Chapter 33
Angel
I believed Alan Moore, Lauren’s handler, when he told me the FBI had cut ties with her, but that hasn’t stopped me from tracking him. As far as I can tell, she hasn’t made contact.
He’s just one more dead end.
I fucking hate waiting. I’m a man of action.
These long days without her agitate me, and I have every intention of taking it out on her when she finally comes slinking back.
I’ll tie her to the bed for months if I have to. I’ll give her body enough of a workout that she won’t have to worry about atrophy.
I decided weeks ago that the woman was mine. My miscalculation was thinking that she wanted to stay. I know she likes my brand of attention. I know she craves it. I love giving it to her. I love abusing her body, taking out my own retaliation, and when she comes?
“Fuck,” I grumble, swiping a hand over the top of my head.
My balls ache for release. My fingertips itch to pinch and rip and shred.
I hate her for making me need her, but I’ll have my revenge soon enough.
I don’t know how long it will take her to realize that I’ve taken her most prized possessions, and I know she’ll never just walk away from them.
When she gets here, she’s going to be pissed, with thoughts of killing me.
I have news for her. I’m just as pissed at her for staying gone so fucking long. Hell, I’m livid she walked away in the first place.
I plan to spend the rest of my life teaching Lauren all the lessons she’ll ever need.
Maybe she didn’t have people in her life growing up that wanted her to succeed. She wasn’t educated the right way, and I’m going to enjoy hurting her until she gets it right.
She may not want me, may not plan on being mine, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. If Lauren Vos steps foot on my property, I’ll never let her leave. I can’t risk feeling the way I do now, again.
My skin hums every time I step into the shower, my body fighting my mind to end it quicker so I can find her in my bedroom, and yet she’s never there.
The days get longer with no one to focus my attention on. The nights are nearly impossible to bear without her strapped to my bed.
I feel like I’m going insane, and I have no one to blame but myself for untying her. I took a chance, thinking she’d climb out of my bed and be waiting in the kitchen when I came back home. Making the same mistake twice won’t happen.
I looked for her everywhere when I left the house earlier.
She wasn’t at the grocery store nor the coffee shop.
The trip away from the house was a distraction, another opportunity to try and sneak in and catch me off guard, but the house was just as empty as I left it.
There were no alerts on my security system when I returned.
I fight the anger I’m feeling as time slips by without her showing up. I do want to hurt her. I always will, but I don’t want to damage her to the point that she stops begging for the pain. Her enjoying what I do makes me harder than I’ve ever been in my life. Sex with her is fucking phenomenal.
Clenching my jaw, I pull up my encrypted email. On a whim, I shoot a job over to Liam as a test.
I still don’t trust the motherfucker. He’s just too damn pretty for that to ever happen.
I open a notification from him and have to smile. He completed the job, a recovery in Monterey, not far from where my home base is.
He was quick and efficient, but time will tell if he just got lucky because he didn’t spend half the time I would’ve preparing.
I required fifty percent of the profit but was nice enough to cover expenses. Liam didn’t argue with the terms. He’d be a fool to open his mouth.
I verify the eleven-thousand-dollar deposit from his work before looking for another job to send him on.
Liam claims he has the skills to work but isn’t capable of finding the jobs.
The ones posted on the regular internet go very quickly, and he reports missing opportunities.
I have the skills and programs to be one of the first to have access to new online sales.
I still haven’t determined if he’s working with a policing agency, but I’m also not breaking any laws where he’s concerned. If the man does something illegal or worthy of criminal charges, he’ll be responsible for it. I’m merely a temp agency finding the man work.
My computer program finds another job, this one with a higher payout because of how dangerous it is.
I send Liam the information, wondering how far I can push him before he folds, telling me he won’t do it or he gets killed.
Either way, I don’t really give a shit. I’ll just sit back and collect the money I make from him until he’s no longer viable for me.
It’s nice getting paid while sitting at my computer, but I also know it won’t last forever. I’ll get that itch, the one that will lead me back into the field, but I have to stay home right now. The last thing I want is for Lauren to show up while I’m on a job. I wouldn’t want her to get lonely.
I narrow my eyes at an email from a new person, and it pisses me off enough to redirect Liam to my house so I can slit his fucking throat.
I take a deep breath as I read the email from one of Liam’s friends who’s also looking for work, but as much as it pisses me off that Liam had the balls to send someone else my way, I can also see the benefit in it.
I shove down the irritation of feeling like a fucking office manager scheduling mercenaries for a job and send this new asshole a link.
The job is so fucking dangerous, right in the middle of cartel territory in South America, that I would skip over it.
But if the guy takes it and succeeds, I’ll be thirty thousand dollars richer.
I pause with my fingers hovering over the keyboard rather than typing out a message to Liam with the equivalent of eat shit and die, you’re fired.
I can see the benefit of having others do the rough and dangerous shit for me, but this was never part of my plan. I never wanted to be a goddamned administrator.
With a deep breath, I close down all programs on my computer but my security. I scan through the video from last night slowly, treating it like I haven’t already watched this footage three times already.
Just like the times before, there are no shadows, no lurking forms, no reflections in the distance off of binoculars.
Nothing.
It makes me feel empty, desperate, ready to burn down the world to find her.
Picking up my phone, I stare at the damn thing like it’s done something to personally offend me.
I’ve been avoiding this call. I never ask for help, but the way I feel is ten times greater than how I’ll feel for placing the call.
“Thumper,” the man says, caution already in his voice from the call showing up as UNAVAILABLE on his screen.
“It’s Angel.”
Silence fills the line. He may have been surprised and maybe a little relieved to see I was alive when I showed up at the clubhouse, but I’d never mistake that for us being friends.
We aren’t the same, and I know he probably feels about me the way the other members weren’t shy to express. What I do for a living is disdainful, wrong. They see it as me taking advantage of people when they’re at their lowest points in life.
“I’m looking for Lauren.”
“Okay.”
I huff, half in irritation and the other half because good for him, not just offering up any information. I don’t know that she knows she has that level of protection from them.
“I have some information to give her. She must’ve lost or had to get rid of her phone. My calls aren’t going through.”
The truth is, she dumped her phone before she ended up in Tamaulipas because I tracked the motherfucker to a trash can on the other side of town near the hotel we stayed at.
“If we’re able to get in contact with her, we’ll give her the message.”
I clench my teeth until my jaw hurts.
“It’s like that?”
“How else do you expect it to be, Angel?”
On one hand, I’m glad he’s not just handing over her information, on the other, I want to strangle him for making this more difficult for me.
Instead of arguing with a man capable of sending the entire Cerberus MC after me, I simply hang up the phone. It’s very possible that Lauren is standing right beside him, just like it’s possible they haven’t seen her since she rode away with me after dropping that little girl off.
I’ve considered her going back to the clubhouse but shoved it away. Lauren doesn’t like to look needy. She’s as much of a lone wolf as I am. But as I stand from my computer and stretch out my back, I just can’t stop thinking about the possibilities.
Planning not to leave any stone unturned, I decide I’ll fly out tomorrow to check. When I do find her, it’s only going to make me hurt her more, make her beg for more, because Kincaid was very clear about not being welcome on their property.