A/N: Ok so I know that I have been horrible with the updates and what not. The last chapter was plagued with a rather persistent writers block and as soon as I was able to get rid of that I had to deal with the fact that I really think my teachers are trying to kill me with all of the homework that they have loaded on. I am on spring break now and so hopefully I will be able to get one or two chapters up during the next week. I will do my best to have at least 2 more chapters up in the next week but I make no promises. Please leave a review and let me know what you think of the chapter and I will post again as soon as I possibly can.

Disclaimer: I do not own Josef, Mick or anyone else that you may recognize. Riley and all of the others that come out of my head are of course mine. No copy write infringement is intended

Chapter 9

It has already been two days. I was starting to question how much longer I could hold on in Charlie's game. Yesterday all we did was sit and talk. She told me what had happened to her and why she was so bent on looking for revenge. It had all seemed normal at first. I could tell that she was upset, but everything that she was saying just seemed to me like the ranting and ravings of a scorned teenager. I had hoped for a while that that was really the depth of her anger.

Unfortunately for me, she soon moved on to darker and more dangerous topics. She told me what had happened exactly to the other girl, Carrie Ann. Why she had taken her, and what she did to her before she killed her. The physical and mental abuse that that poor girl had been forced to go through was awful. I started to realize that this is what was waiting for me.

It was this morning that the beatings began. When Charlie walked into the room I could almost feel the hatred and anger pouring out of her. She picked me up off of the bed and threw me across the room into the opposite wall. My already broken leg was joined by a newly broken arm. I needed to get out of here and get to a hospital before all of these set. But of course, I really shouldn't be worrying about all of this now. She picked me up again by the throat and threw me again, head first into the wall. I closed my eyes trying to block this entire thing out. I put myself back at Mick's apartment, someplace that I knew I would be safe at. I pictured myself here until the beating stopped almost five minutes later. As she walked out of the room, I heard her call back to be to be waiting for the next one.

I tried to pull myself over to the bed. I made it about half way across the floor before I blacked out.

-Mick's POV-

We had searched every possible lead that we could think of, all in two days. This wasn't a good sign. Josef was actually starting to look panicked. That in itself was worrying me. Through her contacts at Buzz Wire, Beth had been able to pull up a credit history and we had been able to track most of her purchases. There was only one left, but it didn't look promising and we hadn't wanted to check it out until everything else had run dry. She had made a payment on something about two weeks ago. It was the oldest purchase on the card. Only problem was she had blocked what all of her purchases were so we had no idea as to what this could be.

Josef and I were going to check it out today; we were leaving in just under an hour. I was a little worried about leaving Beth behind, but if we did find Charlie I just couldn't have her there. I was actually a little unsure if I wanted Josef there either. He was too personally involved in this case and I could already see it was having way too much of an effect on him. I continued to pack my bag and think about what we might be getting ourselves into.

After a few minutes I heard a light knock on my door. I walked down the stairs and looked out of my security camera to make sure that it was Josef. I pulled open the door and took a step back as he walked into the apartment and began to pace. I watched him for a few minutes and eventually let out the laugh that had been trying to escape sense he had gotten here.

"What the hell are you laughing at, Mick?" I again let out a short bark of a laugh.

"Nothing, Josef. You're just…. Well never mind."

"Mick, I am really not in the mood to deal with your odd sense of humor."

"You're really worried about her aren't you, Josef?" I watched his face as he took in what I had said and tried to find a way to argue the point. "We will find her, Josef. I promise you, we will find her." I could have sworn that for a split second I saw a smile on his face. However, when I looked back at Josef, his face was blank once again.

I walked over to the hidden storage in my sink and pulled out a bag of blood. I poured both Josef and myself a glass and we sat down to wait for time to pass. We sat in silence as we drank. When we had both finished our glasses we still had about an hour until we had to be at the air port. I made my way back up to my room and gathered the rest of my things. I walked back down stairs and set my things at the door. I once again sat down across from Josef and we waited.

It was nice to just be able to sit. Josef was one of the very few people that I was completely comfortable with and would never need to worry about filling a silence. I thought a lot about what we were getting our selves into. Josef made himself an easy target by surrounding himself with so many beautiful human women. Charlie knew that and knew which women were the most important to Josef. It was so rare that Josef let any one that he worked with into our life that he normally didn't have to worry about the girls that worked for him being in too much danger. Riley seemed to be special though. Whether or not he would admit it, I could tell that he was developing feelings for her. Whether or not it was more than just concern at this point, well I wouldn't know the answer to that until Josef decided to tell me himself.

The time had come for us to make our way to LAX. We were flying to a small town just outside of Huston. That was where Charlie's first purchase had been made and Riley's life depended on us finding something there. The cab ride to LAX was relatively quiet. Josef was lost in his own thoughts and I knew better than to try and pull him out at this point. Instead I let my thoughts drift to Beth for the duration of the car ride.

-Josef's POV-

Mick and I walked down the front stairs of him apartment building and quickly made our way to the car that was waiting to take us to the air port. We climbed into the car and settled in for the half hour ride. Mick attempted to start a little conversation at the beginning of the ride but I shut him out. I couldn't just sit here and talk about what might happen anymore. I couldn't believe that I had let Riley get into this kind of danger. I could still remember her first day working for me. She didn't know I was in the office and still doesn't know that I was there for a majority of the time while she worked the day shift.

