by M. S. Parker
I glared up at him. “I was hired to be an assistant, you dumb ass. I wasn’t hired to be a prison guard or a babysitter. Maybe if you'd loosen the reins a bit, the cops wouldn't be so quick to say that she wanted to get away.”
Harsh flags of color appeared on his cheeks and he caught my wrist, jerking me forward. “Are you saying this is my fault?”
I twisted my wrist against his thumb, breaking his grip before stepping back and putting several feet between us. My voice was calm. “No. I’m not. But it sure as hell isn't mine, so why don't you back the fuck off.”
He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything else, I held up a hand.
I doubted anybody had ever dared to do that to him before and the shock of it stopped him.
“I’m going home,” I said coolly. “I hope Isadora comes home and this is all a misunderstanding, but I'm not going to stay here and let you yell at me for something that isn't my fault. If the cops want to talk to me again, they can contact me there. And you?” I gave him a tight smile. “You can kiss my ass.”
Chapter 2
Ash
The silence in the house was deafening.
I was still staring at the empty doorway a few minutes later when Beth appeared, shaking her hands, her lips compressed into a line so tight, they almost disappeared. The police had been talking to her in the hallway. She worked with Doug to run the household and had been with the family for nearly eight years. She'd also been the last person to see Isadora.
“Mr. Lang, I am so sorry–”
“Don’t.” Weary, I dropped down onto the couch and stared at nothing.
The sound of the door slamming was still echoing in my ears. I clenched my teeth, and not just because it was something that annoyed the hell out of me on my best days.
Isadora might've gotten away with slamming doors in the house because she didn't do it out of pique, but she was always in such a hurry to do everything. It was like it never occurred her that she didn’t get anywhere faster by not slamming a door.
Toni…she was just unprofessional, irritating, annoying…
And right.
That realization slammed into me with the force of a sledgehammer, and it was the only thing that stopped me from storming out the door and catching up with her. I already knew she wouldn’t have made it to the subway yet. It wasn’t like we had a stop right in front of the house and I knew she hadn't driven.
I could catch up with her, and I was tempted.
But only because I wanted to yell at her some more.
Yell, because that was the one thing that would take my mind of my worry.
“Maybe not the one thing,” I muttered.
Shit. I ran my hand through my hair.
What happened earlier had been a mistake, and not just because I’d been too distracted to pay attention to Isadora.
Maybe if you'd loosened the reins…
Toni’s voice was like an echo in the back of my head, but I brushed it off. She didn’t know shit about my family, didn’t know shit about me or my sister. She had no idea some of the things the two of us had dealt with growing up, or what it was like having so much money, that people saw dollar signs instead of people. What it was like to always have to question everyone's motives, wondering if they were only after money.
Although that didn’t seem to be the case with her.
“Mr. Lang.”
I turned at the sound of my name and saw Doug, the head of my household staff. His pale eyes were grim, and he looked behind him before moving deeper into the room. “Nothing.”
It wasn’t a question. Doug had been with my family for years, since before my parents died. I had vague memories of him taking me out to go Christmas shopping for my parents as a young teenager. That seemed a lifetime ago. He knew me well enough to know that if I’d learned something, the staff would have been made aware. They all adored my sister. Most of them barely tolerated me anymore.
Except Doug. He'd been the one to call me at college and tell me about the accident. It had been his voice consoling me when I started to cry in my dorm room, miles away. He'd been the one who'd watched Isadora the time it had taken me to drive home. He was the closest thing to extended family that Isadora and I had.
“Nothing.” I turned to the window and stared outside. “How did this happen?”
The question wasn't rhetorical and I wasn't asking some existential, meaning-of-life bullshit. I wanted to know the facts. How the hell had someone gotten into my house and taken my sister? Because that was the only logical explanation, no matter what Lieutenant Green thought.
“I’m working on it, Sir.” His voice was hard and flat and when I shot him a look, the troubled expression in his eyes was enough to make me glad I hadn’t snapped at him. If anyone was feeling Isadora's loss almost as much as I was, it was Doug.
“I want a list of all staff who was here today, even if they left before…” I paused for a moment, and then continued, “And call Ricin. I want him in here first thing in the morning. Whoever was on security today is getting fired.”
“I took the liberty of calling him already to inform him of what happened,” Doug said. “I told him I wasn't sure if you would want to do the firing yourself. He said that if you wanted him to do it, it wouldn't be a problem.”
That was good, at least. The last thing I wanted was my head of security trying to argue me out of firing his men. There was something else on my mind at the moment though and I needed to get it out there.
“The cops think she might have gone out to a club or taken a trip – tried to get away from me for a while.” It was hard to even get the words out.
To my surprise, Doug’s eyes slid away from mine.
I turned slowly and took a step toward him. “Doug?” There was a warning in the word.
“Sir.” He inclined his head. “Please keep in mind, you turned the running of the household over to Miss Isadora six months ago. That being the case, there have been a few times when she has…asked our help in taking some time away.”
