Chapter 25
King/Dante
“I’m going to miss you.” I tipped Ella’s chin up and captured her lips, trying to resist the urge to take the kiss further. I wanted nothing more than to take her back up to bed and stay there all day, but that wasn’t going to happen. I had a clusterfuck to unravel today, which is why I was getting ready to walk out the door at six-fucking-thirty in the morning.
“I’ll miss you, too,” she whispered, then gave me a quick peck on the lips before stepping back. “I’ll show you how much when I get home on Sunday evening.”
My spirits, and my dick, perked up at that idea.
“I can’t wait, sugar.” I couldn’t resist grabbing her and stealing one last kiss. “Good luck with your presentation for the spa and drive carefully today. Call me as soon as you get to Chicago.” I reluctantly released her from my embrace as she agreed, reminding me she planned to leave as soon as her meeting was done.
“We should be on the road by noon at the latest.”
As I mounted my bike, I fought the urge to go back inside with Ella for just a little while longer. I felt uneasy about leaving her but forced myself to shrug it off. I missed her already, and she hadn’t even fucking left town yet. It was going to be a long, damned weekend without her.
Once I got to the clubhouse, Cowboy and I threw ourselves into looking over the phone records Bull had finally managed to access in the wee hours of the morning.
We found quite a few calls between Star and Pic’s cell phone from before he left town with our money. We already knew from Cyn that he’d ditched his cell phone that day and started using burner phones. He was smart enough to get a new one every few days, so tracking any communication between the two of them was almost impossible after that.
The only clue we had to go on was from the day Cyn fucked up and called Star. Within minutes of that call ending, Star called a number that Bull discovered was a burner. There was only a single text from that burner to Star’s phone a week before Cyn called her, but then minutes after, Star called the burner and had a six-minute conversation. There were over a dozen other calls and texts to and from that same number during the following two days, the last of which came through from the burner phone to Star within twenty minutes of the 911 call made by Cyn’s neighbors.
There’s no way that was all a coincidence. That burner phone had to belong to Pic. That number hadn’t contacted her since, but there was a new burner phone that had called her yesterday, an hour before she was failed to show up for her shift. We were tempted to call the burner numbers, but we didn’t want to scare him off if it was Pic. Bull was trying to track down where it had been purchased, but that kind of shit took time.
We were just about to give up on the phone records for the time being when my phone rang. I was shocked to see that it was Lola, Pic’s ex-wife.
“Hey, Lola, how are you, sweetheart?” She was a good woman, and I hated how hurt she’d been with the truth had come to light about Pic.
“I was doing well, until Pic called me just a few minutes ago. He’s lost it, King. He’s totally flipped out. He was screaming one minute and crying the next. He threatened you, or maybe Christy, I’m not sure. I’m sorry…he was rambling, and he wasn’t making much sense.”
Hearing my ex’s name surprised me, and I glanced at Cowboy in confusion.
“I’m here with Cowboy, and I’m going to put you on speaker phone so he can hear this, too.” I pressed the button on the screen to switch the call, then said, “Now, tell us everything, from the beginning.”
I listened with growing unease as she explained that he called demanding to see her and their kids. She refused, and informed him that they were legally divorced, as of two months ago, and that his parental rights had been terminated.
“He went ballistic, and said it was all your fault. He said that if you hadn’t suspended him from the tattoo shop last fall, then I would never have found out he was cheating. Then he started yelling about that stripper he ran off with. Something about you paying her to leave him and then he started crying, saying he’s all alone now. That’s when he said that maybe he should show you how it feels to loseyourwoman.”
A ball of dread started to form in the pit of my stomach and my eyes shot up to meet Cowboy’s. He looked as worried as I was, and I forced myself to focus on what Lola was saying.
“I didn’t know who he was talking about but thought maybe because he was so out of it that he meant Christy. When I asked him, he just laughed and said he’d heard them talk aboutyour special lady. I asked him who he’d talked to, but he got mad and screamed that nobody would talk to him, but he still listened. Like I said, he wasn’t making much sense.”
“Fuck! Did he mention the name Ella at all, or Eleanor?”
She hesitated, and I held my breath until she answered. “No…I don’t think so. He kept referring to her as ‘your woman’or ‘your special lady’but he never said any names. He just kept saying that he was going to take her away so you’d be alone like him, and that he would show you how it feels to lose her.”
I started to ask her to repeat everything Pic had said, to see if she might remember anything else, but Cowboy interrupted me.
“Lola, this is Cowboy. You said Pic wanted to see you and the kids. Does that mean he’s back in town?”
Oh, fuck.I felt like my blood had turned to ice in my veins when he voiced his observation. I had been so focused on the threats Pic had made, and whether Ella was his target, that I hadn’t even registered the significance of him demanding to see Lola and the kids.
“I…don’t know. I’m sorry. I was so freaked out by the crazy way he was acting; I didn’t even think to ask.”
Cowboy sighed, then rubbed his hand over his face. “That’s OK. Did he say anything else? Anything at all?”
“No, not that I can remember.”
I sat there, frozen, as Cowboy confirmed that she and the kids were still staying on the Rossi estate. She assured us they were, and that Luca was going to put some extra guards on duty. I was glad to hear that. She and the kids would definitely be safe from Pic as long as they stayed there.
