“What the fuck are you doing here?” Atticus stands, blocking the entire entrance to the lodge. He steps out of the front door, making it pretty fucking clear I’m not welcome inside, as if his aggressive tone hasn’t done that already.
“I could ask you the same question,” I counter since he’s supposed to have left the country, and last time I checked, he was somewhere south of the Mexican border. “Where’s Tia?”
“You’re funny.” His derisive tone pricks at my fraying nerves. It’s been a long fucking morning, leaving home before dawn to avoid detection and give myself enough time to lay multiple trails in case Lilith did manage to spot me leaving. It was a necessary precaution, and I’m not even being remotely paranoid.
“Did it sound like a joke? Where the hell is Tia?” I snap. His eyes narrow and he crosses his arms. His T-shirt bunches at the tension where his arm muscles meet his chest.
“Since she hasn’t been answering her phone and snuck out first thing, I assumed she was with you, dick-wad.” He flashes a tight smile with the insult.
“She came to see me? Fuck Atticus, why the hell would you let—” I grit out, anger fuelling the aggressive tone. He cuts in.
“Trust me, if she had told me, I would’ve stopped her. Tia was smart enough to avoid telling me her specific plans for today.”
“So she’s not here?”
“Wow, and she said you were smart despite all evidence to the contrary.”
“Now who’s being funny? Fuck!” I hold my position on the threshold of Tia’s home, face to face with the man who, even though he didn’t kill me when he had the chance, very likely wants me dead. He is also the one person I didn’t want Tia to run to. I get a sick drop in my stomach thinking that these last three weeks, while I’ve technically abandoned her, he has very probably been healing the broken pieces of Tia’s heart. Anger mixed with a healthy dose of antagonism bounces between us. I run my hand through my hair with frustration, because none of that matters. My worries can wait; Tia is missing and I need to find her, right now.
“You want to come in?” Atticus offers after a few fruitless minutes of this midday alpha male standoff. I give a curt nod and step past as he makes enough room for me to enter. He points to the left of the tiny hallway and follows me into the compact country kitchen. I walk to the sink and peer out over the neat back garden with a small lawn, some paving stones which jigsaw to an old wooden gate at the far end of the garden. The back fence is broken in parts, and the thick brambles from the thickets beyond have begun to encroach, reclaiming some of the garden back into the wilderness of the woodland surrounding the property. I place my hands on the edge of the cool porcelain sink and drop my head, and drawing in a deep steadying breath, I try and collect my thoughts.
“What time did she leave?”
“I went for a run before sunrise and she was gone when I returned.”
“That’s over six hours ago! Why the fuck haven’t you tried to find her?”
“Because, arsehole, I assumed she was with you.” He indignantly enunciates each word but his eyes flash with the same concern that must be rolling off of me in waves.
“Give me your phone.” He hesitates before reaching into the droop of his sweat-pants pocket and cautiously hands over his smartphone.
“She’s not answering it.”
I swipe the screen and raise an eyebrow for his passcode. I could access it without his assistance, but I don’t need to be showing off my particular skills, I need to find Tia. He steps close and presses his thumb over the scan pad and unlocks the phone. I take it back and start to work.
“I can still track her location, as long as it’s switched on.” My finger makes light work of downloading the right app and pinpointing her location, made all the easier because of the unofficial upgrade on her phone I installed before I kicked her out. I hold the screen up for Atticus to check the map and pulsing red dot. “She’s at my house. Why the hell is she still there?”
“Because she’s waiting for you. Jeeze you’re—”
“If you call me stupid one more time, I swear I’ll mess that pretty boy face up so bad your mother won’t recognise you.”
“Don’t think that would be an issue,” he retorts, sarcasm thickly coating his tone, his expression resolutely indifferent. I don’t have the time or inclination to process the insinuation My mind is already racing ahead.
“What do you think the likelihood is that Tia would wait around all day just on the off chance I would return? I mean as far as she knows, I could be anywhere. Wouldn’t you think she would just come back here and try another day?”
“Yes, I guess. So what? You think she’s in trouble?”
“My sister is watching my house, so no, I don’t think…I know. Tia’s in serious trouble.”
“Then what are we doing here?” He snatches a set of keys from the kitchen table and is halfway to the front door before I can respond.
