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“It's missing. Tell me you’re fucking with me, Kal.”
I shook my head.
“Trust me,” I muttered, hands yanking on the ends of my hair, “I wish I was.”
“So you're telling me the journal is missing. As in the journal you swore you would chop our balls off if it ever were lost?” Jayson scoffed, his knuckle pressing between his lips.
“Shit,” he muttered, snuffing the remnants of his blunt out in Tristan's scotch glass. Tristan shot him a dirty look, but Jayson wasn’t paying attention.
“Ya, shit,” I mumble, my Timberlands echoing on the polished marble floor as I began to pace. In my head, I could pretend it wasn't real, but now that I said it out loud, it was starting to hit me how very bad this was. In my head, I could plan. I could make it go away.
But now they knew, and I couldn't take the words back.
“Well, where did you have it last?” Tristan asked, pouring a fresh splash of scotch in a new, non-blunt contaminated glass. My hands paused their ruthless tugging in my hair.
“On the train.” I had already thought it all through. For hours, I retraced every step I made. I checked again, and again, and bloody again. Even when I thought I would go crazy I went back and mentally tracked myself. The train was the last place I remembered having it.
I wish I could go back and slap myself. I usually never took it out in public. Ever. But the impulse was too strong. I couldn't fight it. I needed to write it down. I needed to write it down so I could complete it. So I could viciously scratch out the words in silver sharpie after it was done. Only then would it stop controlling me.
Only then would it cease to hold power over me.
There was also that fact that the leather-bound stack of paper held the very codes I needed to run my empire. The very secrets that could rip the hinges off my whole operation. The kind of knowledge my enemies would burn the streets down to find. Send spies in through the cracks to obtain. If it fell in the wrong hands...
My blood started to boil, my fists opening and closing in rapid succession. It could be anywhere. This was New York for fuck’s sake.
I was so fucked.
Everything I worked for. Everything I was. It was going to be taken from me. And I was going to be forced to sit and watch as he came crawling back to me. Apology in his words and emptiness in his eyes.
I would not go back.
I would die before I ever let him hold power over me again.
“Ok, ok listen.” I didn't notice Tristan move. All I knew was one second, he was at the bar, and the next he was beside me, hand hovering awkwardly above my shoulder. Dark energy radiating off him in waves.
Was he, was he trying to comfort me?
Tristan was never very good at showing that he cared. It was hard to grasp the concept when he’d never had a real example of empathy in his shadow-filled childhood.
It was something me and him had in common.
Shrugging Tristan off, I gave him a faint nod to let him know his gesture was acknowledged and that I was good. A faint bitter smell filled my nostrils.
Jayson lit another blunt. I held my hand out to him, gesturing to the blond-haired god to pass it over. I took another long drag, the bitter smoke filling my lungs and staining my black t-shirt with its fragrance.
I hated this, this stomach-twisting nausea that threatened to consume me. I hated feeling out of control.
“I’ll have the guys keep a lookout for it,” Tristan suggested.
I glared at him.
“Discreetly.” He knew damn well the journal was not discussed with anyone. With the exception of those in this room.
“They won’t know any details. Only to keep their eyes peeled for any word of deals being made regarding the underground rings. Anyone with any knowledge of anything suspicious is to report immediately. If someone’s trying to make a deal, or a trade, we'll know about it.” Tristan finished downing his second glass of scotch, his tattooed fingers grasping the glass a little tighter than usual.
“For all we know, it could be in the hands of a nobody,” Jayson blurted. “Heck, a homeless man could be using it as toilet paper right now.”
I never thought a day would come when I would sincerely wish for a crusty bearded homeless man to use my life's work to wipe his ass.
