Dillon
JADE’S BEEN SUFFERING FROM FALSE labor, something called Braxton Hicks or some shit. All I know is I haven’t slept a wink worrying about her and my unborn child. Leaving her this morning after she accused me of being overbearing was the last thing I wanted to do, and the text from my mom telling me she’s arrived at the house for the day brings a smile to my lips. Jade wouldn’t dare accuse my mom of being overbearing, so guess who called in reinforcements as soon as I left the house?
I walk into the precinct, and my stomach plummets when Marcus comes barreling toward me, a tense glare boring into me. His normally slicked back dark hair that makes him look like one of those celebrity dicks on television hangs down into his eyes. He’s not put together whatsoever. Panic flickers in his grey eyes.
“I haven’t even had coffee,” I warn him.
“Josey did something stupid—and without permission.” He sends a scathing look over his shoulder at a cowering Josey, who is hiding behind a cup—a cup of fucking coffee, I bet.
Walking past him and straight toward her, I take the cup from her hand and point toward the door. “Go home.”
She blanches, then rolls her eyes. “You haven’t even heard what I did yet.”
“I don’t need to. This will still be my reaction once I’ve heard.”
“Fine,” she huffs. “But I did well, and you can thank me when you realize it.” She swipes up a jacket on her way past Marcus’s desk and pushes through the double doors to the exit.
“I’m sorry. I had no idea she would do anything without the okay,” he sighs, running a hand through his dark hair. At least now I know how it got messed up in the first place.
“You look like shit,” I tell him, swigging the beverage I confiscated. It’s bitter and hits the spot perfectly.
His scruffy jaw clenches, and he flashes me a pained look. “Lisa is still ignoring my calls and she hasn’t been back to her place in days.” The motherfucker looks heartbroken, and I feel bad for the guy.
“What about her job?” I suggest. “Just stop by there.”
“She’s in school,” he admits, his cheeks turning ruddy with embarrassment. “I thought I told you that.”
“You told me she was twenty-five,” I grumble.
“Oh, she is,” he says quickly in defense. “She did some traveling, so she started her degree late.”
I’m bored already. “So, what did Josey do?” I ask now that I’m caffeinated.
“She went to The Vault.” He flinches.
Christ.
“She said a guy called Tanner interviewed her and had an argument with some guy he called Monster right in front of her.”
Who the fuck’s Tanner?
“Anyway, she said she took some discreet pictures so we can see if our Cassian Harris is her Tanner guy.
Who calls someone Monster?
“Scott,” Graham from tech yells from his office, doing a come here wiggle with his hand.
Why are tech guys so fucking weird? Too clever for their own good must be hard on their social skills.
“Get the pictures,” I bark to Marcus, who gets straight on the phone, telling Josey to email the images over.
“What you got for me?” I ask Graham, taking a seat on the end of his desk.
“The IP address you wanted me to trace?”
“Yeah.” I nod, wanting him to continue. I needed to put my wife’s mind at rest and track down the pervert obsessed with little Beth.
“It traces to a computer used there.” He taps his finger over his computer screen.
No fucking way.
I check to make sure I’m seeing it right.
The Vault.
Christ!
My cell vibrates, and I pull it from my pocket. Elise’s name flashes across the screen. “Hey, kiddo.”
“Dillon, can you meet me somewhere not at the house? I’m so worried about Beth, and my friend Kami who was supposed to come over, but she hasn’t. I don’t know what to do,” Elise rattles out quickly. “I don’t want to worry Mom when she has so much going on with work and—”
“Elise, calm down,” I interrupt. “I’ll meet you at Rosa’s Coffee House on the corner of Main and Third.”
She lets out a relieved sigh. “Okay. Thank you.”
“Twenty minutes?”
“See you then. Bye.”
Damn, these women in my life are going to have me in an early grave at this rate.
“Marcus, let’s go.”
