Chapter 2
Tyler
A few minutes down the winding road that descended the ridge, I pulled over. My fucking heart wouldn’t stop pounding. I touched my forehead to the steering wheel, then sat and breathed until my blood pressure reduced and I could hear again.
Over the course of my career in taking down traffickers, I’d handled any amount of danger. I’d been shot. Slashed. Beaten so badly I couldn’t walk for weeks.
Nothing came close to how I felt about Dixie being in my home.
I didn’t want to leave her alone, but I had work to manage and information to gather. Which meant getting a handle on my personal crisis.
Today, I was all kinds of fucked up.
No one would be able to tell.
When at last I’d regained my control, I set out for the city. Quiet isolation gave way to small towns then the city limits. Industrial estates, the Gothic bridge over Deadwater River, the warehouse rising on the banks. A shock of pink neon in a gloomy night.
Seeing the red-brick building should’ve upped my anticipation for the work I needed to do. But tonight, I just wanted to leave as quickly as possible.
I parked up and entered through the back door, sparing a greeting for the crewmember manning the desk. Arran had called a management meeting, and alongside that, I needed to talk to my crew.
In the wide corridor that separated the Divide nightclub from the Divine strip club, I strode to the office, entering without a knock.
At the desk, Arran raised his head and regarded me, a black bandanna with a skull’s jaw printed on it tied around his neck. The trademark of our crew. “All good?”
Though he was technically my boss, Arran treated me as his older and wiser colleague. He’d never once pulled rank or given me a command he wasn’t sure I’d want to do.
And I’d never lied to him. Until now.
“Fine.”
I was far from that. Though I’d masked my frenzied state, I still felt it under my surface. The clawing need to get back to Dixie. To tear apart whoever hurt her.
A contradiction I recognised.
I’d abducted her and locked her up. There was no way she was getting out of my house. When I’d promised her safety, it was including from herself. There was a real danger I was behaving like a psychopath.
In my defence, I was a very well-intentioned one.
If Dixie accepted my reasons, then I could explain myself to others. Until then, she was the secret I’d take to the grave.
Arran gave gruff acknowledgment, then Shade appeared through the doorway, Cassie and Manny following. All had a bandanna on them, Cassie’s tying up her black curls.
The leader of the skeleton crew didn’t waste any time. “I wanted you all in the room so we’re on the same page. This is regarding the most recent murder and the fact we now consider there’s a pattern to the killings.”
The murder was of a lass called Karla. She was a dancer from another club who had come in for an interview then been found the following morning on the banks of the river across from the warehouse, a rope around her neck.
The previous victim, Esther, had been strangled and dumped in Deadwater Harbour a few weeks back.
Then there was one before that.
The blue-eyed bombshell I’d turned captive.
A muscle ticked in Cassie’s jaw. “In other words, there’s a new serial killer in town. They’ve murdered twice, and I’m so fucking scared that they will make another attempt on Dixie. Look how close to home they were with Karla. Right on our doorstep.”
Emotion rippled through me. Not a hint of it showed on my face.
A few months ago, Dixie had been attacked, her throat cut. She’d been left for dead, and the pattern was undeniable after Esther’s and Karla’s deaths by the neck. No determined killer would be satisfied with a job half done.
Fear for Dixie’s life had driven me almost to distraction.
When she’d been here in the warehouse, I’d handled it. Once she’d left, I’d lost my shit.
At murmurs from everyone around the room, Cassie continued. “It’s such fucking bullshit. Lovelyn and Kane saw her this afternoon. Tyler, chime in if ye want.”
My heartbeat stuttered.
She held her gaze on me. “They were so close, but by the time they got off the ferry and onto the island where she’s been hiding, she’d vanished. No one knows where she’s gone.”
Well, one man did.
I forced myself to breathe normally. Cassie wasn’t accusing me, only including me as Kane was my direct report. I’d ignored messages from him all day.
Manny lifted a screen, footage playing. The sea. A distant beach. “We have CCTV from the ferry. Dixie can be seen on the shore before she goes out of sight around this outcropping of rock.”
The tiny, slender figure held still on the sands then backed away before disappearing. Right behind the rocks Manny indicated where I lurked. I was so fucking close to being busted, all the crew around me ready to take me down for what I’d done.
But the camera view swung away, the boat coming into the harbour. Manny lowered the device.
“No cameras on the island?” Shade asked.
Manny twisted his lips. “None. It’s a backwater. Little infrastructure.”
Ah, fucking hell.
“They were so close,” I couldn’t help saying.
Cassie gave an unfunny laugh and pushed back a lock of hair that had escaped her bandanna.
“So close. Kane and Lovelyn were able to track down where Dixie’s been staying.
Her mother rents a small bungalow on the north of the island.
But she hasn’t returned all evening, and she isn’t answering her phone, either from Lovelyn or her ma.
Seems she saw the ferry then disappeared. ”
“She got spooked and ran again,” Shade offered. “If she had a boat, she could be anywhere. We need more resources.”
Collective agreement rumbled across everyone. Except me.
I cleared my throat. “We need to focus on finding the killer.”
Cassie scowled. “No, Ty. Dixie is the priority.”
I’d asked her not to call me Ty. Cassie didn’t understand boundaries. Which was one of the reasons I wouldn’t tell any of the crew about Dixie until she was ready. “The best way to protect her is to take out the aggressor.”
“Sure, and usually I’d agree, but I believe she’s actively being hunted. And not only by us.” From her pocket, she took out her phone. Found a picture. “This is her apartment.”
Onscreen, a broken doorway gave way to an empty space.
“Ransacked,” Cassie said. “When Lovelyn told me they’d been there and that Kane had barged the door, I went and had it fixed and paid her rent so the landlord wouldn’t kick her out. All her clothes were there. Her things. Now? They’re gone.”
