Chapter 34
Rooster
Long before I started working for Cerberus, I knew that men working without a moral code are the most dangerous people walking the earth. They're the ones who would step on anyone to meet their own goals. Their egos wouldn't allow them to have compassion for anyone who stood in their way.
Henry has never conformed to any form of societal expectations. If he wants it, he's going to take it, and it doesn't matter who he has to plow through or run over to meet his end goal.
I know that his end goal isn't to win Morgan or have her in any way. His goal is and always has been to ruin my life. It creates a higher level of urgency to find Morgan because she's completely expendable in this game of his. Simply taking her and making me scramble to find her isn't good enough for Henry. If he wants to gut me, I can't help but think that he'll cross boundaries he hasn't crossed before and hurt her.
I don't know if that pain would be through physical acts of violence, but he has grown increasingly volatile over the last several years.
Imagining all the things he could do to her that could cause lasting trauma makes my skin fucking crawl.
"I'm still not sure that she isn't involved with him," Whiskey says, his eyes locked on his hands as he scratches at the cuticle on his right thumb.
I glare at the man wanting to tell him to get the fuck out, but I know I have to remain calm.
They were all presented with evidence that she was some sort of mole, not that there was anything for her to find. This was never about getting information. If she were a plant, which I adamantly believe now that she wasn't, she would've been put here to hurt me, just as the text messages said.
Wren has found proof that the texts were generated through a program Henry created, and he used the same program to communicate with Heathen from me before she left work.
"If she knew or were involved in any way, there would've been no need to pretend to be Rooster in the messages he sent to her at work," Bandera reminds him. "Morgan is in need of our help. She isn't part of Henry's plan."
"So we just sit here and fucking wait?" Whiskey asks, and I get the feeling he wants a little excitement more than he's worried about Morgan, and that makes me want to crack my fucking keyboard over his head.
"Wren is working," Bandera says. "There are over ninety thousand hotel rooms in Vegas. We won't find shit if we don't know where to look."
With a huff of annoyance, Whiskey sits back in his chair. He doesn't have to sit in here with the rest of us, but I know the man wants to be the first one out the door once there's news, or we have a direction or clue that can be followed with actual action rather than scouring the internet and other programs looking for her.
The comm on my computer lights up, and my hands shake profusely as I reach for the button to answer Wren's call.
"What have you found?" I ask. The time for niceties and common courtesy is long gone.
"Your brother is more skilled at this shit than anyone else I've ever tracked," Wren says, and I do my best not to take it as a jab because, for the most part, I can hold my own with computers and such.
"So, you haven't found anything?"
"I didn't say that. He's good, but I'm better."
All of the guys sitting at the conference table sit up a little straighter, each one waiting for news so they can actually do something to contribute to bringing Morgan back safely.
"I figure since we haven't located him on many of the city's traffic cameras, he didn't get very far. He hasn't bought a plane or train ticket."
"He wouldn't," I say, feeling even more frustrated because, of course, I had already looked up those things and have a program running in the background of my system to alert me if his name pops up on any public system in Vegas and the surrounding areas.
"I ran his name in a database to look for hotel rooms and short and long-term rentals, but nothing flagged on that either," Wren continues.
"He wouldn't use his name for anything. It would be more likely that he printed his own keycard to access a room," I explain. "What have you found?"
"Less than I'd like," Wren says, and I can hear the irritation he has in his voice at not having found my brother.
The guys settle back into their chairs at the conference room table, and I can feel another wave of defeat settling inside of me.
"I'm still searching all the hotels for aliases," Wren says.
"I don't know how long he's going to pretend to be me," I begin. "But he won't get a super flashy room because he has to know that won't impress Morgan. It's not something I would do, and he's egotistical enough to see just how long he can manipulate her into believing he's me. The more he can get her to do as me, the worse things are, and that's exactly the kind of goal he'd set."
A grumble of rage echoes around the room from the guys, and as grateful as I am for the solidarity, it doesn't help the situation that Morgan is in at all.
I feel completely helpless, and that would also be part of Henry's plan. I don't think I've ever hated him more than I do in this moment and that's saying a lot because the man has made it his life's mission to ruin mine.
"We'll find him," Wren assures me. "I'll let you know the second I find something. I'm running facial recognition across the city. It takes time, as you know, but we'll catch up to him eventually."
"I appreciate your help in this," I say, and a second later, the line goes dead.
"No one else finds that rude?" Bandera asks. "Just hanging up like that?"
"He's an IT guy," I say with a shrug. "No sense in wasting time on pleasantries."
Bandera shrugs as he shifts his weight in his chair. "I just fucking hate sitting here doing nothing."
"All part of the job," Heathen says, and I know he doesn't mean anything negative about it.
If anything, the man is even more invested because if something happens to Morgan it will hurt his wife. Although the couple hasn't been together very long, the man is all in with that woman and would burn the world down to protect her from any form of harm, and that includes emotional pain if her friend is being hurt. Heathen is also one very practical motherfucker, and I know he knows how bad this could be when he looks up and locks eyes with me.
I swallow down the need to yell and scream and throw shit because I know it won't do any good, but I barely manage to keep my rage in check. There is no need for Henry to fuck with me at all, but he just can't stand to see people happy. The man has the ability to lie, cheat, and steal his way into a lush life, and as much as he likes living expensively and having top-notch everything, he wants to destroy my life even more.
I get a ping on one of the programs I have running, and as much as my heart races as I reach to check it out, I know better. Henry is notorious for setting up random shit just to try and throw me off base. Anger courses through me when I get a hit on him making a purchase in England.
"What is it?" Heathen asks as he leans further across the conference room table, hope filling his eyes.
"More fucking games," I mutter, clearing the notification just for another to pop up, a hotel rental in Liberia. With the second one cleared, there's a pop-up for India. "I could fucking strangle him myself."
It hits me like a ton of bricks when the fourth notification pops up for Turkey.
"He's at—"
The comm rings once again, and I connect the link to Wren.
"The Elite," we say at the same time.
The guys at the table stand and file out of the room wordlessly.
"Facial recognition picked them up on the hotel elevator,"Wren explains. "It's a little wonky, somehow only meeting ninety-six percent, but it's our best lead."
"I wouldn't put it past Henry to have had some type of plastic surgery to keep himself looking younger. That would throw the system off slightly."
"Let me know how it goes," Wren urges. "I'm going to keep working through some shit on my end so we can wrap this all up with no surprises at the end."
"Thanks for your help, but there's always going to be surprises. It's Henry, after all," I mutter.