Benson
Relief exploded in my chest the moment I heard Esme’s voice. Malcolm pressed his forehead into the back of the passenger seat while Parker tightened his fingers around the steering wheel.
Ghost could only get me a phone number. That was it. Just her goddamn phone number. Not a birth date or a single social media post. No other trace of her in the digital world, as if she didn’t exist. It had frustrated him, and he asked me for more time because he was curious.
Ghost didn’t do shit like that.
Knowledge was power, and I’d never felt more powerless in my life.
“Come back,” Malcolm commanded, lifting his head so Esme could hear him better. “Come home.”
“Mal…”
“Please, baby girl.” He looked off into the distance, toward the mansion a mile up the road. Parker drove past the gated estate when Esme’s guard had turned in to the driveway. The gate had already been open, and he’d made the last-minute choice to continue down the main road so we didn’t scare our woman.
She was tucked safely behind that now-locked gate. Hidden from the outside world in her parents’ house. We only knew where she was because at least her phone number had given us something to track. We’d followed her all over the city before she’d picked up her friend only a few doors down from our house. We lost sight of the driver so many times we’d all gone a little insane. There must have been something in her phone that kept blocking us every few minutes, making it impossible for my system to keep up with her location in real time.
That had gotten Ghost a few more calls from me because he was the one who had built my fucking system. Whoever Arnaud Barbier had covering his daughter’s very existence was better than Ghost, and that shouldn’t have been possible.
When the GPS finally recalculated the last time we lost sight of her, she’d been out of the city. Ghost texted me the Barbiers’ New York address before I could make another call to him.
“We can come get you,” Parker tacked on, his own voice filled with a plea. We were all ready to break down the gates, but we wanted her to come to us. Needed her to. “You only have to say yes, and we will be there before you know it.”
“I want to,” she admitted hesitantly. “But I can’t. My father wants to talk to me about something.”
“Later tonight, then,” I pressed. “That will give you time to pack a bag.”
“I have school tomorrow,” she whispered.
“Baby girl, I will take you to your classes myself,” Malcolm volunteered. “I promise you will get there on time even if I have to personally fly you there in our helicopter.”
“You can pilot a helicopter?” she asked, sounding impressed.
“Among other forms of air transportation,” he told her, his chest puffing up. Parker and I both flipped him off.
“That’s hot, Malcolm,” she purred.
“Come home, and I’ll take you flying tonight,” he promised, so damn hopeful even my chest hurt for him.
“Esme!”
An angry feminine voice yelled her name in the background, and we all sat up straighter. The sheer disrespect and violence I heard in that tone pissed me off.
“Who the fuck is talking to you like that?” I demanded.
“I have to go,” she huffed, ending the call abruptly.
“Who do you think that was?” Parker, typically the most level-headed of us, mused, but he couldn’t hide the wildness of his eyes. He was just as ready to bust in and get our woman back as Malcolm and I. “Her mother, or maybe her sister?”
“No clue,” I muttered, my gaze dropping to the phone. Uneasiness churning in my gut, I made another call to Ghost.
“I told you to give me more time. I’m working on getting information right this minute. This person intrigues me, so I’m throwing you a free pass.”
Given that was the most I’d ever heard Ghost speak at one time, I could pick up his slight accent. Definitely Eastern European, as I’d suspected. “Change of plans. Get me everything you can on Eloise Barbier, the sister.”
There was a short pause before he spoke again. “If she’s being protected the same way as the other woman, I will still need time to unlock any information.”
“As soon as you get anything, I need it. That woman might pose a risk to Esme.”
Another pause, followed by a tight, “Why?”
“Gut reaction,” I told him, looking at Malcolm, who was watching me with narrowed eyes.
“Anything I find will be yours the instant I have it.”
Ghost hung up, and I dropped my phone into a cupholder, scrubbing both hands over my face.
“You know the sister?” Parker demanded. I could still feel Malcolm’s eyes lasering into my head.
