Complicated Love_A Black Light Novel

by Livia Grant

  “Not much, but enough to know I'm interested in the position.”

  “I see. I have it on good authority Helms is compiling his own crew of security personnel for his new business venture. Why would he send you my way? Why not hire you himself if you’re so good?” Jaxson’s question was spot on, and Chase turned to the man to see how he’d answer.

  Miguel smiled broadly. “I just got married.” He paused, holding up his left hand proudly to show them the gold wedding band as if they were playing a game of show and tell. “It’s why I’m trying to get a better job and distance myself from The Clubhouse a bit. Ryder’s offer would have had me traveling out of town, and even out of the country, for long periods of time with little to no forewarning. That isn’t a good fit for me right now.”

  Jaxson looked up, an unreadable glare on his face. “We’re not looking for someone who needs a nine to five. Working here will be the antithesis of that on the days the clubs are open. We also plan on hosting events on other days. Hell, even when we’re closed, we’ll need twenty-four seven security in place.”

  “Do you mind me asking some questions?” Miguel inquired.

  “Shoot.”

  “What is the security budget per month?”

  Jaxson glanced at Chase for support before answering. “I’ll get that number to you if we hire you. Emma handles the budgets and finances. She has the day off.”

  “Okay. Have you worked up your staffing model yet?”

  Crickets.

  “Do you at least have any personnel hired yet?”

  “We have most of the key positions filled with the exception of Security and the Club Manager. We’ve had four guards rotating through security shifts since we closed on the property. They seem to be doing an okay job, but I’ll let the head of security decide if they want to keep them on or replace them with their own team.”

  Miguel nodded, looking back and forth between the two owners. Chase liked his easy confidence as he assured them, “It shouldn’t take me more than a couple of days to work up the staffing plan. We may need to use a few rent-a-cops for the first few weeks until we find the right permanent team members. From what I understand we’ll need to choose wisely. Privacy and anonymity for our guests will be critical.”

  He was saying all the right things. He was light-years better than the last asshole, but he was also being presumptuous. They hadn’t given him the job yet.

  Before they could seal the deal, Jaxson’s phone started vibrating on the plywood. Chase assumed his lover would let it roll to voicemail. He was wrong.

  “Hey, Helms. I see you’re sending me your castoffs.”

  Chase loved seeing the first genuine smile he’d seen in weeks on Jaxson’s lips as he gave their friend shit. It didn’t last long.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?!” Jax shouted.

  A knot turned in Chase’s gut the second Jaxson’s smile turned to a dark scowl. His lover sought his gaze as he listened to Ryder shouting so loud, Chase could hear the mumbled reverberations.

  “Stop! You’re not making sense!” Jaxson bellowed.

  Chase hated only being able to hear one side of the conversation. He moved closer to try to hear some of Ryder’s commentary and Jaxson changed the call to speakerphone. Ryder’s tense admonition echoed off the walls of the grand foyer they were standing in.

  “You guys need to get your heads out of your asses and quick.”

  Jaxson’s dark mood was back in spades. “I don’t have the first clue what you’re talking about, and I don’t care. Put Emma on.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. She left.”

  “That’s not possible. I told her to stay put and we’d pick her up when we were done.”

  “Well, that was before things blew up.”

  “WHAT?” Jaxson screamed into the phone.

  “Relax. I meant figuratively. Not physically. Wait. Are you telling me she’s not there yet?”

  The knot in Chase’s gut exploded as he intruded into the conversation, “What time did she leave there?”

  They could hear Ryder putting his hand over the phone to muffle his conversation with Khloe before he got back on the line.

  “She left at least three hours ago, probably more like four. I was gone all day. I knew right away something was wrong when I got home.”

  “What are you talking about? Is she sick? And if she is, why the hell would she leave?”

  “You need to talk to her about it, man,” Ryder cautioned.

  “Well, I’d love to, except she’s not here!”

