Chapter 4
Nightlife
Seraphina sat at the bar, laughing with a group of handsome businessmen. Most of them were in their mid-thirties, but she had her attention set on the younger, twenty-something man to her right.
She had learned that he was new to the men’s advertising agency. After interning for the past year, he had been offered a job today, so the associates were taking him out to celebrate. There were some women from their company in the crowd, but they were preoccupied with their own dates. These men, though, even the one’s unashamedly trying to hide their wedding bands, were all hers.
After joking around and making the men laugh at her stories, she took the younger man’s—Jake was his name—hand. “Come dance with me,” she whispered in his ear.
The men surrounding them drunkenly howled, cat-called, and slapped Jake on the shoulder. He seemed embarrassed at the attention, but he followed Seraphina anyway.
“I’m sorry I gave you so much attention,” she coyly apologized as she slipped her arms around his neck and pressed her body flush against his.
“That’s okay. I’ve been getting a lot of that tonight.”
“I bet,” Seraphina crooned in his ear.
Jake automatically sucked in a breath.
“Want to get out of here?” Seraphina boldly asked him, not able to wait another minute to have this man inside her.
“S-sure,” Jake stammered. So cute.
“Come on. Did you drive or do I have to?” Seraphina asked, knowing good and well that Jake was brought here and too intoxicated to drive.
~~~~~
Nathan practically burst through the front doors, not the inconspicuous entrance he was going for. He quickly pulled his ballcap down a little farther over his eyes, keeping his head tilted down as a couple walked past him.
There were no bouncers in this place. It was more of a posh restaurant with a bar than the nightclubs Seraphina had frequented over the past few weeks. Therefore, he walked right in, past the hostess who tried to stop him, and glanced around, keeping his head tilted down. He knew he had made a big mistake coming here, dressed as he was. He was bringing too much attention to himself.
Turning around, he made a beeline for the door. He hadn’t seen her when he had glanced around. And if he had missed her in the crowd, he would just watch and wait from his car.
Stepping back outside where rain was misting down, he started toward the meager parking lot down the road when her laugh stopped him.
Standing feet in front of him, hanging off the arm of a young yuppy, stood his target. They had walked right past him as he had been heading in.
A fury borne from once possessing something to finding it stolen lit his veins on fire. He could feel it radiate from his heart, burning a path down his arms, his torso, his neck, and combusting through the tips of his fingers, his toes, the top of his head. He balled his hands into fists, his legs becoming steel frames, his chest a vice.
He quickly turned in the direction of his car, keeping his head down yet glancing back, keeping tabs on them as they stood with the valet, no doubt waiting for one of their cars to be brought to them. Nathan would tail them.
Fury still burning through him hours later, he watched as Seraphina, the girl turned huntress, walked out of room 106 of a rundown, cheap motel, heels in hand, her dress not even zipped up the back.
He burned hotter at the thought that she was leaving her newest conquest the same way she had left him—confused, with no clue where she had gone.
Leaving the man to wonder if she had been an apparition, if the exquisiteness of her taste, her lips, her body had been real.
Forever hearing her laughter echoing hauntedly down empty corridors, resonating in the sound of waves crashing along the shore.
Her ghost haunting him in every similar woman he saw. Haunting him from the corner of his eye, making him turn to find only shadows and memories.
And damning her for leaving him without a hint of where she had gone. With fear and loss following him throughout his days, always wondering if she was even alive somewhere. Wondering if she was okay, safe, loved. Or buried six feet under in some unmarked grave.
Leaving him without a trace. A boy, scared and confused. A boy who had lost his first love, his best friend. A boy turned man who was determined to get her back.