Chapter 1
Demetri's POV
Three days ago
I don't know how long I sat staring at the harmless little device in my hand after the other end was cut off. For something so tiny, so innocent, it just devastated my reality and froze my blood in my veins. My life was tethered to this piece of technology and it just took its pound of flesh that was owed for payment for keeping my secrets.
A ten second phone call was all it took to make us square once again.
The glare that was already settled on my features darked more as Afton's words repeated over again in my mind.
"Alexis is gone. She never came out of the changing room, I can't find her anywhere and she's not answering her phone."
Though to the announcement my reaction time was non-existent, telling him to find her or it was his head before his admission was finished, but now? Now I find myself at a loss of what to do. There was no telling what happened to her. I didn't know if she willingly slipped the guard detail or not so willingly did so. I knew she didn't like it so the former option wasn't out of the realm of possibility and just as likely as the latter was.
I wanted to believe that she pulled a fast one on Afton and snuck out a different door as she has done a few times in the past. Afton was a good guy, but he sucked as a bodyguard. He was more like the clingy boyfriend if I were honest. From what I was told in the past when she slipped away from him was she didn't like him crowding her like a second skin. She knew the reason I wanted him to stay with her. She knew the kind of shit I did for a living. She knew it was for her safety that he was on her like stink on a warthog's ass. She also hated it.
I could understand her reasons. I could understand her distaste to the second shadow. I could understand but that didn't mean I agreed. It was a necessary evil, more or less, so she stayed safe and protected from the many enemies I have personally made over the last decade. When our father was sent to jail and I took over the family business, I knew both his deeds and my own were going to have a karam backlash and that was why I was so adamant that she always have someone with her when she was out and about town.
This list of people that could have been involved in this, if she didn't sneak away that is, was a literal mile long and I wouldn't even begin to know where to start.
I gave a shake of my head and sighed as I tried to clear my mind slightly so I could think. Alexis only had a handful of places she would go for privacy, but I would assume that those were already being checked off by the guys. What I kept coming back to was her not answering her phone. She always answered it, especially when she slipped the security detail because she knew that I would find out if she didn't and she likes her credit cards. She might be an adult, but I paid that fucking bill and she had rules if she wanted it to stay that way.
My eyes drifted to a picture of us that sat on the corner of my desk that was taken about a month ago. She was looking up at me with stars in her eyes, like I hung the moon. I was her big brother, her Metri. She was the only person on the planet that got away with calling me that, too. She didn't remember our mother, but I can't look into her eyes without thinking about her.
Our mother's death was what set our father on the path that led him to spending the rest of his natural life behind bars. She was killed three months after Alexis was born in a random act of violence, but my father was convinced it was deliberate. 'An eye for an eye' he called it. "Only fair" he said. The small taste of vengeance wasn't enough for him, though. He fell for the stalk, the hunt. The power he felt was enough to make him drunk. I watched him salivate with the thought of it. I watched him scrape and climb a ladder he never should have, selling his soul to the highest bidder.
I idolized him.
Ten years ago he got sloppy and hired someone he shouldn't have. However, that little fucker hasn't been seen since the day my father was arrested and as long as Felix did his job properly, he would never be found. As was expected, I took over things and took the 'business' to the next level. You would truly be surprised at not just how many people will pay to never see someone again, but how much their death is worth.
That thought was interrupted by my phone ringing again. I glanced at the screen, hoping it was Alexis telling me where she was but the number was unknown. I pursed my lips as my brow drew down. "Who the fuck?"
Lip curling in the corner, I flipped it open and put it to my ear. "Yes?"
There was static on the other end before an electronically distorted voice started to speak.
"If you ever want to see the girl again, you'll do exactly what I say."