“We?”
“See, there you go, being all stupid again, or did you drive an invisible car to get here?” He grabs a light denim jacket from the back of one of the kitchen chairs. It’s weather-worn soft with time and much more suited to someone like me than a silver spooned CEO. I’m hot on his heels when he reaches the front door. He pulls it wide and leaves it open. Striding down the path toward his car, he calls over his shoulder, very much like I’m an afterthought. “Did you want a lift?”
To his credit, Atticus makes light work of the London traffic, weaving through back roads and shortcuts the SatNav fails to provide.
I’m also grateful he isn’t one for small talk.
All I can think of is getting to Tia before—God my stomach turns and I stop myself from going there.
After two weeks of searching every which way I know how, I had to concede Ghost’s nickname was entirely apt. I couldn’t find her, and in a strange twist of gratitude, I was actually pleased she called me yesterday wanting to meet. I wish I’d ended it then; not that I had anything like an opportunity to get her alone. She’s smart enough that our first meeting was to be in a highly public place, with no fear of making a scene, capture, or the police. Not that she’d committed a crime, so the latter wasn’t really an option. Even sitting opposite her in the small Bistro cafe table on the cobbled forecourt in Covent Garden was too close, too much, and I realised very quickly that, although I may no longer want her dead, I don’t ever want to see her again.
I know my sister. I know she’ll never stop until she has her prize, and after the meeting, a chilling conclusion cloaked me when I realised she’d already won.
I sent Tia away.
I could lose the one woman I love because of Lilith, and I this morning, I decided I wasn’t going to let her steal another day away from us. Even if it meant I had to hire a personal bodyguard and screen every item of food that passes her lips. I want her in my life, she is my life, and I want to live again.
Atticus screeches to a halt, bouncing the front tyres up the kerb, and we both leap from the car. I get to the front door half a step before him. The key is already in my hand, and I open the door and instantly start yelling for Tia.
“Check downstairs.” I call back over my shoulder to Atticus as I bound up the stairs. I barely get to her bedroom when Atticus calls out.
“She’s not here.” His voice is echoes up the stairwell, hollow and certain.
“You haven’t searched…oh…” I round the top of the landing and look down at his hand waving her phone like a white flag. “Fuck!”
“Yeah, and her bag is on the floor, her shit is emptied all over the place. This is your sister right?” His accusatory tone couldn’t make me feel any worse. Fuck!
“Shut up and let me think.”
“If she’s hurt her…” The direction of his anger flips a U-turn. “I should’ve kept her cuffed to the bed. None of this would’ve happened.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. My sister would’ve found a way.” I walk down to where he is standing, flipping the useless phone in his fingers.
“So what now? How are we going to find a ghost?” He slaps the phone and his hand against the centre of my chest with enough force the aggressive intention is more than crystal clear. I straighten my back and take the phone.
“She’ll find me.”
“I’m not prepared to wait that long.” He squares his shoulders and faces me. We are almost nose-to-nose, matched in height to within a millimetre, but I have more bulk, broader shoulders and more muscle. If he doesn’t back down, he’s about to find out how much more.
“You think I am?” My jaw ticks, fingers curl, and its like looking in a mirror of rocketing rage and hostility.
“Look, Logan, this isn’t a pissing contest because, trust me, I’d win. I have years in the bag and you kicked her to the kerb at the first sign of trouble.”
“And those years you mention, what did they matter exactly when she was watching her life pass by from a jail cell? Where were you when she lost her virginity that she saved for you?”
“You son of a bitch.” He draws his fist back, and I side step and bend back out of the reach of his swing. I hop back on my toes and steady myself for the next, because I know it’s coming. I’m glad it’s fucking coming. I grin and hold my position, fists raised and ready.
“No, I think that title is rightly yours.”
“You can have that one since it’s true, and you can have this one because it’s going to feel really fucking good to finally beat the shit out of you.” He lunges, barrelling me across the hall. My back crashes against the door, and he gets a few sharp jabs to my ribs before I can use my shoulder to push him off of me. I draw back and land a perfect uppercut on his jaw, effectively wiping the smug grin from his face.