I wasn't even supposed to be there on her first day. There had been a meeting that had run long and I was leaving the office almost two hours later than normal. I was making my way down to the third floor to get some things taken care of on my way out. I remember stopping outside of the door and listening to her heart beat. I didn't know who it was at that time, but whoever it was, their heart was racing. She was obviously nervous. I waited until I could tell that the poor girl was down the hall and out of eye sight before I opened the door. No reason to give the girl a heart attack on her first day here. I walked into the office and caught out her direct boss, interested as to who we had hired.

When I started talking with my day light assistant, she told me that Riley had been hired on as her assistant and was getting the tour of the office at that moment. The phone rang and the girl excused herself and went to answer it. I walked back farther into that set of offices. It was then that I saw her. She was beautiful, to say the very least. She reminded me of the girls that were often found in my home, the bleeders. The thought crossed my mind of inviting her to become temporary staff at my house for that sole purpose.

I dismissed the thought after barely a moments thought. She was certainly beautiful and I knew I wouldn't be able to ignore that. She wasn't tall, but not to short either, standing at close to 5'6". She was almost model thin and couldn't have weighed more than 125 pounds. She had dark brown hair that ran in soft waves to just below her shoulder. I could tell just by watching her interact with the other staff for a few minutes that she was stubborn but still had a good sense of humor. She would be fun to tease once she worked her way up in the company a little.

I am slightly ashamed to admit, even if it is just to myself, that I watched her for the next few hours. Actually I watched her at least twice a week for a few hours after I had supposedly gone home for the day for the next few months. I guess some would describe that as having stalkerish tendencies. I preferred to describe it as curiosity.

I smiled at the memory of that time. I pulled myself out of my memories as the car pulled up to the air port. Even to this day, I don't know quite what it is that did and still does draw me to her. She intrigued me for that very reason. These memories, ones that Mick has no clue about, are the reason I am so intent on finding her. I couldn't bear the thought that she had to die because of what I was. I couldn't allow it to happen, not to her. I had to know the full extent of her seemingly strong hold on me. When, if, we ever get her back, I owe her an apology. It was because of what I was that she was in so much danger, it was because of the fact that we had yelled at each other and I had let her walk out that she was in this danger. We would find her, we had to.

The plain ride had been long and rather frustrating. It gave me way to much time to sit and think about things that I had no control over. I wanted nothing more than to be able to find her, yet I was stuck, not able to do anything in that damned plain. Mick and I were currently driving to the address we had received from Charlie's credit bill. I guess I was more nervous than I would admit. I didn't know how to deal with this. I was attached and I knew how dangerous that could be. I knew how dangerous it was. I was going back and forth as to how I was going to deal with everything and we didn't even have a proper lead in finding her yet. I was getting to be more than a little pathetic. I was loosing control of myself and that was something that I could not allow to happen. The car pulled up outside of a rather impressive looking apartment building. I sighed as I tried to get control over myself before we went to deal with this.

"I don't know how long we will be so wait for us here." After addressing the driver both Mick and I stepped out of the car. I walked around the car and we both walked towards the building.

"Mick, what do you really expect to find here? Do you really think that Charlie wouldn't cover her tracks?" I couldn't help but be a little skeptical. We walked through the front door and went up to the front desk.

"Excuse me, I am looking for a Ms. Charlie Bennett, you wouldn't happen to know how I could reach her do you?" The man looked up at me, more than a little startled.

"Um, I am sorry sir. What is your business with Ms. Bennett?"

I smiled down at the poor man. "I am her brother. Alexander Bennett. Now do you think you could tell me, is Charlie here?"

"My apologies, Mr. Bennett. She is in apartment 3C, I do not know if she is in or not. You are welcome to go up to her room and see." I looked over and smiled at Mick. We turned away from the desk and walked back towards the elevators. We stepped into the elevator and Mick turned to me.

"That was impressive, Josef. Now, let's just hope that this lock of hers is one that I can pick." He flashed me a joking smile. It was nice that the tension between Mick and I had finally seemed to drain. He wasn't pressing for information from me and I could relax.

We stepped out of the elevator at the third floor and made out way to the apartment that the man had given us. Mick knelt down and had the lock open in less than a minute. As we were about to open the door, I felt Mick's hand on my arm.

"Josef, there is someone in there waiting for us, vampire, I can't tell if it's her or not. Unfortunately I can only find one person inside. Riley isn't here." We pushed the door open carefully and walked into the living room.

There was a man standing with his back to us. Not Charlie. He turned to face us as we both entered the room. We were surprised when he greeted us with a smile. We were even further surprised when we were both addressed by name.

"Josef, Mick, please come and sit. I do believe that we have a lot to talk about." He smiled and took a seat in the chair closest to him. His eyes followed mine and I could tell that he was old, older than both Mick and I combined. I moved to take a seat and felt Mick follow behind me. "I know that you are here for Charlie. I also know why you are here for Charlie. I will not help you find her. It was a waste of your time to come here. You won't find anything that will lead you to her or your sweet little office girl. I have to say, she is a beauty. If it weren't for the fact that Charlie is going to kill her, well she would be a wonderful addition to my personal collection of women. Absolutely beautiful."

It took all of my self control to keep my self in check. I knew that if this turned into a fight there was no way, even 2 to 1 that Mick and I could win. "And if I may be so bold, who the hell are you?" I knew I was probably going to regret this, but frankly I just wanted answers and I didn't really care who I pissed off to get them. Mick threw a look over to me, telling me what I already knew. If I got us into even more trouble than we already were, he was going to pretty much decapitate me with his own hands.

The older vampire smiled back up at us. Surprisingly, he didn't seem to be angry and he even let out a short laugh. Even more surprisingly were the words that came out of his moth next. "My name is Mario. I am Charlie's sire." I glanced over and caught Mick's eye.

Well, we were relatively screwed.