Chapter 7 Showtime
SHOWTIME
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It was nearly three in the morning by the time I finally forced myself to go home empty-handed, my exhaustion becoming less and less manageable by the second. I was getting too old for this shit.
I had thirty men combing through every inch of the city, hackers checking for facial recognition of every security camera they could reach, Hagan’s officers pulling potential vehicles over, drones scouring the water—that was until a damn storm blew through, slowing down our efforts significantly.
So naturally, it had all led to nothing.
I hated to admit it, but despite how annoyed I was, I was also honestly impressed. Jason was damn good at covering his tracks, easily turning back into the fucking ghost who kept slipping through my fingers.
Using the perfect timing of the storm, he disappeared like he’d never even been there.
If I wasn’t so keen on killing the fucker, I might have once considered hiring him on as a valuable asset.
He’d proven time and time again that he wasn’t some innocent little civilian anymore.
He was quickly becoming a worthy opponent.
After looking into Jason’s background, it made sense why it was easy for him to progress so well in his new role as an official pain in my ass. He was a natural quick study.
As an only child, he’d been a military brat for most of his childhood, bouncing from state to state until his parents finally set down roots in Michigan after they were both honorably discharged from the United States Air Force.
Logically, his parents had ensured that their only son grew up with some sense of military training, entering him into junior marksmanship programs where he performed well in competition.
He also took up kickboxing and Muay Thai in his early teen years, sticking with it all the way through adulthood.
After graduating from high school, Jason immersed himself in fiercely pursuing his education, taking it far more seriously than his peers might have.
He obtained a bachelor’s in forensic science and a master’s in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan by age twenty-five.
After graduating with his bachelor’s, he landed a job at General Dynamics in ballistics engineering, eventually becoming an expert in his field a few years after achieving his master’s.
But then tragedy suddenly struck when both of his parents died in a trucking accident five years ago, leaving Jason as the main beneficiary of a hefty settlement from the wrongful death lawsuit filed on their behalf.
He’d since made smart investments with the money he’d been awarded that helped fund a comfortable lifestyle for himself.
The man was well put together, with no black marks of a criminal record, though he’d been arrested for a few bar fights here and there.
However, the charges had always been dropped due to self-defense.
Older photographs of him showed a man who prioritized his physique.
Just an inch or two shorter than me, he had a decent build with broad shoulders and plenty of muscle that might have intimidated an ordinary man.
But he wasn’t dealing with an ordinary man, and he knew this, which explained the increase in bulk I now recognized from the security footage.
He was building a body for war, and I looked forward to ripping it apart and putting it in the ground.
Now that we knew that Matt was funding his little operation, the pieces of the puzzle were finally coming together. But ultimately, the puzzle itself was irrelevant if we couldn’t figure out how to fucking dismantle it before it could do more damage.
The search would remain ongoing in shifts until they were found, and a $1,000,000 finder’s fee had been issued for their capture or information that led to it.
Every inch of land for the next ten square miles from here was on high alert for their whereabouts, so they were bound to be spotted at some point. They couldn’t hide from me forever.
Walking through my bedroom door, I half expected Jaden to be up and waiting for me after what I knew she’d heard in the hallway.
I figured after I had found her, she’d probably just put her earbuds back in and turn the volume up even higher just to spite me.
Evidently, that was not the case, given her reaction to Daniel’s goddamn mouth.
And tonight, I was not in the mood to put up with Jaden’s either.
So my surprise was quick when I was met with darkness and absolute silence behind my bedroom door.
My eyes scanned the shadows of the room, broken between the traces of moonlight gleaming through the windows.
But from my vantage point, I could see that my bed was empty, and the sheets weren’t even disturbed.
Jaden was not here.
My hands tightened into fists as my jaw clenched in fury at her continued willful disobedience. Pulling out my phone, I checked the app for her exact location in the house, and seeing her blinking red dot gave me relief and aggravation. Until I realized she was fucking outside.