“I might,” I answered reluctantly.
“Might?” Parker’s hands gripped the steering wheel so hard, I wondered if he was going to break the damned thing off. “What the fuck do you mean by ‘might’? When she mentioned her sister, we told her we didn’t know who she was. She was upset about something until I assured her of it. Obviously, she was jealous at the thought of us hooking up with the woman. Are you making me a liar, ?”
“It’s not like that!” I exploded, frustration burning through me. “I haven’t hooked up with her fucking sister. I don’t know anyone named Eloise. And if this chick is who I think she is from the description Esme gave us, I wouldn’t her let anywhere near my dick.”
“Then who the fuck is she?” Parker barked.
“Lizzie, the girl that’s been basically stalking me for the last month, has a birthmark on the inside of her thigh, just like Esme described. It’s a very distinct mark that anyone could see, given how many times she’s tried to open her legs for me.”
“Jesus fuck,” Malcolm groaned.
“That girl is unhinged.” Parker’s face went tight, having witnessed Lizzie bothering me on more than one occasion. She was at Inferno almost every weekend, and because I handled the security for both sides of the club, I was there more frequently than my two best friends. But I rarely did more than grab a drink at the bar and talk to a few of my other clients after I handled whatever work-related issue had popped up.
I didn’t hook up one-on-one. None of us did anymore. We hadn’t been with anyone in months when we’d seen Esme at Ignite, and everything inside us had known she was ours.
For the past month, Lizzie had been at Inferno almost every night. She was a pretty little blonde, but there had been no spark. Nothing that had pulled me to her. At first, I didn’t get any weird vibes from her. We would stand at the bar and chat while she drank a glass of champagne and I half listened, primarily watching the room for any security issues.
Our conversations had been on neutral topics, but over the course of a few days, they shifted from the weather and stock market to her favorite places to vacation. Which, for whatever reason, led her to telling me her favorite sex positions.
With a blink of her lashes, I’d become uncomfortable around her. Just because Inferno was a sex club didn’t mean that was the only reason people were there. Many of the members came simply to socialize. Relax. Be around kindred spirits. It was a safe place to be themselves.
As soon as she brought up sex positions, I shut that shit down and excused myself. But as with every other time I had an interaction with Lizzie, I forgot about her as soon as I got home. Out of sight, out of mind. Until the next night, when she casually dropped down onto the chair beside where I’d been sitting, talking to a client and his wife.
There’d been a wildness in Lizzie’s eyes when she’d taken in the other woman. Again, I hadn’t taken that red flag seriously. She was a young woman who was mildly annoying me. Nothing about her screamed sick psychopath.
Until she heard no from me repeatedly.
Obviously, “no” wasn’t something she heard often enough in her life, because she had zero ability to cope when denied something she wanted.
“If that girl is Esme’s sister…” Malcolm trailed off, shaking his head. “We need to clear this up with her as soon as we can.”
“Let’s wait for Ghost to get us a full report on Eloise,” I suggested, just as my phone rang. Hoping Ghost had gotten us something, I picked it up, only to see Trevor’s name on the screen. “What’s up, Pearson?”
“Tell me everything about the girl, Esme, you met at the club last night,” he demanded.
“Fuck off,” I snarled, jealousy bubbling inside me fast and angry. Old friend or not, I was already planning where I’d bury his body after I killed him.
“No, wait!” he yelled when I would have hung up. “I’m not interested in your girl.”
“Then why the fuck would you ask about her?” I gritted out while Parker and Malcolm seethed around me.
He blew out a harsh breath. “Her friend, Lia. I brought her home last night. But I had to leave to handle some shit with my kid, and Lia left. I have nothing to go on. No last name. No birthday. Not even what college she attends. The only way I have of tracking her down is the girl you dickheads were with last night. Please, man. I’ll do whatever you want, but I have to find this girl. She’s it for me, . Lia is my one.”