Chapter 38 The Address
THE ADDRESS
KAIDEN
The car is too quiet without her.
George meets my eyes in the rearview mirror. He's been my driver for six years. He knows when to talk and when to stay silent.
“Where did you take her?”
“Her friend's apartment, sir. Miss Reyes.”
Zoe. Of course. The only person Emma trusts completely.
I could go there. Knock on the door, demand she talk to me, explain everything. Make her listen.
But I know Emma. When she's overwhelmed, she retreats. If I push now, I'll lose her for good.
“Take me home.”
The penthouse is dark when I arrive. I don't bother with the lights. Walk straight to our room and stop in the doorway.
Her suitcase is open on the floor. Half-packed. The toothbrush is gone from the bathroom. Her sketchbook. The little things she reaches for every day.
She left the shoes I bought her, sitting neatly by the closet door. That's somehow worse than if she'd taken everything.
I sit on the edge of the bed and call Tank.
“She's at her friend's place,” he says before I can ask. “I'm outside the building now.”
“Good.”
Silence stretches between us. I stare at the city lights blurring below.
“You want to join me to visit Emma's ex-boyfriend?”
A beat of silence. “I'll get one of the brothers to cover Zoe's place. What's the address?”
“1847 Crane Street. Unit 4C.”
“I'll meet you there in thirty.”
I hang up and keep staring at her shoes left behind. I can only blame myself for this shitshow but I plan to channel my rage finally facing James.
Maddox told me to wait. Told me not to tip our hand until we knew who was backing him.
Emma looked at me tonight like I was a stranger. Like everything we built was a lie. She's wrong but it doesn't make it less true for her.
Tank's bike rumbles to a stop behind my car. He swings off, helmet tucked under one arm, crosses the street with the kind of unhurried stride that says he's got all night and someone's going to regret it.
“You look like shit,” he says by way of greeting.
“Thanks.”
He falls into step beside me as we approach the building. Mid-rise, maybe ten years old. Clean but unremarkable. The kind of place you rent when you want to blend in.
“What's the play?” Tank asks.
“Conversation first. Then we see.”
He grunts. “And if he doesn't feel like talking?”
“One can hope.”
The lobby door is locked, but it takes Tank about fifteen seconds to pop it open. I should have brought my lockpicks. Probably better I didn't.
We take the elevator. Fourth floor, end of the hall.
Unit 4C. I knock once. Twice.
Footsteps. A pause. The door opens and James Whitmore stands there in sweatpants and a wrinkled t-shirt, beer in hand.
Recognition is instant. His face drains of color, and he shoves the door.
Tank's hand catches it before it moves two inches. One push sends James stumbling backward into his apartment, arms pinwheeling for balance.
We step inside. Tank closes the door behind us with a soft click.
The apartment is small but decent. Leather couch, flat screen, a few takeout containers on the coffee table. Better than anything James could afford on his own, and we all know it.
James backs up until his legs hit the couch. “You can't just barge in here. This is breaking and entering.”
“Sue me.” I scan the room. No one else here. Good. “Sit down, James.”
He doesn't move. Tank takes a step forward, and James drops onto the couch like his strings were cut.
I pull out one of the dining chairs, turn it around, straddle it with my arms resting on the back. Casual. Like we're old friends catching up.
“Here's how this works,” I say. “I ask questions. You answer. We leave. Everyone goes home happy.”
James's jaw works. The last time he saw me, I had my hand around his wrist, promising to break it if he touched Emma again. He remembers. I can see it in the way he won't quite meet my eyes.
“I don't have to tell you anything.”
“No, you don't.” I tilt my head. “But I think you will.
Because the alternative is much less pleasant, and you've always been the practical type. Taking the easy way out. The path of least resistance.” I pause.
“That's how you ended up here, isn't it? Someone offered you an easy payday, and you took it without asking too many questions.”
Something flickers in his expression. Fear.
“Who's paying for this apartment, James?”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“You were living in a studio back home. Now you're in Silverpoint, two grand a month minimum, no job, no prospects.” I let the silence stretch. “Someone's bankrolling you. Who?”
He says nothing.
Tank moves to the window, peers through the blinds like he's checking for witnesses. The message is clear. No one's coming to help.
“Let me tell you what I think happened,” I continue.
“You were broke. Humiliated. Emma left you, your career tanked, and you spent months stewing in it. Someone reached out. Offered you money to come here and make her life miserable. Maybe win her back. Maybe just break us apart.” I watch his face. “Am I close?”
James's throat bobs. “You don't know anything.”
“I know you've been following her. Showing up at her building, sniffing around her workplace. I know someone's feeding you information about where she'll be.” I lean forward. “What I don't know is who. But you're going to tell me.”
“Or what?” A flash of the old bravado. “You'll beat it out of me?”
“I would like that, but I won't have to.” I keep my voice even.
“I'll make one phone call to the police.
Stalking across state lines. Harassment.
Maybe I throw in the texts you've been sending from burner accounts.
You'll be in cuffs by morning, and whoever's paying you will cut you loose so fast you won't know what happened.”
The color drains from his face. “How do you know about the texts?”
“I know everything, James. The question is whether you want to cooperate, or whether you want to find out what happens when you don't.”
He stares at me for a long moment until his shoulders slump, the fight draining out of him.
“Some guy reached out a few months ago,” he says, the words coming out flat. “Said he knew about my history with Emma. Said he could help me if I was interested in... reconnecting with her.”
“Reconnecting.”
“Getting her back.” James's lip curls. “She made me look like an idiot when she left. Told everyone I abused her, turned our friends against me. My own family looked at me differently after that. I wanted her to pay for it.”
