58. Cassandra Walker
It was mid-afternoon by the time I arrived at the quaint detached home Vox had sent me the address for.
I frowned as I walked up the manicured cobblestone pathway to the bright red door, complete with an expensive golden lion’s head knocker.
The house was suburban and had little cottage-like accents, which made it feel homey and welcoming.
I knew that Vox had bought a place after he and Cal had dismantled the underground mercenary operation they’d both been groomed to work for since they were small children.
As far as I knew, Apex had been shut down for several months now, and it had been an adjustment for both Cal and Vox as they tried to figure out what to do with themselves now that they were free to make their own decisions.
I’d figured Vox wouldn’t want to reintegrate into society the same way my brother had. I’d always assumed he would continue to use his very specific set of skills to do illegal, shady shit for a paycheck. So, this cute, cottagey home was not somewhere I’d ever expected him to live.
I would have expected him to buy a high-tech condo in the city to run what I was sure were still black-hat hacking jobs he took to pay the bills.
Whereas Cal now lived a much more modest life on a Fairview paycheck, Vox was still driving around in an Aston Martin.
The Aston Martin in question was parked in the driveway, and I was about to knock when the door opened.
My eyebrows raised in surprise as I took in the man himself.
He was in black jeans tucked into scuffed combat boots and a charcoal grey cotton t-shirt that was so worn and old it had tiny holes in the seams.
His arms were covered in black patchwork sleeves of tattoos, and his bleached white hair was damp and slicked back along his head, telling me he’d probably just stepped out of the shower.
A slight flicker of curiosity and concern danced across his face before he jerked his head toward the interior of the house, inviting me in.
The inside of the house seemed to be under renovation. There were thick plastic tarps tossed over surfaces, and the floor was exposed plywood, clearly waiting to be tiled.
I glanced around curiously, wondering what the plan was for this place as he led me through the construction zone and into a room that was already finished.
This room was more what I would have expected of someone like Vox.
It was an office space with a custom-built PC, black walls, and a desk that had not one, not two, but four gaming monitors set up.
I felt like I was standing on a movie set for a film about some underground dude that did off-the-books work for the Pentagon or something… which, for all I knew, might not be far off.
The walls were covered in framed posters of metal bands I wasn’t familiar with, and he had an electric guitar and amp set up in the corner, which was interesting.
I didn’t know he played guitar.
Huh. Go figure.
Vox threw himself into a high-backed gaming chair in front of the monitors, swiveling the chair away from the desk to face me.
He raised an expectant eyebrow, indicating that he wanted me to explain why I was here.
I reached into my Chanel bag and pulled out the reverend’s file, tossing it onto the desk in front of him.
“I need everything you can find on Reverend Elias Sterling. The dirtier the better,” I said, getting straight to the point.
What I liked about Vox was that there was never any need to mince words with him. He was voiceless by choice, so small talk was never a concern.
He frowned and slid the file closer to him, flipping through the various documents.
He toggled the mouse to his computer, and the monitors lit up, flashing dark windows full of white code that I couldn’t understand.
“He has a huge dead zone in his history… It’s like he just… appeared roughly ten years ago, but didn’t exist before that for some reason.”
Vox’s brow furrowed as I spoke, and he nodded as he flicked through several dark windows on his monitors.
“When can you get back to me with something?” I asked, and he glanced up at me as he typed the reverend’s name into some nondescript search engine that definitely wasn’t Google.
Cocking his head to the side, he shrugged, as if to say, ‘I’ll have to see.’
“Do you think next Monday is doable? This is urgent. I need something to work with by then.”
He let out a silent huff that I knew was his version of a chuckle, his lips quirking at the corner as he continued to type away on his keyboard.
He shrugged again, that cocky smirk still playing on his face.
“You’ll text me when you have something?”
He glanced at me and nodded, holding out his hand in a silent request for me to give him my phone.
I handed it over. “The code is–”
He typed my code in without waiting for me to tell him, and I scowled.
“Fucking creep. How do you know my passcode?”
He glanced up at me, his grey eyes shining, as if to say, ‘I know everyone’s passcode, dumbass.’
He tapped away on my phone and handed it back. There was a new messaging app I didn’t recognize with a single number programmed into it.
“I’m assuming this is a secure line, then?” I asked, and he nodded, already dismissing me and digging into the assignment I’d given him.
“Alright…”
‘Ask him to look into our fighter’s past as well,’ my monster reminded me impatiently.
I hesitated for a beat.
As much as I wanted to hunt down whoever had hurt Theo, she’d asked me not to look into it, and bringing a third person into something so private felt like a massive overstep.
Again, I wasn’t used to taking other people’s feelings into consideration when I wanted something.
I usually just shamelessly stepped on people to get whatever I was after, but… Theo was different.
‘Let’s deal with the reverend first; once he’s out of the way, I’ll have more time to do some digging myself. I don’t want to bring Vox into Theo’s personal shit if we can avoid it.’
My monster’s tail flicked against the bars of the mental cage I kept it in, and it growled in agitation.
‘Even if we track them down on our own, we will need help with the body. Your brother is retired. We might as well engage the vampire now.’
‘No,’ I snapped, causing my monster to roll its eyes.
‘Why must you always do things the hard way?’
‘Because if I did things your way, we would be in prison by now.’
My monster chuckled, curling deeper into my mind as it purred.
‘We would do well in prison. So much prey with nowhere to run.’
‘Jesus. Shut the fuck up for once.’
My monster just let out another low, rumbling laugh, as Vox glanced back at me with an annoyed look on his face.
He was clearly wondering why I hadn’t left yet.
“One last thing…” I asked, and he raised a dark eyebrow in question.
“Do you know how to set up tracking software on someone’s phone without them knowing?”
Vox’s eyes flashed, and the corner of his mouth quirked up in amusement. He nodded his head once, and the overall impression I got from the movement was a sarcastic ‘obviously.’
“Next time you’re at the range with Theo… you think you could… get something set up for me? She’s disappeared on me a few times, and until I can figure out why she keeps running, I’d feel better if I had a way to track her down… For her own safety, of course,” I added hastily.
Vox’s smile only widened, and he gave me another slow nod, his silver eyes shining.
“Shut up,” I snapped, which caused him to huff out a silent laugh again before shaking his head and dismissing me.
“...Thanks,” I called over my shoulder, but of course, he ignored me as I turned to let myself out of his weirdly cute house to slip back into my Audi.
Now, all I could do was wait.