AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Don’t tell me I can’t go in there. Get out of my way, dipshit, before I kick your balls up your ass so high, you’ll choke on them.”
Hunter leaned back in his chair at the ruckus outside of his office. He would be surprised if whoever was verbally abusing his PA, Sam Miller, also a male sub, would manage to get past his guard.
“Don’t you touch me,” the woman screeched. “Red! RED! RED!”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Hunter muttered and stomped toward the door, knowing a plethora of Masters present at the academy would already be on their way to assist whoever the distressed sub was. His shoulders flinched in an angry shrug as he opened the door and recognized the fiery woman facing off against the lean but strong frame of a man twice her size.
“I should’ve known it would be her,” he muttered under his breath. Frowning, he walked closer, his voice cutting short any further explosion from the angry sub. “Enough!”
“What’s going on?” A number of Masters stormed into the large open office, inviting a dark rumble from Hunter’s chest. He cast an indifferent glance around the sea of faces, confirming the situation was an annoyance rather than a concern.
“Definitely not a situation requiring the use of the word red, isn’t that correct, Cotton?”
Delia’s face suffused with a reddish tint at his guarded admonishing, but she pushed her chin out in defiance.
“Maybe not in a scene context but I call red on a situation.” She looked at the gathering of people that had shrunk the office to half its size. “Perhaps we should discuss this in private.”
Hunter was tired and didn’t have the strength for a debate on a woman he was doing his best to forget.
“You can all return to whatever you were busy with,” he said matter-of-factly and waited until everyone left before addressing Delia. “There is no matter to discuss. Ember was expelled with good reason and will never be allowed back. End of story.”
“Expelled? When did that happen?” Delia planted one hand on her hip and tapped a foot on the floor. “Exactly when did you expel her when she hasn’t been heard or seen from since that day you took her to Castle Sin?”
The air around him suddenly felt cold and brittle. “What are you talking about?”
“Am I speaking in a foreign language, Master Crow? Let me spell it out for you. Ember, aka Lillian Pringle, is missing. She has been for two weeks. She’s not at her house, her brother has no idea where she is since she hasn’t been at work either. So, since you were the last person who saw her, you better have a damn good explanation of just what the hell you did with her.”
Hunter’s threat of a hostile takeover hadn’t been an empty one, but at the time he had used it as a way to twist the knife a little deeper, to compensate for the anger and hurt Lilith had caused him. Once he left Seven Keys Island, the desire for revenge receded and he instructed Matilda to stop all actions against the Prince organization.
An unwanted memory of constant phone calls from an unknown number, which he had been ignoring for the past couple of weeks, started to hound him. Was it Lilith trying to get hold of him?
“Ember was returned to her front door the following day, Cotton. By that time, she had already been expelled, so I had no desire to make any contact with her again.”
Hunter might have told Danton to leave Lilith in Key West, but he had been concerned enough to follow-up two days later to confirm she had made her way back to Seattle. Danton assured him, he had personally flown her back to Seattle on Sunday and accompanied her inside her house before leaving. If Lilith wasn’t home, she was either licking her wounds somewhere, or something unforeseen had happened.
“Then where is she? We became friends, and I just know she wouldn’t just leave without letting me know.” Delia seemed genuinely distressed.
“Very well, Cotton.” Hunter capitulated with a heavy sigh. “I’ll go to her house and see if I can find any indication of where she is. Please, go back to class and don’t stir the pot. I will find her.”
“Thank you, Master Crow. I knew I could depend on you.”
Hunter acknowledged the backhanded compliment with a grunt as he collected his car keys and headed out to Seaview where Lilith’s house was situated. On the way there he made a phone call to Matilda.
“I need you to do a dark web search on Rocco Butler. Something about him seems familiar, and it doesn’t add up that a family like the Princes would be associated with a man with so little integrity. Dig deep. I have a hunch he has some skeletons in his closet and that one of them might be me.”
“What? Are you saying you were into shady shit when you were younger?”
“No, but I have had some shady assholes approach me over the years. It might be one of them looking for payback. Also, I’ve been receiving a number of calls over the past two weeks from the same unknown number. See if you can trace it and see if you can find a location on Lilith Prince’s cell.”
“I’ll see what I can do but if the call to you came from a burner phone, we’re screwed, and I’ll only be able to locate Lilith’s cell if it’s switched on.”
“Less talking, Matilda.”
“On it, Boss.”
The trip to Lilith’s house was a waste of time. There was no indication of a break in, and since the place was locked up like Fort Knox, Hunter doubted anyone could get inside unless she wanted them to. The neighbor confirmed that she had seen a big man arrive with her a couple of weeks ago but left soon after.
“Oh, she did leave,” the gray-haired lady said just as Hunter turned to go. “Later that Sunday night. I assumed she was going to her parents. They usually have a weekly family dinner.” She shrugged. “Come to think of it, I didn’t see her arrive home later that evening.”