I clenched my hands into fists and tried to control my temper. “And the bodyguards?” I asked.
“They were told that Miss Isadora would be staying in for the evening.”
“And my security team?” I had a feeling I was going to be firing a lot of people tomorrow.
“They saw only me leaving.” Doug met my eyes dead on, and I could see he was prepared for whatever I planned to do or say.
“You realize I’m likely to fire you over this.”
“Yes, Sir.” A faint smile curled his lips. “However, I consider it odd that you would fire me when she was always safe on the excursions I arranged, but on an evening when she was home with both you and your security team present…”
It was a blow I hadn’t expected, and I realized in that moment that Doug was angry.
He’d hidden it, but he was angry.
“You want to tell me what the problem is?” The question came out more harshly than I'd intended, but I didn't apologize for it. My sister was missing and he was pissed at me.
He hesitated a moment and then rocked back on his heels, linking his hands behind his back. He served time in the military – security details, my father had told me. Old habits died…never.
“Permission to speak freely, Mr. Lang?”
“That’s not what you’ve been doing?”
His lips twitched in what might have been a smile. He inclined his head slightly. “I’ve considered how lucky you are on a number of occasions, you know. Had Isadora been any less of a sweet child, or if she’d decided at any point in her life that she didn’t want to always make you proud of her…things could have been very different. I’ve thought, often, about how easily you could have lost her too.”
“Why do you think I want her safe?” I demanded. Of all people, I'd have thought he would understand.
The anger in his eyes faded away to something else. Sadness. “If I may, Sir. There are other ways to lose somebody than by
burying them. Isadora is a sweet young woman…and an insightful one. Many people, including you, often don’t realize just how insightful she is. She always knew why you fought to protect her and why you treated her as though she were made of glass. It’s why she’s tolerated it for so long. But her patience was…is…growing thin. I don't know if this has anything to do with her disappearance, but there's more to your sister than you know.”
I drew in a slow breath. “What's been going on that I don’t know about?”
“Perhaps…” He gestured to the couch. “We should sit down.”
***
It had been nearly an hour since Doug had finished talking to me.
Fifty minutes had passed since I'd torn out of the underground garage in the Bugatti, the need to tear something up burning hot and fast in my gut. The road happened to be available, so the road it was.
It was Monday night, which meant fewer people would be out late in general, so it hadn't taken me long to get to roads with enough room for me to actually move.
It wasn’t doing anything to help my state of mind, though. A light in front of me turned red, and I would have blasted through, but at the last minute, I saw lights pooling on the road and I hit my brakes. A car on the cross street came through and I stopped, shoving the heels of my hands against my eyes.
Shit!
I was being stupid.
Anger did that to me.
But it didn’t always make me careless. And what just happened was fucking careless. My parents died because someone hadn't been paying attention when they were driving.
I had to slow down and I had to think.
No. What I had to do was find Isadora. Maybe she had just left, taken off for the night like Lieutenant Green said. I didn't want to believe it, but I supposed it was better than the alternative.
If she really had slipped out voluntarily, then I just had to figure out where she would've gone. After a minute, I knew. She would've gone to see that lousy boyfriend of hers. So…
“I’ll go see that lousy boyfriend.”
I whipped the wheel to the right at the next available chance and headed for Brooklyn. It hadn’t escaped my notice that Toni only lived about a mile away from Isadora’s boyfriend.
For all I knew, Isadora had slipped out and Toni was covering for her. Toni liked my sister. Everybody liked my sister. I scowled. I loved my sister too. I just put her safety before her happiness. How did I know Toni hadn't decided that Isadora's happiness should come first?
But I wasn’t going to think along those lines yet.
I’d see Colton first.
I’d talk to him.
We’d be calm and rational.
***
I was partially right.
Colton Stevens, although clearly freaked out by my sudden and angry appearance, had managed to be calm and rational.
I, on the other hand, had listened to him for all of thirty seconds before I grabbed him by the front of a wrinkled Star Wars T-shirt and hauled him up until we were nose to nose.
“Where the fuck is my sister?” I snarled.
“She's not here.”
“The hell she's not.”
He pushed away from me. He might've been lean, but he was still strong. He fell back a few steps. “She's not here.” His eyes widened suddenly. “What happened?”
“Like you don't know.” I swung at him, my knuckles cracking against his nose as he took the hit.
He came to his feet in a fast, easy bounce, blood dripping down from his nose. He wiped it on the back of his wrist, flinging the drops away without even looking at them.
Either he’d taken a few punches before or I’d hadn’t broken it. Maybe both. I had to admit, the fact that he came back up so fast was pretty impressive. Even more impressive was how level his voice was, despite the nasal twang.
“I’ll give you that one,” Colton said. “Now tell me what the hell is going on.”
Shit. He was either an extraordinary liar or he really didn't know. As pissed as I was at the guy, I tended to believe it was the latter…but I wasn't going to give him any details. Just in case I was wrong.