“You want to tell me where we’re going?” my partner asks, rubbing a hand over his eyes. He’s tense as a motherfucker. This dude needs to get his love life in order. Stat.
“I need to pop in and see Elise, then we’re going to see Mr. Harris at The Vault.”
His head perks up and he shifts in his seat. “You got something?”
I pull my cell from my pocket and hand it to him. “Look at the first image in the picture section.”
Taking the phone, he fiddles around. “Cute, but I don’t get it.” He flips the screen around, showing me MJ wearing Jade’s heels and dragging her giant handbag. Frowning, I snatch the phone. Once I park in front of the coffee shop, I swipe the screen, handing it back to him with the username and some of the comments Dollkeeper made on one of Beth’s images.
“The user is from The Vault,” I tell him. “How fucked up is that? All roads lead to this Harris guy. There has to be a reason for that.”
I get out and walk the few yards toward the coffee shop, stopping when I notice Marcus is still in the car staring at my phone.
Fucking hell. If he’s getting off to little Beth’s picture, I’m going to punch him in the junk.
The car door opens just as Elise comes out of the coffee shop carrying two to-go cups. She sees me and grins.
“Is this a joke?” Marcus shouts, holding up the cell phone.
The coffees in Elise’s hands drop to the concrete and hot fucking liquid sprays up my leg, making me holler in shock.
My eyes drag from the mess on the ground up to Elise, who is holding her hands over her mouth. I follow her gaze to a stunned looking Marcus.
“What’s going on?” I ask warily.
“Shouldn’t that be my question?” Marcus asks, incredulous, fury causing his voice to shake. “What the fuck is this? And how do you know Lisa?” He’s still holding out my cell phone and talking to me, but staring at Elise.
I’m so fucking confused, I feel like I just fell into the twilight zone and no motherfucker is making sense.
“I’m so s-sorry, M-Marcus,” Elise stutters, tears welling in her hazel eyes.
I look between the two of them.
“Marcus, this is Elise, as in Elise and Elizabeth, Stanton’s twin girls.” I want to shake him to get him to start making sense.
His mouth drops open, then closed. His face screwing up in pain, he doubles over, then stands back up and turns, cussing.
“Someone better start talking,” I growl.
“I lied to you. When I saw you and you didn’t recognize me…I was hurt, but then excited. I’ve had a crush on you since I was ten years old,” she stumbles out, waving her hands animatedly.
“How could you not recognize her?” I ask, stupefied.
His hands go to his hips as he looks over at her with mist in his eyes. Shaking his head, he looks at me. “The twins were around thirteen when I last saw them, and when I say I saw them, I mean briefly, in passing at the precinct.” His eyes widen, as if he just realized something. “Oh God. How old are you, really? Oh God, Lisa.”
Lisa?
No fucking way. Marcus and Elise. He could be her father if he had her when he was young. High school maybe, but still. Fuck, how could he not know?
“I’m nineteen. Legal. I wouldn’t do that to you,” she assures him, and I feel sick at the unwelcomed image of Marcus and little Elise flashing in my mind. Jade is going to lose her shit over this. She loves Marcus and was so happy he was finally moving on. I haven’t had the heart to tell her there was trouble in paradise.
“I can’t fucking deal with this. This is bullshit,” he snaps, his grey eyes turning hard with fury. “You’re so far out of line here, I don’t even have words for you right now.”
A sob escapes her throat.
“I’ll be in the car,” he growls at me before slamming the door shut.
Perfect.
A barista peeks her head out the door and stares at Elise’s fracturing figure. “I’ll clean this up. Do you want them replaced?”
“No thank you, sweetheart,” I call out as I usher Elise away from the mess and walk her down the sidewalk away from Marcus’s glaring eyes. “I don’t even know where to begin with this, Elise.”
“I’m sorry. I broke it off because he wanted me to meet you and I knew it had gone too far,” she hiccups, making a snorting sound.
