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ALEC
Seven days.
A whole seven days had passed since Esther fucked me over and I still hadn’t tracked her down.
How hard could it be to find a pampered mafia princess? Evidently, much harder than I at first expected.
She couldn’t have just disappeared, but I was running into dead end after dead end.
We searched her friends’ houses from top to bottom, whether or not they were willing to help. Ellis, my hacker friend and technical whizz, had been poring over hundreds of hours of CCTV footage. We’d found enough to know she caught a bus close to the mansion, and had been in dark, baggy clothes with a baseball cap on. It was proving an absolute nightmare to trace her route to find where she had disappeared to. If she’d have used the major stations, it would have been far easier, but she must have used smaller bus stops in rural areas which either lacked CCTV or had it on the blink. It was a fucking nightmare.
I stood in her bedroom, looking around at the carnage I’d wrought in the usually tidy place. I’d ripped the bed apart, in case she’d hidden anything inside the mattress. Every cupboard and drawer upended with their contents spilled in lumpy piles over the floor, every single item gone through by hand. Her passport and purse were there, but as yet, her phone hadn’t been located. So she was either still in the country, or using false documents. Ellis had scoured local airport security footage, but nothing had shown up so far.
Running a hand through my hair, I groaned. Malcolm’s veins popped more with each day that passed, and Harold was losing his already thin patience.
Where the fuck was she?
‘Ellis,’ I said, calling him up to check on his progress. I sent up a silent prayer that he had something, anything, to go on. ‘Any news?’
‘The phone is definitely in the house, mate. You need to find it. It’s our best chance of seeing what she was up to before she left.’ Ellis’s Irish drawl sounded bored from the other end. Easy to be as cool as a cucumber when your ass wasn’t the one on the line.
‘I’ve torn the place apart. It’s not here. Wouldn’t she have deleted her messages and calls, anyway?’
‘Deleting them doesn’t mean I can’t find them, but I need the device to do it. Find it Alec, and I can do the rest.’
My fingers tensed against my phone as I scanned the room. There wasn’t a single part of it I hadn’t checked. We’d searched the other rooms too, without success. ‘How sure are you it’s in the house?’
‘One hundred percent. It never left the house after she did.’
With a deep sigh, I closed my eyes. ‘Alright. I’ll call you back.’
There was one person who might hide something. One person who had been being cagey the entire week.
Maeve. She and Esther were close, and if anyone had helped her, or was covering for her, it would be her little sister. I’d tried pressing her for info, but never alone. I’d do whatever it took to get an answer, daughter of the boss or not.
Within minutes, my fist clashed with her door as a series of bangs echoed throughout the wide hallway. Her eyes bugged as she opened the door, swiftly trying to close it again. Using my foot to stop the door, I pushed it open and made my way into her room.
Her gaze darted to the door as it closed behind me, her usual protection failing to be outside as I had every able body out searching.
‘No-one’s out there.’
I winced as she let out a high-pitched scream for help. Two steps toward her and I put my hand over her mouth, grabbing her up against me and applying pressure to her mouth and chest. ‘Cut that shit out. I’m not here to hurt you. I need your help.’
Maeve writhed against me, fighting against my hold. Despite her toned figure, she wasn’t strong enough for it to have any actual effect. ‘Quit it. I want to let you go, but you need to stop the screaming. Understood?’
Her chin bobbed against my hand, and slowly I lowered it from her mouth.
‘Get off of me,’ she said, her voice laced with anger. No-one treated those spoiled mafia kids like that, but I was losing the ability to give a fuck.
I released her from my hold as she moved away, wrapping her arms around herself as she gave me a foul look.
‘What did Esther say in the days leading up to leaving? Where did she go? Did she do anything suspicious? I need the truth.’
‘She said nothing.’ Her face was sullen as she barked out her words at me.
‘So nothing out of the ordinary happened at all?’
Maeve’s eyes fell on the door again, but I stood between her and it. There was no chance she could reach it without me catching her. Her shoulders sagged as she gave in, slumping down on her bed and giving me a foul look.