“She's not at home and she's not picking up her phone. I figured she was here.” I hoped he'd think I was just being an asshole brother and not that I was freaking out because I didn't know where Isadora was.
Blood continued to drip and he muttered something under his breath, then turned. I stared at his back, feeling a little sick as he turned away and strode down a small, cramped hall. He had an efficiency apartment. Since it wasn’t right smack dab in downtown, it had more room than some, but the entire place would've fit inside my home office. It was clean, though, and judging by the décor – heavy on the geek – he’d put his stamp on it.
When he came back in, he had a rag shoved up against his nose and his eyes were snapping.
I tucked my hands into my pockets and studied him, hoping to figure out what it was about this twenty-six year-old meat packer with the messy bronze hair that had entranced my baby sister so much that she'd been sneaking out for six months to see him.
His face was grim, or what I could see of it.
After a minute, he lowered the rag. The blood had slowed to a trickle.
“I gave you that one, rich boy, and only that one, because I understand. I got a sister too, and I'd be upset if I was in your shoes. But you come at me again and it won't be free.”
Rich boy?
I ran my tongue along the inside of my teeth. He wasn't making me like him any better. I gave him a longer, harder look. He might've been thinner than me, but I could see the corded muscles in his arms. He wasn't a pushover.
“If you’re looking for a piece of me,” Colton offered. “I wouldn’t mind blowing off steam.”
It was like he was reading my mind.
Then he grinned, and the smile had a hard slant. “And since you’ve already thrown the first punch, I don’t have to worry about Dory getting pissed off at me when she sees that I marked up that pretty boy face of yours.”
“Dory?” I echoed.
He cocked a brow at me. “What of it?”
“That’s the name of a fish.”
“I know.” He grinned. “It suits her. She’s adorable and ditzy. She cussed me out and smacked me when I told her that.”
I was tempted to do the same – maybe not a smack – but I could punch him again.
Except I had a lousy feeling in my gut. It was one I’d experienced a few too many times today. The one I got when I was wrong. And I’d been wrong a lot today. I had a feeling I’d been wrong about this guy too.
“You really care about my sister, don’t you?” I kept my eyes on his face as I asked the question.
“You just now figuring that out, rich boy?” He said it with a bit of a sneer. It was only mildly softened by the light of sympathy in his eyes. “Don’t worry. I don’t expect you to invite me for Christmas or anything. I’ll keep my dirty, blue-collar germs to myself.”
I could feel heat climbing up my neck, but I didn’t bother to try and correct him. It had nothing to do with the fact that he worked for living.
But at the same time, it had everything to do with it. Especially now.
He’d already told me he didn’t know where Isadora was, and from what I'd recently learned, if anybody would know, it was him. But if that was the case, then it was looking more and more like she’d been taken.
So I didn’t give a damn if Colton worked with his hands for a living, but wasn't it possible that someone with only a little money would be the kind of person who might want to find a way to make some easy money. Like a ransom.
I should've felt bad suspecting something like that about someone who cared for my sister, but if I didn't have him as a suspect, who did I have?
Nobody.
***
After a couple of drinks, I could admit, to myself at least, that I’d handled the night badly.
Of course, this was the first time I’d ever had my sister kidn
apped, so it wasn't like I'd had a lot of experience in dealing with the proper way to handle it. Still, I'd always liked to think I was one of those guys who could maintain his composure even under pressure.
Now, I knew the truth. Under pressure, I was exactly what I was at any other time in my life.
An ass.
I’d lashed out at anybody and everybody but the persons responsible – the sons of bitches who’d grabbed my sister…and myself for failing to protect her.
That was the honesty yielded by a couple of drinks.
Of course, I also sucked when it came to any kind of self-reflection.
So I had a few more drinks.
That’s where things got fuzzy.
At some point between brooding and having my keys taken away by the nice but firm bartender – admittedly, I wasn’t so far gone to know that I needed to give them up – my brain started to spin in and out of focus.
I think I tumbled into one cab, and then out.
I should have gone home.
But something else I sucked at too many times was doing what I should do.
Things got really fuzzy after that.
Which was probably how I ended up staggering up a set of stairs that I didn't recognize.
What I did know was that I’d asked the cabbie to drop me off somewhere around here.
Why?
That was the fuzzy…
The door opened, and everything snapped into focus.
Toni.
Toni Gallagher stood there glaring at me. Her dark red hair piled on her head. She was wearing an old t-shirt that hit her mid-thigh.
Her eyes, dark and blue, raked over me from head to toe, and the look on her face was one of vague disgust.
For reasons I couldn't recall, that pissed me off.
I lifted a hand and pointed my finger at her.
Both of her.
“You…”
I swallowed and realized I was slurring my words. Damn. I was drunker than I realized.
She finished for me, an elegant eyebrow arching over her pretty eyes. “You're drunk.”
“Are you?”
Toni rolled her eyes. “Go home, Ash.”