Chapter Forty-Two - Joshua
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Joshua
Vanessa is better off dead than seeing the man you grew up to be.
The words echo in my head for the hundredth time in the last half hour. I haven’t moved from this spot since she slammed the door, and I wish I could hear that slam on repeat, but I’m not so lucky.
Vanessa is better off dead than seeing the man you grew up to be.
The worst part is that I know she’s right. It’s why I’ve never once given legitimate thought to what Vanessa would see in me if she were alive today.
She’d probably be ashamed to call me her brother, disgusted by what I’m capable of. But maybe she’d understand that I’ve fought like hell to get where I am, and she’d be proud of what I’ve built.
Yeah, right.
Most likely, she’d think I was no better than the sadistic drunkard who fathered her.
The comparison feels like a punch to the gut.
At no point have I been under the impression that I’m a good—or even decent—man. Still, I always thought I was better than Scott.
But how could I be?
I’ve hurt far more people than he ever did without an ounce of regret. I even enjoyed inflicting the pain—same as him.
But that’s not completely true. I never wanted to hurt Elise.
So, why did I?
Seeing her face deflate at my callous words felt like a knife sliding across my heart, but it came so naturally. I don’t know how to love her. I never have. My first instinct is to lash out, to hurt, to kill.
Being with her means denying everything I’ve ever known, and I thought I could do it.
Maybe I can’t.
It takes all my willpower to drag my eyes to the ring she so easily threw aside before she left me.
I move to pick it up and fall into my chair, inspecting the only gift I’ve ever given someone.
Her eyes filled with wonder the first time she saw it. She had forgotten all about our argument when I told her I wanted to marry her, and for a moment, I could imagine her saying yes to a life with me.
When she finally decided to wear the ring, I didn’t think anything would beat that. Then I saw how happy she was here at the base—taking on responsibilities, gaining respect, and getting to know the other soldiers. I swear it was like she was made for this life.
Like she was made for me.
Yes, I lied, but it was to protect her. She was so at ease knowing Tripp was gone and could never hurt her again. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her he wasn’t, but I also couldn’t bring myself to finish the job.
Every time I saw him, I was taken back to that day in the basement. He’d stood over her beaten and stripped body, ready to break her.
He loved hurting her, so I let myself love hurting him, and I did.
Too much to stop.
Now he’s gone, and I have no idea who took him or why. All I know is that I should’ve killed him when I had the chance.
I wish I’d told Elise the truth. I wish I hadn’t lashed out at her. I wish I hadn’t let her leave.
I wish she was here now.
Loving Elise doesn’t come naturally to me, but I was learning. I was getting better.
And I just screwed up big time.
I clutch the ring in my fist, hating that it isn’t on her finger now, but I’ll fix that. I have to—because all I can think about is how much I need her.
My eyes flit to the clock, and I curse when I see my conference call starts in five minutes.
It can’t hurt to call real quick and hear her voice—even if it is just to have her yell at me again. I’ll take Elise’s anger over her silence any day.
My phone is in my hand, and I dial before another second passes. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that she doesn’t answer. I’d ignore me, too, after how I acted, but that doesn’t change how badly I need to talk to her.
I try a different tactic and dial the next number. The phone rings for so long that I worry no one will pick up, but finally, Quincy’s voice comes through the line.
“Wha—what happened?” His words are slurred, and I jump to my feet.
“Are you drunk right now when you should be watching Elise?”
“Elise…” he mutters like he’s testing the name on his lips.
Something is wrong.
“Quincy, where are you?”
“My room,” he says the words like they’re one.
I’m running down the hall when I make my third call, and when this one goes to voicemail, I know, without a doubt, that something is very, very wrong.
The next call—Nate—goes to voicemail, too.
My fifth call goes to Donovan, who answers on the first ring. “Mr. More—”
“Where the hell is Elise? And why isn’t Ryder picking up his phone?”
“I’ll have Kade run through security footage,” he says without missing a beat.
“Order every soldier in this building to look for Elise, and come to Quincy’s room now.”
“On my way.”
I hang up and fire off an email canceling the conference call, all without breaking my pace. When I get to Quincy’s room, I throw the door open and curse under my breath at the scene.
Quincy lies sprawled across the floor in the middle of the room. His head rocks side-to-side as if he’s trying to shake it clear but can’t muster the energy to. His phone rests in his limp arm, and it’s a wonder he was able to answer it when I called.
“What the hell happened?” I ask, getting down to help him to an upright position.
He says nothing but points to the table on the far side of the room, where a half-empty beer bottle sits.