“Too far would have been at the start when you told him petty lies to deceive him.” I pinch the bridge of my nose in frustration.
“You’re mad at me too?”
Fucking girls. When MJ is a teenager, she’s not allowed out of my sight. This shit is too much. Girls are devious little shits.
“I’m not happy,” I grunt. “Go home, Elise. I will stop by after work and we can talk then. All of us.”
She nods, and I give her a hug and a quick kiss to the top of the head before leaving her to sort herself out. Opening the car door, I collapse into the seat and stay silent for a few minutes. Marcus passes my cell back to me, shaking his head.
“How can I be so fucking stupid? So blind?”
I shrug and let out a sigh. “This is new territory for me, man. I don’t know what she was thinking, and I don’t really know how I feel about it, only that it’s fucking weird.”
He swallows and shoots me a pained stare. “I feel like a pervert. She’s just a kid. Twenty-five was an issue, but I thought she was worth it, you know? And now…fuck,” he snarls as he pounds his fists into the dashboard. “I’m twenty years older than her for fuck’s sake.”
“Once the shock has passed, you can replay things and think rationally. She played you, Marcus. You’re not to blame.”
His jaw tightens as he looks out the window, dismissing anything else I have to say on the matter.
We arrive at The Vault and Marcus is still not himself. I picked him up a little while ago after a three-hour lunch break for him to get his head straight, which gave me a chance to check on Jade and MJ and actually have lunch with them for once. I wanted to tell Marcus to take the rest of the day off, but I need his cool head for when we go inside. Cassian Harris gets under my skin and makes me want to throttle him until all that snarky attitude falls right out his fucking ass.
“Can you just wait here?” a young woman asks. Her face is tense and bright red. She’s flustered and out of her depth. “Where is Lucy?” she hisses to another employee, who shrugs his shoulders
“I don’t know. She’s not back in until later,” he tells her.
She looks up to the ceiling, then pulls a radio from a clip on her hip. “What room is it he said?” she asks down the line.
Marcus huffs and darts his eyes from her to the guy moving past us with a drink tray. “Hey, man, you seen Monster around?” Marcus asks, and from his tone and hesitation, I know he feels like an idiot for using the name Monster.
The boy looks to the door behind me, then to Marcus. “I don’t think he’s back yet. I’m sorry, who are you?”
“No one,” I answer for him. “Run along, kid.”
The boy looks me over, then back to Marcus before exhaling and disappearing down the corridor.
I flick my eyes to the girl pacing the floor a few feet away talking animatedly on the radio. Trying the handle on the door behind me, I grin to Marcus when it gives under my hand. Inching it open, I slip inside and take in the simple décor, mediocre desk. No personal pictures. My eyes drop to a shattered cell phone on the floor. I reach down and pocket the sim card before Marcus is standing in the doorway, summoning me to get out.
I don’t make it past the threshold before the woman is standing there, narrowing her eyes on me. “That’s not the right office,” she bites.
“My bad.” I smirk.
“Yeah, right.”
She leads us farther down the corridor to another room—a different office from the one we first spoke to Cassian in, laid out pretty much the same, only a much bigger space.
“Gentlemen, what can I do for you?” he asks, standing from his chair and gesturing for us to take a seat. Once we’re seated, he lowers himself back into his own chair.
His focus is torn between us and a laptop in front of him. I’m just about to open my mouth when his body goes rigid. His hands shaking, he pulls the screen closer to his face and jolts upright, running past us like a Tasmanian devil.
“What was that all about?” Marcus asks the question running though my head.
Getting up, I round the desk, looking at the screen to see what spooked him. A woman lies naked and covered in blood inside what looks like a glass cell. I take off after him, searching. A ruckus draws me to his location. He roars from inside another room and comes crashing through the door. I catch a glimpse of an empty glass box through the sliver of space growing smaller as the door closes.
“What the hell is that on your computer?” I growl as he barrels past me. Grabbing him by the lapels of his jacket, I stop him before he can pass me. His body is solid in my grip. He’s heavy, and not easy to manipulate into moving where I want him.