“And when is that going to start exactly, because this feels more like sparring with my nana.” He dodges my next hit, and we both spend the next few minutes struggling to land a decent punch. We’re pretty evenly matched, if I’m honest. I’m able to use my bulk to throw him off balance when we wrestle, but he’s more agile and able to right himself before I can take full advantage. His fist cracks the side of my head, and I rattle. I feel the spilt in the skin above my brow at the same time my own knuckles garner a satisfying crunching sound against his cheek. He buckles but rights himself, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth on the back of his hand, and launches forward. We lash out at each other furiously, powerful fists flying, and blow for blow it’s an irritatingly even match.
“I can do this all night, but we need to find Tia, so how about a rain check.” Atticus wipes the blood from his lips and spits the rest pooling in his mouth onto my floor. The grey flagstones resemble the ring of a Madison Square Garden ‘big’ fight, with spatters of blood and smear marks from our collective bleeding wounds. We’ve skidded and wrestled around the entrance hall for a good thirty minutes. We both draw in steady breaths, beads of sweat on our foreheads the only indication either of us are exerting ourselves. Stamina is clearly not an issue, stubbornness is, but he’s right.
“Fine, but we’re not done.” I relax, drop my arms and stretch my neck out until it pops with the release of tension.
“Agreed.” He walks over to the bottom step of the stairway and slumps down, more worn by our predicament than the fight. “If I could get back into my apartment, I could activate the tracker on her necklace.” He glances up, my face creased with confusion. “I can’t risk going there until I have this Russian situation sorted.”
“She’s still wearing it?”
“If I tell you, will that land me another black eye?”
“Depends. If you add the fucking smug tone, then yes, it will.”
“She’s still wearing it.” He answers, keeping the tone in check, since we are both supposed to be on the same page.
“I can activate the tracker from here.” I step past him and take the stairs two at a time until I hit the top flight.
“Really? You can do that?”
“All stupid dumb-arse hackers can do that,” I call back, not breaking my stride and loud enough for him to hear. I race along the landing to my office, filled with the first surge of hope since finding her phone. He laughs and is soon following my footsteps to my office.
He stops at the main bathroom only to join me a few minutes later, patting his face dry with a towel. He hands me a clean, damp cloth for my own cuts. I nod my thanks, placing it on my desk while I continue to activate switches to boot up the servers. I have to wait a few more seconds for my computers to fire up. My fingers tap out a restless beat on the leather inlay on the desktop and Atticus’s knee bounces nervously in the seat opposite. This better work.
It takes a few seconds to identify the necessary programs and no time at all to activate the tracker, given the information I’d already saved when I first took a closer look at her ‘collar’.
“She’s at the lodge? No wait, not quite there, she’s close by though.”
“Can you pinpoint her exact location?” Atticus is instantly at my shoulder.
“Since she’s not moving, yes. Look, she’s there, right there.” I point to the map and switch to the satellite image to get a better feel for where she is exactly.
“Shit!” His worried epithet is exhaled in a whisper; the thick swallow that follows makes more noise.
“What?”
“That’s the East Tower, she wouldn’t be there on her own. It means someone’s taken her there.”
“I’m not arguing. I think Lilith has her, but what makes you think she wouldn’t be there on her own? She might be hiding.”
“She knows a hundred places to hide on the estate, and I told her the tower is unstable. It’s a fucking death-trap. There is no way she’d go in there voluntarily. I don’t suppose you have a gun?” He doesn’t draw breath between sentences, and his last question leaves me cold.
“No, I don’t have a bloody gun.”
“I’ll call Carter. He’s got a licensed handgun. He’ll meet us there.”
“Do you think it’s a great idea to involve anyone else?”
“Not just anyone, no, but he’ll also be able to hide the body.” He arches a brow. “You have a problem with that?” He walks to the door and fixes a knowing glare on me that I have no problem holding. His question is a no-fucking-brainer.
“No.”
“Good, lets go and get my girl.”
I might hate that he said ‘his’ girl. Since I’m really not sure if I can call her mine, my jaw simply twitches with the effort of keeping my mouth shut.
The car doors shut and he slams the car into first gear. The vehicle lurches forward, and we speed our way back across town and toward what’s left of Tartarus Hall. I don’t suppose his thoughts are that much different from mine…
I hope we’re not too fucking late.