I go to it, and even though I find nothing out of the ordinary, it doesn’t take a genius to know what happened here.
Just then, Donovan reaches the door. “What’s going on? Quincy, are you okay?”
“Get Dr. Hanes to take Quincy to the infirmary. I need him to run tests to figure out what drug was put in here,” I say as I lift the bottle.
He pulls out his phone, and I do the same. After two rings, I already know he won’t answer.
Where the hell is Ryder?
“Hanes is on his way. What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know. Elise is gone, Nate and Ryder won’t pick up their phones, and Quincy was drugged.”
He nods and looks like he has more questions, but I’m already out of the room and racing down the hall. The room I’m heading to is well across the base, but I barely break a sweat as I run there at full speed. When I reach the door and see it’s open, I sag with relief.
That is until I step inside to find it empty.
But I can tell by how the covers are bunched together that she was here.
This is where she went after our fight.
I have no idea why she’d find comfort here. Maybe it’s because it reminds her of how far we’ve come since she was confined in this very room, or maybe it’s because she didn’t think I’d look here.
But if Elise isn’t here, then where the hell is she?
An hour later, I still have no idea where Elise is.
All we have so far is the security footage of Elise and Ryder leaving the base earlier tonight, but there’s absolutely no context to go off of.
The small voice in the back of my head has drawn its own conclusions, and I’ve done a good job of ignoring them, but with every minute that passes, it gets more difficult to fight it off.
She really left me.
Elise convinced Ryder to help her leave me, and he did.
I’ve always feared that all this time, she was only pretending to want me as a way to bide her time—then she said as much in my office tonight. My instincts tell me she was only trying to hurt me like I hurt her, but there’s a part of me that’s inclined to believe it.
Though, even that part of me has to admit that something about this doesn’t seem right. Why would they drug Quincy, and why has Nate disappeared completely?
Then there’s the fact that, though we can’t trace it, there’s definitely security footage missing. There’s an entire hour before my fight with Elise that was replaced with a loop.
Kade sits beside me in his office, relentlessly searching for the missing footage or anything that could help us. His team occupies the other half dozen computers, all reviewing footage from the day.
“Mr. Moreno,” one of the newest recruits, Daniel, calls. “I’m not sure if this is out of the ordinary, but you should check it out.”
I stand over him and watch the screen, which depicts the events that occurred in this very room when Elise and I would’ve been in my office.
The room is empty, and there’s no movement on the screen. After several seconds, I ball my fist to stop myself from hurting this kid. “What the hell am I looking at right now?”
His eyes snap up at the bite in my tone, and his voice wavers as he answers, “Nothing yet, Mr. Moreno, but keep watching.”
I repress the urge to snap again as I watch the screen.
That’s when I see it.
It’s barely noticeable, and I’m surprised that Daniel was able to catch it at all, but it’s there.
To anyone else, the person in question would be indistinguishable, but I know, without a doubt, who it is.
“Play it again,” I demand, and Daniel obliges.
The motionless room on the screen has my complete attention now, and I see the second his shoulder comes into focus. He knew just where to stand so that none of the security cameras would catch his face, and there’s only one man with that level of skill and intimate knowledge of this base.
It’s Ryder.
“Can you trace the activity on the server to see what he was looking for?”
The kid nods, and it’s another excruciating ten minutes before he looks nervously over his shoulder, and I come to stand behind him.
“Sir, he wasn’t looking for anything,” Daniel says, breaking into a sweat. “He took everything.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means literally every file on our entire database was copied onto an external hard drive today at the same time that security footage was taken.”
It takes everything in me to stop from throwing my fist through a wall.
“I mean, that shouldn’t be possible in the first place, and this was done in the span of a few minutes. A download that size should’ve taken most of the day.”
Kade and I share a look over Daniel’s head because we know exactly how he did it.
After all, the idea had been mine.
When I came into power, it was during an FBI investigation, and in an effort to wipe any incriminating evidence, most of our digital records had to be purged.
We didn’t have time to securely transfer the data onto an external hard drive first, forcing us to erase it outright.
It’s the main reason it took me so long to rebuild the empire—we were digitally starting from scratch.
To prevent that from happening again, Ryder, Kade, and I devised a plan for quick data extraction. Only the three of us knew about the project since it could be disastrous if it fell into the wrong hands.
Just like this.
Ryder—my oldest and best friend—stole every file on our database, then left with the only girl I’ve ever loved.
I’m not sure how much more I can handle, but when Kade’s eyes widen in horror, I know things are only going to get worse.
“Sir," Kade says, voice tight with urgency, “we just got a message.”