“A lot of missions to deal with?” Carrie probed him.
He glanced at her. “Something like that.”
“You look tired,” she noted.
Dominic rolled his neck. “What gave it away, Care?” he joked, his lips twitching.
“Okay, Jekyll and Hyde, I need to get into the office. You helping us or not?” Margo said, crossing her arms.
“Did you just call me Jekyll and Hyde?” Dominic drawled.
“Oh, trust me. You’ve earned that nickname, buddy,” she quipped.
“I think they’ve already seen us, Margo.” I gestured to the camera. “We’ve been standing here for half a minute.”
“Longer than that,” Dominic ticked. “But no, they haven’t. Jake and Ash are in the conference room.”
“Doing what?”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed and he glided to me. He loomed over me like a vampire, the corner of his mouth rising. “Shouldn’t you be at home, drinking tea and resting?”
His words, though probably ill-intended, stung worse than I expected. Is that how he saw me? Is that how everyone saw me? As some weak, scared, fragile little woman who secluded herself in her home in the hills?
Something in my demeanor and face must’ve changed, because his reaction was almost immediate. “I meant nothing by that, Ms. Howell. You’ve had a horrible week, and grieving can take a toll.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that,” I said firmly. “Thank you.”
Margo and Carrie were bickering in a series of forced whispers, so they didn’t notice the doctor quietly assessing me. I cleared my throat. “I already have a team of doctors who treat me for a variety of issues, Dr. Edwards. I don’t have the time or patience to add you to the list. I’d appreciate it if you left me alone.”
He turned his head, his eyes on the stairwell door. “Fuck it,” he muttered, pushing his hair back again.
“F-fuck it?” I stammered, my brow furrowing as he stepped back.
The navy-blue Porsche two spots down beeped, and he walked to it swiftly. He dumped his suit jacket inside before yanking off his tie. As he came back to us, he absentmindedly rolled up his shirt sleeves, revealing a sleeve of tattoos on his right arm. “Come on, Three Musketeers, let’s go find you some trouble,” he ordered, brushing by me. With a worried look at Carrie and Margo, I followed him to the concrete wall behind the cars. He opened an electrical panel and flipped a switch. A second later, a keypad was pushed out of the wall, the buttons lined with red neon.
“Whoa,” Carrie breathed. She grabbed Margo’s hand and then mine. “I never get to see the cool shit.”
This was news to me. I figured if any of the spouses had gotten an inside look at Red Snake, it would be her. Dominic’s fingers flew over the keypad, his jaw jumping. There was a soft ding, and then all the way at the end of the row, the large steel panel on the wall sank back and slid open.
“What the hell? I thought that was just part of the building design,” Margo said.
Dominic chuckled and gestured for us to walk ahead of him. “Ladies first.”
Chapter Eighteen
Ash
It’s your call.
My eyes lingered on the text Grayson had sent to the group chat as I rubbed my chin. Jake and I had been going over what he’d found for the last two hours, going through every detail of the Benson/Howell file with a fine-tooth comb. Years of tips that had led to hopeful leads and eventually dead ends. For nearly three years, it had been a constant, torturous cycle that I’d endured, forcing my heart and soul to go through, because I couldn’t give up. Not on her.
Jake stood at the head of the table, hands braced on the surface, his head bent. After the funeral, he’d come straight back here, continuing the search he started over eight days ago. He’d been eating, showering, and even sleeping here. At one point, Hayes threatened to kick down his office door because the fucker hadn’t come up for air in over forty-two hours.
Angel Howell was, in fact, not Angel Howell.
She didn’t exist in any trafficking survivor databases.
“What if she escaped Devil’s Den and found help locally?” Jake asked, pushing his hair back.
