16. Dante
DANTE
Icouldn’t sit in that diner another minute knowing someone had been in her room, touching her things, invading her space, knowing who she really is.
As much as I wanted to spend time with Rose away from the confines of work, her safety is more important.
I barely have my car parked in my garage before I’m forcefully shoving the door open and striding into my house.
Once I’m in my basement, I sit down at my desk and pull up the camera feeds I have inside Rose’s hotel room. I only briefly looked at them before storming off to find her earlier. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it’s not what greeted me on the screen.
Not a scrap of fabric in her room has been left intact.
It looks like a tornado hit her room. The manager clearly hasn’t touched the room to clean it up since I’m looking at the live feed.
I scan the bedroom for anything else that could give me a clue about who did this before I switch to the bathroom camera.
I put a camera in here for safety only, and I haven’t watched any of the footage, but I need to see the message left on the mirror for myself.
My blood runs cold when I see the red writing left on the splintered mirror, and I immediately know it was left for me.
But who the hell knows Rose is here? Or that she even exists?
I move my cursor over the rewind icon so I can see who dares to threaten her.
Luckily, Rose wasn’t in the room when this happened, or she might have gotten hurt or worse, taken.
But from the looks of her things and the message on the mirror, this was meant as a threat and a scare tactic.
Switching to the outside and parking lot cameras I have set up, I see at 12:38 p.m., based on the time stamp on the camera footage, two masked men dressed in black from head to toe walk around the side of the building from the back wooded area behind the property.
Unfortunately, that means I won’t be able to find what vehicle they used, which will make it more difficult to identify who they are and, more importantly, who sent them.
The two men use hand signals to communicate even though they walk up in broad daylight where anyone could see them.
The first masked man uses a key to open the door, which is odd because Rose mentioned the door was damaged.
Once both men are inside, I switch to the room camera feeds at the same time stamp and watch as one of them starts to destroy everything in sight.
Nothing is left untouched. It doesn’t look like he is searching for anything, and his goal is just destruction.
While the demolition continues, the other man, who had been the one to unlock the room, strides immediately to the bathroom.
I switch screens to watch him punch the mirror, then look through the makeup Rose had left on the counter and pick up her lipstick.
The same red lipstick shade she had on today.
He scribbles the message on the mirror. Once he’s satisfied with that, he quickly smashes and scatters the remaining items on the counter and does the same to the items in the shower.
It took less than ten minutes for both men to completely demolish the room and all of Rose’s belongings, and at 12:47 p.m., both men exit through the door.
One stops to break the lock on his way out, and they disappear around the corner of the building, back into the trees in the same direction they entered from.
I rewind the footage to watch it again to see if I missed anything.
Nothing. I can’t even get a good look at their faces.
Clearly, these men are professionals. I rewind and watch the footage a third time, and when I slow down the camera feed, I see it—the thing I needed to sign both of the men’s death warrants.
It’s a tattoo on the right side of one of the men’s necks as he turns to leave the bathroom.
And not just any tattoo; it’s a snake wrapped around a rose.
These men aren’t just professionals, but hired mercenaries belonging to one of the most lethal and secret organizations I have ever come across.
The real question now is why they would be targeting Rose.
And how did they know she was in Upstate New York at that run-down motel? And why send this message now?
It seems as though I’m not the only one who has been watching her.