Chapter 2
Rooster
I press my palms to my eyes and rub, wondering if I might need to pull out my contacts and grab my glasses.
I'm no stranger to pulling all-nighters while working, but my eyes have been glued to my computer screen for hours as I try to figure out who in the hell this guy was who tied Kaylee up and held her at knifepoint.
I pull in a deep breath when I see Twisted enter the room.
"Hey, man," I say, shoving my chair back from my computer and lifting my arms over my head to stretch.
He grunts, which is his only response, before sitting at the conference table.
Bandera is next to show up with Heathen coming in last and closing the conference room doors.
"What have you found?" Bandera asks from the head of the table, despite not having been named as president of this Cerberus chapter. I know the man is vying for it, and it has to chap his ass with every day that goes by where he isn't officially named.
I don't know that we even really need a leader. The guys are all working different jobs, but I guess someone needs to head shit up when they go out on a job together.
"She didn't meet this guy online," I tell them. "She went on a date with another guy and met this guy when she was leaving that date. We have literally nothing on him. There's nothing to follow."
"You could see about the videos from wherever that first date happened," Heathen offers as if I wouldn't have thought of that myself.
"I did," I assure him. "I don't know if he had access to their video feed, but it's been deleted. There's nothing."
"Not even a phone number?" Heathen asks, sitting up and leaning further over the table.
I can't even imagine what's going through his head.
Kaylee was traumatized last night, and he has to feel helpless right now.
"The number she was getting texts from is a burner phone. We did some minimal triangulation of where he was texting her from, but it didn't provide any personal information."
"I fucking hate burner phones," Bandera snaps, his hands clenched into fists on top of the table.
"It seems he went super stalker on her very quickly. He texted her within an hour of them exchanging numbers outside of that restaurant," I explain.
"She didn't find that creepy?" Twisted asks, and I can hear the judgment in his tone, as if he can't believe a woman would be okay with getting a text from a guy she just met.
I don't have much experience with women. My job doesn't really allow for it, but isn't the point of dating to get to know the other person? If he didn't text, then how else would they jump-start any form of communication?
"I haven't spoken with her," I tell him."What I do know is that she texted back, and it wasn't to tell him to leave her alone. This all escalated from that one text until, I guess, the argument on her front porch the other day."
I pull up images I got from gaining access to Morgan's phone and move them so the guys can see them on the television screen hanging on the far wall.
They're quite explicit almost immediately, and I had to blur out some of the graphic images Morgan sent to the guy.
"Jesus," Bandera mumbles as he looks away.
"I’ll need to speak with her before we know more, but I can tell you that whoever this guy is, he's good at what he's doing. He's very capable of hiding in the shadows and making himself known only to others when he wants it to happen," I explain.
"Was the first meeting even by chance?" Twisted asks with a scowl on his face.
"I'm not so sure it was," I answer honestly. "I've traced some of her steps, and as easily as he hid his face from the cameras during the instances that we know of, I've found several more videos prior to their first meeting at the restaurant where there's a shadow of a man. It's very possible he placed himself there to be seen by her exactly when he wanted it to happen."
Finding that made me realize this may be a lot more sinister than we initially thought. What the guy has done has taken a lot of planning and forethought. Most criminals slip up somewhere or don't consider something that eventually gets them caught. From what I can tell so far, this guy has been very meticulous.
"When did he first show up?" Bandera asks.
"The day we got to Vegas," I answer. "At least from what I can tell."
"So it can't be related to Cerberus, right?" Twisted asks. "This for sure isn't from Tkachenko's crew."
"It doesn't look like it is," I supply. "But we're still working different angles to make sure. On that note, Tkachenko and Vasilev have both been released from jail."
"What the fuck?" Heathen snaps.
"They were being held on EPA violations, and the jails are overrun with violent criminals. The judge didn't consider them a danger to others," I remind him.
"They had the proof of trafficking from their raid on his house and the house where the girls were living," Heathen snaps.
"They had speculation, but not one woman has stepped forward to make allegations about him hurting them and forcing them into marriage," I say, feeling just as annoyed at what is happening where those bastards are concerned.
"Bail was posted at ten million dollars for each of them, which was the best the judge could do. I'm looking into any links between the judge and the organization. But so far, I haven't found anything suggesting that particular judge is on their payroll," I say as I look in Heathen's direction. "There isn't a bug moving on this property that I don't know about. Kaylee and Morgan are safe here."
"Who’s sitting on those two pieces of shit right now?" Bandera asks.
"Whiskey got in last night," I say.
"Who?" Heathen growls.
"Spencer Blanton," I explain. "He's the newest member of Cerberus Vegas. He's watching Vasilev and Tkachenko for us right now."
"My wife is here," Heathen growls.
"And Morgan," Twisted adds, as if he's already invested in the woman somehow.
"What does that have to do with anything?" I ask.
"If there's going to be a strange man around the house my wife is at, I think I need to know."
Wishing I had taken my contacts out and traded them for my glasses, I press my fingers between my eyebrows, the headache only growing bigger. I pull in a deep breath, knowing I'm going to explain further, all the while knowing I shouldn't have to.
"Kincaid handpicked Whiskey the same way he handpicked all of you. He's one of us," I assure them. "Now, unless there's anything else that needs to be discussed, I need a refill."
I hold up my empty coffee cup. I'm not going to get a break anytime soon. I'm not comfortable knowing as little about this guy as I've been able to find, and I have no plans of resting until we can identify him.
I stand, following the guys out of the room.
Heathen makes a beeline to Kaylee, as I knew he would.
Seeing Morgan Spence for the first time in person almost takes my breath away. She's positively gorgeous. I knew that from the photos I researched, but those captured moments in time have nothing on her in person. Now I fully understand why Twisted has already gotten a little territorial over the woman.
When she lifts her eyes to me, the coffee cup in her hands drops, hitting the floor at her feet and shattering into a million pieces.
The look in her eyes tells me all I need to know before she can scream and lift her hand to point in my direction.
"That's him!" she declares.
I pull in a ragged breath and shake my head, annoyed that this is happening again.
"Fucking Henry," I grumble.
"Who the fuck is Henry?" Heathen snaps, looking like he's ready to take my head off at any minute.
"My twin brother," I explain, wondering why I hadn't even considered this.
The man I've been hunting knew too much about where to stand and how to position his body so he wasn't on camera.
He was knowledgeable enough not to have his face captured on any video feed. This is all very classic Henry.
"Care to explain?" Bandera asks as I turn back around and head toward the conference room.
There's no point in standing here and arguing with a woman that I'm not the man who seduced her and hurt her friend.
"I have an identical twin," I mutter, placing my empty coffee cup on the conference room table.
"And you didn't think that's something we needed to know?" Bandera growls. The man is inching toward my bad side.
"It was in my dossier," I say with as even of a tone as I can manage. "Did you bother to read it? Or have you only clocked the other guys in the house because you don't consider me a threat to the president patch?"
"What the actual fuck!" Twisted says as he enters the room. "Did you have any idea your brother was in town?"
It seems this guy read the information he was given.
"I had no clue," I assure him. "But she has to be right. I don't know of another guy who could pull off what he has."
"When you say identical?" Heathen asks when he joins us.
"We look exactly alike," I say. "I'm not so sure that I'm not Henry because my parents got us mixed up so much as babies."
"Great," Heathen mutters.
I don't apologize for my brother's actions. He's been inserting himself into my life for decades, and I'm not responsible for what the man does. I stopped making excuses for him long ago.