My internal alert system for danger paid attention. Not to the missing possessions but the kicked-in door. That hadn’t been me.
“Could be an opportunist thief.” I stroked my chin.
“Who took every single thing she owned? I don’t think so.
Then there’s this.” Cassie paged to an article and held it up.
Under a headline that read, Who Are the Marchant Heirs?
, there was a headshot of Dixie’s sister, Mila, with two others after, blacked-out silhouettes with the names underneath of Kane Marchant and Darcy Marchant.
Fuck.
“The press are looking for her. What happens if they find her first?” Cassie asked.
“When they learn she was a sex worker? Do you want to know what her ma said when Lovelyn spoke to her this afternoon? She said good riddance. Dixie doesn’t have anyone else besides us to protect her.
Not from the news, and not from whoever attacked her and left her for dead.
It was a miracle that she survived, not an accident. ”
White-hot rage shot through me.
Cassie smiled. “That’s it. Brew that anger. Gotta be bad if Tyler reacts. This is only going to get worse for her when the press finds out who she is.”
Apparently, I was now the emotional barometer.
That felt like a design flaw.
Not one to consider now, not when my world was Dixie the heiress. The hidden legacy. I’d known she had secrets. I’d seen them in her from day one. It was part of what I found fascinating about her.
Secrets equalled vulnerabilities.
Cassie pushed her advantage. “If a reporter finds her before we do, they’ll put her face on screens everywhere as heir to a criminal empire.
I can’t even imagine what she’s done to hide from her past, but between us in this room, I’m certain her family fucked her over.
Why else would she run like that? It’s them she’s scared of. ”
Arran spoke. “Dixie is one of us. It’s now a crew priority to bring her back.”
Fucking hell. I’d claimed her in the nick of time.
I swallowed the emotions that battled within me and forced myself back to neutral.
I had to get control of the narrative. “Leave it to me. In case she’s still on Torlum, I’ll tell Kane to hang around and wait her out.
If she fled on a boat, we can assign crew to the coastline, checking in with the small villages she might have landed at.
Assuming she doesn’t have a car, she’ll be hiding out or waiting on local transport. ”
Arran watched me. “No active ops right now?”
“Nothing urgent. It’ll be good training for Ash and Heretic to go on a hunt.”
Also a huge waste of time, but I wasn’t revealing that.
Ash and Heretic, the Atherton brothers, plus Kane, made up my intercept team, a distinct unit of four of us in the skeleton crew, mine to manage in our role of taking down traffickers.
Arran nodded. “Then you’re our lead in tracking her down. Use whatever resources necessary.”
I almost smiled. Tasked with finding the woman I stole. Life had a sense of humour. Even if I didn’t.
“Got it,” I managed.
Cassie’s eyes danced. “Bring our girl home.”
Arran nodded and moved on. “Aside from that, we need additional measures for the women of the club.”
They talked through how to support the dancers and sex workers coming to and from the warehouse every night, but my mind stayed fixed on a distant place. My home on the ridge with a beautiful woman concealed inside.
I’d lied to my crew.
If they found out, they wouldn’t trust me anymore. And yet I couldn’t and wouldn’t regret my actions.
Eventually, we were done and Arran released us to get to work.
In the ops centre, I texted the Atherton brothers then waited for them to arrive.
Manny joined me and fell into a seat at a bank of monitors, the fifty-something head of security wearing a frown. “There’s something I need to talk to you about regarding Dixie’s disappearance.”
Warily, I rested on the desk adjacent to him. “Shoot.”
“There’s no in-room footage from her last client booking before she ran. It’s bothering me.”
“The camera was out?”
The club had a policy of recording every room in the brothel for the safety of the staff.
Manny shook his head. “Cassie asked me to check because Lovelyn said she was upset the day she left the warehouse. I have footage of her greeting clients in the receiving room, then running out again on her own only a few minutes later.”
“But nothing from in the room itself?”
“No. If cameras aren’t working, we shut the room down until they are. Safety comes before anything else.”
If he’d intended the pun, neither of us laughed. Even I wasn’t that far gone.
“Did the guard on shift report anything?” I asked.
“His name is Buck Havers. He was caught jacking off to the monitors and fired. I haven’t had a chance to ask.”
“What of the clients? Presumably we have names?”
“Sullivan is the lead on the booking. Two others with him were colleagues he’d brought in on guest passes. He made a complaint about Dixie and was serviced by another woman.”
The warning in me grew louder. I gestured to the tablet Manny held. “Send me Buck’s information. I’ll handle it.”
Some of the stress left his face, and he thanked me, leaving as the Atherton brothers arrived.
Briefly, I gave them their orders, using a monitor to analyse and divide up a map of the northwest coastline. Heretic accepted the task with barely a nod.
His younger brother raked his fingers into his jaw-length dark hair, revealing a dagger tattoo behind his ear. “I don’t like it.”
“Which part?” I asked.
“Chasing down a lass who doesn’t know us from Adam. She’s going to be terrified.”
They wouldn’t find her. It wasn’t worth his concern. Instead, I said, “No different to recovering a trafficked woman after you’ve taken out her captor.”
Ash baulked. “Only this one is going to hate us pre-emptively.”
I hadn’t felt hate towards me. “Tread lightly. Explain that you’re there to help and that Cassie and Lovelyn sent ye. Call them if needs be so she can talk to them. Say the crew is on her side.”
They left, Heretic on his motorbike and Ash in his Warrior truck, and I got back on the road myself.
In a way, Arran had given me a gift. I had a reason to stay away from the warehouse for a while. Time I’d get to spend with Dixie.
She and I had a conversation due.
I had no fucking clue how I’d justify any of what I’d done. Or was going to do next.