I feel Tank shift behind me. A low rumble in his chest.
“So this guy offered to help you, what? Win her back? Make her regret leaving?”
“Both.” James shrugs. “He said he had his own reasons for wanting to see you two split up. Didn't go into details. Just said if I could get between you, drive a wedge, maybe remind Emma what she was missing, he'd make it worth my while.”
“How much?”
“Five grand a month. Plus the apartment.”
Five grand a month to stalk my girlfriend. I file that away, keep my expression neutral.
“How did he contact you?”
“Email at first. Encrypted. Then he started calling from blocked numbers.”
“What did he sound like?”
James considers. “Older. Smooth. Lots of big words. Someone used to talking people into things.”
Not Victor, then. Victor's style is clipped and cold. This sounds like someone else. Someone working for him, maybe.
“Did he give you a name?”
“No. I asked once and he shut me down. Said it was better if I didn't know.”
“And you didn't think that was suspicious?”
James's face twists. “I didn't care. He was paying me. That's all that mattered.”
“What exactly did he want you to do?”
“Keep tabs on Emma. Let him know if she seemed happy, if things were going well with you. He wanted updates on her routine, her friends, her state of mind.” James's eyes slide away. “And he wanted me to make contact. Remind her of what we had. Make her doubt what she has with you.”
“By ambushing her outside her building. Sending her threatening messages?”
“I was supposed to make her feel unstable. Off-balance. Like she couldn't trust her own judgment.” A ghost of a smile crosses his face. “She always was easy to rattle.”
I'm out of the chair before I realize I've moved.
My fist connects with his jaw. The crack is satisfying. James's head snaps back, blood blooming from his split lip as he sprawls across the couch cushions.
Tank doesn't move. Doesn't flinch. Just watches with the calm interest of someone observing weather.
James cups his mouth, stares at the blood on his fingers. “You can't—“
“I can.” I shake out my hand. Knuckles already throbbing. “That was for every time you made her flinch. Every bruise. Every night she spent afraid in her own home.” I lean down. “You want to tell me again how easy she was to rattle?”
He shrinks back, all the bravado gone.
Tank finally moves, hand landing heavy on James's shoulder. James flinches.
“Stay down,” Tank says quietly. “Next one's mine, and I don't pull punches.”
James swallows hard. “I'm just telling you what he wanted,” he mumbles through the blood. “I didn't... I wasn't going to hurt her. I just wanted her to see she made a mistake leaving me.”
“She didn't make a mistake.” I stand, the chair scraping against the floor. “She escaped. And you've spent the last few months trying to drag her back into your pathetic orbit because you can't stand that she's better off without you.”
His face contorts. “She's not better off. She's with you, isn't she? Some rich asshole who's going to get bored and toss her aside. At least I actually loved her.”
“You don't know what love is.” I step closer. “Love doesn't track someone across state lines. Love doesn't take money to terrorize the person you claim to care about. What you have is an obsession with control, and Emma stopped letting you have it.”
James opens his mouth to respond, but nothing comes out.
“Here's what's going to happen,” I say. “You're going to give me every email, every message, every piece of communication you've had with this man. Phone records, bank statements showing the deposits, everything. Then you're going to pack a bag and leave Silverpoint. Tonight.”
“And if I don't?”
I lean down until we're eye to eye. “Then I stop asking nicely. And trust me, James, you don't want that. Because unlike you, I don't need someone else's money to make your life hell. I can do it all on my own.”
He holds my gaze for three seconds before looking away.
“Fine,” he mutters. “I'll get you the emails.”
“Good choice.”
James hands over his laptop, fingers trembling as he pulls up the email chain. I photograph everything. Dates, times, the encrypted addresses. The deposits show up in his bank statements like clockwork. Five thousand on the first of every month, routed through a shell company I don't recognize.
“That's everything,” James says. “I swear.”
I pocket my phone. “Pack a bag. Be gone by morning.”
“Where am I supposed to go?”
“Not my problem.” I head for the door. Tank follows, but not before giving James one last look that makes him shrink into the couch cushions.
The hallway is quiet. We take the stairs down, our footsteps echoing in the stairwell.
Tank waits until we're outside, the night air cool against my face, before he speaks.
“I'm disappointed you only hit him once.”
“Restraint.” I flex my hand. Knuckles swelling. “Emma would want me to let him go.”
“Would she?”
“She wouldn't want me to be that guy.”
Tank grunts. The sound might be approval.
He shoots me a sideways glance. “So what now?”
I exhale, watch my breath fog in the cold. “Now I find out who's pulling the strings. And I get Emma back.”
“Assuming she talks to you again.”
The words hit harder than James's jaw hit my fist.
We reach our vehicles. Tank mounts his bike but doesn't start it. He looks at me across the chrome, expression unreadable.
“I don't know what happened tonight,” he says. “And I don't want to know. Whatever you did, you'd better be ready to grovel. And I mean properly. Not some half-assed flowers and an apology.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” He shakes his head. “Emma's good people. If you're not willing to fight for her, really fight, then she deserves to move on to someone who will.”
I meet his eyes. “I'm not giving up on her.”
“Words are cheap, brother.”
“Then watch me.”
Tank holds my gaze for a long moment. Whatever he sees must satisfy him, because he nods once and fires up the bike.
“Get some sleep,” he says over the rumble of the engine. “You look like death warmed over.”
He pulls away, taillights disappearing around the corner.
I stand alone on the empty street, James's information burning a hole in my pocket, and think about Emma. About the look on her face when she got into that car. About everything I should have said and didn't.
Tank's right. Words are cheap.
Time to prove what I'm willing to do.