Turning on my heel, I stormed through the double doors that led out onto our balcony, nearly ripping them off the hinges.
Jaden was under direct orders not only to remain inside but also to even stay away from the fucking windows.
I did not want to grant Jason and his little boyband a single glimpse of her if they were that close, and now she was giving them the entire picture.
Son of a bitch.
How the fuck did she even get outside without being noticed in the first place?
My abrupt entrance elicited a quick gasp that instantly pulled my attention to the canopied daybed in the corner of the large balcony.
She would have been easy to miss, her small frame fitting snuggly into the shadows of the night.
But when the clouds gave way to the moonlight, it caught the loose strands of red hair that had escaped from the black hood she hid under.
Curled into a ball, she lay with her head flat on the pillows as her eyes met mine.
And there was not nearly enough fear in them for my liking.
I said nothing as I reached down past the hood and grabbed her by her hair, yanking her up into an awkward sitting position. She gasped in pain as her hands moved to clash with mine.
“What the fuck are you doing out here?” I raged at her. “Why aren’t you in bed?”
Her facial features twisted into a grimace as she spoke through gritted teeth.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she groaned as she struggled below me. “Ow! Let go!”
“How the fuck did you even get out here? You’re supposed to be inside!” There was no way she should have been able to sneak out like this and undetected for so long. Someone was definitely getting killed over this.
“You’re not the only one who knows how to creep in the shadows,” she retorted bitterly. I could feel my rage bursting in my chest as I tightened my fist even more, causing her to wince.
“Congratulations, Jaden. You just earned yourself another three days of being bound to our bed,” I seethed, my voice harsh with malice.
“You were given strict orders to remain inside and away from the windows, yet here you are, outside, alone, and in the middle of the night! Apparently, if I want you to stay put somewhere, I have to chain you there myself.”
Jaden groaned in pain and frustration as she glared up at me. “Oh please, we both know it’s not like I’m in any danger out here. At least, not from the threat you’re currently fixed on.”
My eyes narrowed at the bait she had just slapped me with, my blood brimming with the kind of brutality that killed on contact.
“Yeah, I heard their names, Darren,” she confirmed smugly. “I heard their names in the hallway.”
The warning glare I gave her apparently did not register at all. “You don’t know what the fuck you heard,” I snapped, my voice stern with finality.
“I know you also came back empty-handed,” she retorted, the boldness in her voice driving me to the kind of violence she couldn’t even hope to survive.
But I wasn’t going to pretend she didn’t know. She was too damn smart for that. However, that didn’t mean I was going to start confirming every little thought she had running in her head.
It seemed clear Jaden was fishing hard tonight for information she knew she wouldn’t get unless she threw her own blood in the water to entice me to bite.
She was crafty in the ways she extracted the truth from me, pushing me to punish her with it one lash at a time.
She’d never get the direct answer unless I wanted her to, but for some reason, she found the crumbs to be a satisfactory trade in exchange for the screams she was willing to sell me.
It became a recognizable pattern, as did her methods of initiating these kinds of subtle negotiations.
First, she’d find a way to piss me off, like she had tonight, which was easy enough.
Then she’d taunt me until I finally lashed out to paint her ass red with those missing pieces she needed to answer the questions she plagued her mind with.
And I always ended up allowing it because I was a glutton for punishing her, for dominating her, for conquering her into the ground over and over again—because it was the only damn thing that made me feel truly alive.
Jaden was unlike any woman I had ever met, and I couldn’t deny how invigorating it was to have the epitome of female strength rendered so completely powerless and tremble at my feet.
Witnessing someone so strong, resilient, and defiant finally crumble and be brought to their knees out of pure terror was an indescribable thrill I still couldn’t explain.
It was a high that captivated my entire body, a surge of such euphoric gratification knowing you had bound the wild beast by meticulously extracting its teeth and claws, reducing it to a state of utter helplessness.
Except in Jaden’s case, the teeth and claws always grew back eventually. And I looked forward to the hunt again.