, when he first started stalking Ashia, and he did it so openly, I was concerned.
Especially at the time, Damien ran everything.
We couldn’t afford him to end up in jail, and I wasn’t sure Ashia was worth the time.
Not to insult her in any way. I love Ash—she’s like family.
But to go to that extent when he could’ve just asked her out?
Took her flowers in person instead of being a creep? It blew my mind.
I didn’t understand it then, but as a reserved spot on my screen continues tracking someone not relevant to Damien’s disappearance, I get it now more than ever. Even as that tracker says she’s twenty feet away and behind a closed door, I’m not moving it away from my display.
The rest of the screen continues to search, and I can’t help but imagine where Damien is right now—how much pain he could possibly be in.
He's done everything he can to keep us alive and well, and now he’s the one in trouble.
I know he would never abandon the life he has.
Us, Ashia, the baby. As insane as Damien may be sometimes, he’s also crazy devoted to us all.
There’s just no way in hell he’d leave. That doesn’t change the evidence in front of me, though, and that’s something else I need to figure out.
I look up to see Ser slip out of the office door as she slides the Doppler back into the case.
Her emerald green eyes look up at me, and she comes to a slow stop.
They’re piercing, almost like they’re a fantasy, and she’s really a siren poking her head out of the sea.
She always either eyes me like I’ll be her new toy, or like she’ll rip my throat out.
It’s exhilarating. My heartrate picks up every time she stares at me with those hungry eyes, and even though I know she’ll devour me and spit me back out, a part of me wants to let her nibble.
Not on anything too vital, though.
She doesn’t understand what she’s done to me.
There are parts of myself that I didn’t know existed until she stepped out of Damien’s car.
The moment her frightened features softened as she saw me for the first time, she affected me in ways that made me question who I was.
She’s everything I’m not. Wild. Carefree.
Toxic. I was always respectful, calm, and focused…
until her. Something about her bled into me, and I suddenly understood why I never wanted to have sex before.
Somehow, I knew that nothing else would have been better than having her, and as furious as I am with her, I never want anything else again.
And I hate it.
“Hey,” she says softly with a small grin pulling at her lips.
“How is she?” I ask quietly on the off chance that Ashia is actually asleep. Serena’s face falls the moment I don’t reciprocate her adoration, and I fight not to blink.
“Not good. The baby’s okay, though, and Ash’s heartrate is finally coming down.
” She hugs herself and surprisingly steps over to me.
She sits on top of the table next to my laptop, and I scoot it over so she can’t see it.
The last thing Ash needs is to doubt my loyalty to Damien, and I’m sure Serena wouldn’t wait a second to go running her mouth.
“Can you believe how John came in earlier? How scary he looked?”