the monitors for him.
“Seems she’s indeed heading to the club,” Mason says.
Both of their eyes are glued to the traffic cams’ feed as they watch Stella breeze through traffic in her Bentley.
He turns and looks at Mason with that ‘yeah right’ look.
“You’re right,” Mason replies. “She’s up to something. She’s been too quiet lately.”
He gets out of the chair and grabs the set of keys on top of the desk. It’s probably Mason’s keys but the man isn’t going to need them for a while anyway.
“You’re going to follow her?” Mason asks.
“Of course!” he barks and points at the screen. “I’ll call you from the car. Just let me know the details.”
He doesn’t wait for a response but runs out the front door. Thankfully, there’s a black Escalade parked right out front. Saves him from running around the house to find a car.
It takes him a good ten minutes before he gets to calling Mason though.
“She’s pulling around back at the Whiskey,” Mason tells him. “I won’t have eyes on her when she rounds that corner.”
“Why the fuck haven’t we put a camera there yet?” he growls.
He’s still a good ten minutes out. Maybe five if he really doesn’t give a shit about getting pulled over. Cops don’t usually run the plates and cut him loose until he gets pulled over though.
Fuck it. He floors the pedal anyway.
“Track her phone and see where she’s at,” he instructs Mason.
“Inside the club,” Mason replies not a minute later.
He taps his fingers on the steering wheel.
Maybe he’s making mountains out of molehills. Maybe she really just needs a girl’s night out.
Everything in his gut is telling him otherwise.
“Mason, track Brooks’s phone,” he orders when the thought comes to mind. Brooks, who hasn’t been seen in close to a month.
Mason doesn’t ask why but he can hear the clicking of the computer keyboard through the car speakers.
“Boss,” Mason calls out. “Seems he’s three blocks away from the Whiskey and is quickly heading north.”
“Feed me the directions,” he orders and accelerates again.
He’s venturing into McCullen’s turf now. Good thing they’re on good terms. If this were two years ago, things would be a lot different and he probably would have been stopped by the Irishman’s goons a block in.
“There’s a house on the corner of 34th and Wind,” Mason tells him. “A black older model Monte Carlo parked out front. I can’t see much down the street. Everything is too far from the traffic cam there and the plates of the car are coming up dry.”
“I’ll call you back if I need anything,” he says before hanging up. He doesn’t expect trouble from anyone though.
He spots the car easily enough.
He makes his way around the house before deciding to park on the street off to the side and a block away. He doesn’t expect trouble but he had to be sneaky to get information on what the fuck is going on and what the hell Stella is up to.
Thank fuck he threw on sneakers. His oxfords would have made way too much noise especially if Brooks is there too.
He gets to the back of the house and can see shadows moving through the lit window of the small craftsman style house. He lays low to make out what the voices are saying and who they belong to.
“How is she?” he hears Stella ask.
“Rough,” Brooks gruffly replies
Brooks and Stella are inside. With someone else.
And he needs to know who that someone else is…right this fucking minute.
Chapter Eight
“Be a good girl, Ari. Don’t hold grudges and try your best to please them. For me, my love.”
Her mother’s last words, her mother’s final request, plays over and over again. It’s the only thing she can hear or make sense of through the fog…through the darkness that’s trying to overtake her.
She should let it win for once.
She’s so tired of fighting it. And this time is worse than any other time before it. She doesn’t know if she has the strength nor the will to fight anymore. What’s the point? No one should exist like this. Even the dogs in those extremely sad Sarah McLachlan charity videos have more hope than she does.
Her fingers furiously scratch at the itch on her arm again. She’s bleeding, probably from opening the scab there…again. Fuck it. Let her bleed out. Let this despicable feeling and overpowering shake be over with.
It’s cold. She shivers and her teeth chatter. Yet, she also knows, there’s no real way except one to get warm.
One second, she’s