“Release me right now, before you regret ever breathing my air,” he seethes, the look covering his features morphing him. He doesn’t even look human.
“You’re not leaving until I get answers,” I warn him.
“Then arrest me, Detective, or get your hands off me.”
I release him, and he jerks his shoulders before pulling at the bottom of his suit jacket to straighten it. He’s out of sight before I can follow.
“D,” Marcus says, and it’s grim as fuck.
“What?”
“Josey’s house. There’s been a break in and she’s not there. There are signs of a struggle,” he tells me, the color in his face fading to white.
“Check the images she emailed over,” I snap, racing to get out this fucking place.
On the way to the car, I’m already fiddling with my cell phone, popping out my sim card and inserting the one I retrieved from the office, hoping it will have something substantial enough to get Cassian down to the station.
I need to grill him. To break him. To find out why his name keeps popping up along with his damn club all over the place lately.
“It’s empty,” I growl, shutting the car door. I open the texts. Nothing. Contacts. Empty. Images. One video.
I click over it and nearly spew my guts.
How the fuck has this not been reported to us?
Grabbing Marcus’s cell from his hand, I dial the number for the prison and get put through to four different departments before finally reaching the right one. Pass the fucking buck much, assholes?
“I want the status of an inmate. Steve Stanton. Immediately.”
The woman on the line makes a sound of frustration. “I’m sorry, Detective Scott. Stanton is no longer a prisoner here. The details have been faxed over to your department.”
I end the call and want to throw the fucking thing. The email screen comes up from when Marcus was looking through his emails and the images stare up at me from their tiny focus. Acid burns through my veins.
No.
No.
Impossible.
No.
Enlarging the image, I can faintly hear Marcus in the background saying my name.
The fucking world tips on its axis.
No.
No.
No.
I’m dreaming. I’m stuck in a fucking nightmare that resurfaces over and over again.
Brown eyes—eyes I’d never forget.
Benny.
He’s different, but the same. A new buzz cut. Scruffy beard on his face. Tattoos.
No.
No.
No.
Monster. The video of Stanton on a phone from his office. All the connections back to The Vault.
Monster is fucking Benny.
How?
“Call Elise. Tell her to get Beth out of the house and to go to the station,” I order, my words sounding distant to my own ears.
“What the fuck is happening?” he bellows.
“It’s him. It’s Benny,” I stutter, dropping the phone and turning the car on. “I need to get to Jade.”
He’s already on the phone barking out orders. “Elise, get your sister and meet me at the station.” He curses. “No, goddammit, do it now.” A pause. “What do you mean? Well, text her to meet you.”
He looks over at me, the fear, confusion, and alarm written all over his face matching my own. “Elise isn’t at home. She’s going to call Beth.”
Fuck.
I snatch up his cell and dial her number. It just rings. I type out a quick text.
Me: Your new boyfriend is Benny. He’s your fucking brother and dangerous. Get out of the house now. I’m sending a unit to meet you.
“Call some uniforms out to Elizabeth’s house,” I urge Marcus as I barrel along to my house. I mount the curb before throwing it into park and race from the car up the driveway, bursting through our front door that isn’t locked.
Jade thinks it’s safe.
That she’ll always be safe.
We killed him.
But…we didn’t.
Fuck.
“Dillon,” Jade screeches, scolding me for bursting in and scaring her. I pick MJ up as she toddles toward me and grab for Jade, pulling her against my chest.
She comes willingly, sensing my need—my urgency to feel her, smell her.
“You’re scaring me, baby. What is it?” she breathes against me. I don’t want to tell her. Ruin her. Break her. But I can’t lie to her. Her world is about to crumble around her, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to find her and bring her back from the rumble.
“Dillon,” she urges, her voice cracking.
Fuck. I’m so sorry, baby.
“It’s Benny.”