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Banjo led me through what I assumed used to be a dining and living room until we reached the front door. I held in another sob as I watched the rear end of a SUV disappear down the driveway with Finn’s body inside of it.
“Is it Damien’s?” Banjo asked as he led me down the porch steps.
“Why the fuck do you care?” I incredulously sneered, my attempt to break away from him failing.
“Just answer the fucking question, Gin. Is the baby Damien’s?” He unhanded me, his dark eyes gaping critically into mine.
“I honestly don’t know,” was my blunt response. “Again, why do you care?”
Banjo made a pained face before he backed away and began to pace, ferociously gripping his hair and shaking his head. Iraised my brows at his sudden strange behavior, and then, after a minute of gawking wildly at him and that ridiculous fucking crown tattoo stretched across his forehead, I couldn’t help but ask, “What did you mean when you said I owed you? What did you do?”
He didn’t speak right away. As he continued pacing, he pulled a baggy of coke out of his pocket and snorted the shit straight out the plastic.
“This is where we say goodbye, Ginger. Good luck.”
I started to question whatever the fuck he was talking about, but my words fell short as I turned my head no sooner than a blacked-out limousine leisurely making its way up the driveway caught my attention. When the limo came to a halt in front of us, the driver quickly got out and hurriedly opened the back door.
Black, four-inch heels met the pavement, and instinctively my body coiled up in charred tension when a woman wearing a black dress with expensive diamonds wrapped around her wrists and neck stood tall, beaming me with a smile I wanted nothing more than to rip off her traitorous goddamn face.
Lena.
Phantom
2
“Phantom. Hey, man, you good?”
I tore my sight away from the raging party carrying on ahead of us and turned to look at Kaden, who was sitting on the tree stump next to me with a large stack of photos in his hand, his brows pinched.
It was Friday night. Father called Rhett at the literal last minute to warn us that the Reapers were dropping by a week ahead of schedule with another drug delivery. Donovan Hail was insanely generous and had provided us with a hefty supply that would help keep the academy up on its feet for several more months. Everything we’d pulled out had already been sold and the money was currently en route to Father.
Instead of taking off, Rhett convinced Kaden, Lucian, Cody, and Wesley to stay behind and check out the party. I wasn’t really in the partying mood, not after everything that’s come to light recently—shit I was still having a hard time wrapping my head around. Kaden said he needed my help though, and he sounded desperate. He was my friend, my only real friend I hadleft now that Cindy was gone, so I decided to stick around and assist him with filling in the missing pieces for this Gunther Knox puzzle they’d yet to solve.
“Yeah,” I replied after a moment. “I’m good.”
“You sure? You seem a little out of it.”
“All is good, Kaden. I just have a lot on my mind. You know how it is.”
He nodded to that, and after shifting around on the tree stump so he was fully facing me, he reached out and handed over the photos.
“What the hell is this?” I asked.
Kaden ground his teeth as I flipped through each one, my chest tightening. “Knox sent these to Rebel. It’s obvious the fucker has been stalking her, us, and her family, but the problem is that we still can’t find him. Something deep in my gut tells me the answer lies here in these photos. I’ve been at it for days now, and I just can’t crack it.”
I placed the photos of Kaden and the others to the side and carefully surveyed the photos of Rebel and her mother, chewing angrily at my snakebites the longer I examined them. Right away I’d noticed something that seemed a little off.
“This is Rebel’s mother, right?” I asked as I held the photo of her mixing up what looked like batter in her kitchen.
Kaden nodded. “That’s right.”
I checked Rebel’s photo next, the one of her sitting on her bed with schoolbooks spread around her. I studied the angle it was taken and how Rebel seemed utterly oblivious of her surroundings. Then I swapped to the next one, the close-up of Rebel sleeping peacefully in bed. That was when the answer had all but punched me in the face.
“Kaden, you’re a fucking idiot.”
He frowned at me. “What? How?”
“Look.” I showed him the picture of Rebel’s mother, pointing out certain things that had Kaden’s brows shooting fretfully up to his hairline. “And these,” I said again, holding Rebel’s photos up next. “These were taken a gravely close range, meaning the fucker had to be literally right there on top of her in order to capture the shot.”
