Twenty-Three
Elias
Given Up – Linkin Park
The soft hum of the AC breaks the quiet, mixing with the faint ticking of the wall clock and the distant rumble of traffic outside. Shadows stretch across the room, dancing over the edges of my desk.
I’ve been feeling a little jittery over the last few days.
It’s been two fucking weeks since my forty-eight hour deadline with Michael.
Five weeks since the first disappearance, and I have nothing to fucking show for it.
After some mild threats, Michael did get me a name, some out-of-towner who was looking to expand their business.
I threw every fucking resource I had at this name, only to run right into a dead fucking end.
I grind my teeth as frustration builds, a low growl forming in my throat. Every plan, every lead I’ve chased has dissolved like smoke between my fingers. I can almost hear Gunnar’s laughter echoing mockingly from the corner of the room where his brain hit the wall, reminding me of my failings.
I stub out a cigarette and light another. Chain-smoking isn’t my best quality, but fuck, it feels good. I let my head fall into my hands, blowing out a tense breath. Memories try to claw their way to the surface, but I push them back down.
This is different.
I shift my focus and look at my hands. It’s been just over a week since I felt Kat come on my fingers.
And my tongue. I’ve watched two of Tether’s shows since then, but work has kept me from continuing what we’d started.
Every night, the vision of her invades my thoughts.
Her laugh, the way she throws her head back when she plays, exposing the column of her neck, the subtle tremor in her voice when she’s nervous.
It’s fucking maddening. I want her. Not just the image or the memory.
I want her pressed against me, her sensitive body reacting to my every touch.
Every night has been the same. I watch her own the stage, leave to work and then jack off in the shower when I get home. Each time, I feel increasingly dissatisfied, to the point where my dick doesn’t even go soft after I finish. I’m growing impatient. I need to feel her on my cock.
I glance around my office, restless. Every fucking pristine surface in this room is a reminder of what I’m denying myself. The memory of my hands on her soft skin gnaws at me. I palm myself in my slacks, trying to alleviate the throb that’s building there as my laptop pings.
I kick my feet down from the table and look at what came through. It’s the subject line that catches my eye.
“You’re going to want to see this.”
It’s from Cain. There’s no body text, just a video attachment. I take a sharp breath and hit play.
The screen flickers to life, and I lean forward instinctively, my pulse spiking.
It’s security footage from the camera that’s facing the bar at Headstone.
Glancing down, I see a timestamp of three weeks ago, which puts this footage at two days before Maya was abducted.
The video plays on, and the quiet of my office is replaced by the soft murmur of background noise from Headstone, the clinking of glasses and faint laughter.
I notice the usual customers hanging out at the bar talking to each other, ordering drinks, and requesting music from the jukebox. Nothing seems out of the ordinary.
That is, until, at the edge of the screen, I see her.
Maya.
She’s facing the camera, coming in and out of shot as she swirls her finger around her drink. Her eyes flick back and forth, scanning the crowd. Even though the rest of the scene is normal, I can sense the tension in her posture and it makes my stomach tighten.
She’s expecting someone.
She waits for ten minutes until a dark shadow enters the frame and sits in front of her. She stands up and greets him with a quick hug before sitting back down. His back is towards the camera, and his face isn’t visible. I know almost every regular who comes into my bar—this man is not one of them.
I pause the video, rewinding and slowing it down frame by frame. The angle of his shoulder, the way he stands, the slightest hesitation in his movements. He knows where the cameras are, and he’s exploiting them. God fucking damnit.
Picking up my phone, I dial Cain. He answers on the second ring.
“Did you watch the video?”
“Can you see his face on any other footage?” I ask, knowing the answer already.
“No, he was very careful to stay out of the line of sight of all security cameras,” Cain replies, and my jaw tics.
“How the fuck did he get in?” I ask, my knee beginning to bounce under the table.
“There’s only one place we don’t have cameras…” He pauses, as if waiting for me to fill in the gap.
“Fuck,” I snarl.
We deliberately didn’t install security cameras out the back of Headstone.
It’s where we usually conduct other business if it lands on our doorstep.
I imagine the steps, the way there’s no streetlights there, the ease with which someone could slip in and out.
My pulse hammers. Whoever this is, he’s testing us.
He doesn’t know the fucking storm he just walked into.
“We did catch him leaving,” Cain replies as another ping sounds from my laptop.
Opening the email, I see there’s a photo attachment. It’s a still from the security footage.
“Do you see what I see?” Cain asks.
The photo is of the main entrance to Headstone. It seems to be the time when everyone leaves the bar. My eyes snap from person to person until I realize why Cain wanted me to see this photo.
Motherfucker.
“A fucking biker cut.”
There it is, in the middle of the hustle and bustle of kick-out time.
A small portion of the cut visible between the shoulders of other people.
I can’t see his face, and there are no legible parts of the cut that will tell me who the fuck this belongs to.
But I’ve been around long enough to know that this is a biker cut.
My hands curl into fists as anger bubbles in my chest, coiling tighter with each thud of my pulse. I pinch the photo on my screen, zooming in, memorizing every stitch, every crease, and every detail. I will find this motherfucker.
“Find every fucking MC in the country if you have to. Match their cuts to this one,” I say, my pulse quickens. “Call me the second you find a match.”
A quick affirmative from Cain before he hangs up the phone.
I pace the office, dragging my hand over my face. Cigarette smoke curls lazily around the light of my laptop screen. I light another, the ember glowing bright as I inhale, imagining the moment I find this guy. I’ll make sure he knows exactly who he’s fucked with.
When I find out who this is, I will unleash Hell.
As I sit back down, staring at the photo again, my thoughts drift to Kat.
The memory of her, of the last week. I grind my teeth in a mix of anticipation and frustration.
She’s in this city somewhere right now, oblivious to the danger lurking on the streets.
For that reason alone, I don’t have time to waste.
Rage and desire blur together, dangerously close to obsession.
She is mine.
No one will get in the fucking way of that.