Page 72 of Was I Ever Real

“Show me,” I growl.

Bastian winds back to life, shrugging his bag off his shoulder, pulling out his laptop while approaching me. He places it on the desk, his fingers dancing across the keyboard, until a video pops up on the screen and he taps the spacebar, pressing play.

Seeing Lenix walk down Mullins Street sends a desolate shiver down my spine and I battle the fury trying to take over once again. She’s on the phone, her curt movements and hand gestures telling me she’s angry.

I glance down at the timestamp and realize I’m watching her leave me the voicemail. I suddenly wish I could reach through the fabric of time and manipulate the past, if only it meant I could have answered the call.

I bite out a few more expletives but keep my eyes glued to the screen. From the camera’s vantage point, we can see a man waiting for her just around the corner of a building. Squinting my eyes and examining closer, I finally recognize her ex-fiancé.

Rage engulfs my limbs but I hold back, trying to study the footage instead. “Someone else was following her,” I say pointing at the second person. One in front, and one trailing a few feet behind her.

“Yeah…” Bastian trails off, having already seen the inevitable.

Watching it unfold, and knowing I can’t do anything about it is pure fucking torture.

She walks right into him, the other guy inevitably putting her into a chokehold and I’ve never been more blood thirsty in my entire fucking life. Seconds later, a van pulls up and they throw her in the back. Before jumping into the vehicle, her ex-fiancé slams his heel a few times onto her dropped phone, picks it up and throws it in the trash. Then they’re gone.

The silence in the study is deafening. I clench and unclench my fists, my eyes still frozen on the now black screen of the laptop. The screen reflects my face back to me and I can’t bear to look at myself so I slam the damn thing shut. Bastian glares at me, sliding his computer off the desk but says nothing.

“How thefuckdid they manage that? Downtown in broad fucking daylight?” I say, my voice cold and deadly.

“Wilfred Street was closed a few blocks down from there. It held up traffic. Waiting at the corner for her was clearly intentional,” Bastian answers.

“News about Morrissey just broke today, how were they this fast?” I add incredulously.

I wouldn’t have left her out of my sight if I knew it’d put her in any kind of danger.

I fucked up.

And now they have her.

“Looks like they had already planned to kidnap her. You killing the governor was just the perfect reason to hit hard and fast,” Byzantine says, still standing by the fireplace.

“So we kill ‘em all,” I state. “Blow the whole fucking place up. It’s not as if we don’t know where they’re taking her.”

I’m crawling out of my fucking skin. This roaring wrath needs an outlet before I turn it all back onto myself.

Byzantine gives me a pained glance and I know he’s imagining Sunny in Lenix’s place. I can already tell I won’t like what he’s about to say. “We need a proper plan, brother. We can’t risk putting her in danger.”

I slam my palm on the desk in irritation, jaw clenched, my lip curling into a snarl. “I’m not going to just leave her there, while we stand around and do nothing.” I turn to face the window, staring out but seeing nothing, my hands interlocked behind my head. “God knows what they’re doing to her,” I say. More to myself than anything.

I turn back around, Byzantine’s gaze softening and I would rather he punch me in the face than look at me like that.

“Just let Bastian do what he does best. I promise you, Connor, they’ll fucking pay for this.”

It’s almost morning and I haven’t slept.

How could I?

The bedsheets smell like her. It’s an unending torment. But I deserve it.

How could I let this happen?

I failed in doing the one thing she asked me to do—protect her. If I believed in karma, I’d start to think I’m paying penance for all the fucked up things I’ve done in this life. Good thing I don’t. Doesn’t lessen the guilt, or the heavy responsibility I’m holding over my head for every single thing she’ll suffer at the hands of those fuckers. I cycle through all the gruesome ways I’ll kill them. Like a lullaby, I count dead bodies like I’m counting sheep, but still, I can’t sleep.

I’ve spent the past two hours replaying old recordings from the cameras installed around the house. In some of them, I appear with her. There’s been a hard knot in my throat since I’ve noticed the few stolen glances she’s given me while I wasn’t watching.

It almost looks like affection. Like deep down, she enjoys my company more than she could ever admit. My bones ache not being able to hold her.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com