  Chase could hear the panic in Jaxson’s shout, and his imagination started to run wild. The paparazzi were relentless. The kooks were everywhere. He could count on one hand the number of times Emma had gone anywhere without one of her lovers or at least a security escort. The thought of her out in the unfamiliar city… on her own… needing them…

  Jaxson pressed for more information, “What aren’t you telling me? Did Khloe and Emma get into an argument or something?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “That’s not an answer. Put Khloe on the phone,” Jaxson demanded.

  “No.”

  “Excuse me? Emma is missing and you’re refusing to help me figure out why the hell she left against my orders?”

  “Khloe can’t help with that. Like I advised, you need to sit her down the second she gets home and not let her out of your sight until she tells you the truth of what’s going on in that pretty head of hers.”

  Chase’s hands shook as he pulled his own phone out. She hadn’t called — or texted. While Jaxson yelled at Ryder, he pressed SEND. His favorite picture of the three of them filled his iPhone as the call rang and rang, eventually rolling to Emma’s cheery voicemail asking him to leave a message.

  Fuck that. He hung up. His fingers trembled so much that it took several tries to get his CALL ME RIGHT AWAY message sent. The bubble was green instead of blue.

  Fuck. Her phone was dead.

  Tears filled his eyes, but he wiped them away. He needed to hold it together.

  Jaxson wasn’t doing much better. When Ryder ended the call, repeating that the men needed to talk with Emma as soon as possible, Jaxson lost his shit, picking up his phone and throwing it against the wall closest to them so hard that it shattered into pieces.

  Chase rushed to him, hugging Jax as hard as he could from behind. He could feel his lover’s erratic heartbeat pounding so hard under his palm that he worried Jaxson might have a heart attack. His Dom was several inches taller than him, so he went to his tippy toes to get close enough to try to soothe Jaxson’s anxiety by talking softly against his ear. “Take a deep breath, baby. You won’t be able to help her if you keel over from a stroke.”

  “No sense… never disobeyed… not like this. Something’s wrong.” Jaxson was short of breath.

  All of that was true, but Chase wasn’t going to say that out loud. “Well, there’s a first time for everything. I’m sure she’s just having fun shopping and lost track of time,” he answered, praying it could be true.

  “You’re a terrible liar. Emma doesn’t like shopping. You feel it like I do. Something big is wrong. This is my fault. She hasn’t been happy for weeks. I knew it, but I figured I could get to the bottom of it after we opened because I was too damn busy to spend time figuring it out. Now I don’t have the first fucking clue where to look for her. And I’m a dumbass and blew up my phone. Christ, what if she’s trying to call me for help?” Jaxson’s voice cracked with emotion.

  “Mr. Davidson, sir. Maybe I could help.”

  It was Miguel. He’d come to face the two men, concern for a woman he’d never met pouring from his eyes.

  When neither of them answered, he continued. “Do you have a tracking app on her phone by chance? If not, if you give me her credit card numbers, I can see if she’s made any purchases today. Maybe we could track her down that way.”

  Jaxson stood frozen, uncharacteristically unhelpful in a crisis. Chase pulled o
ut his phone to look up the credit card number Emma used, handing it over to the guy who didn’t even officially work for them yet.

  Miguel pulled a laptop out of the leather satchel he’d brought with him. Within minutes he was punching Emma’s card number into a program. All around them, the construction guys who had been hard at work prior to the distraction now milled about in small groups, watching the drama from a safe distance, glad for once that Jaxson wasn’t upset with them.

  Chase released Jax and started pacing, making semi-circles behind the guy trying to dig up a lead… any small clue that would solve the mystery.

  “The last charge to the card was at eleven nineteen this morning. Looks like an Uber driver.”

  “That can’t be. That was…” Jaxson looked at his designer watch before finishing his thought, “Fucking four hours ago! It’s like she barely stayed at Khloe’s house.”

  Miguel was the only calm voice of reason. “Traffic is insane out there. She could just be caught in a jam.”

  “She doesn’t have a car. She should have called if she wanted to leave,” Jaxson groused.

  Chase hated to add more bad news, but he knew it was important. “I think her phone is dead. It went to voicemail when I called her a few minutes ago.”

  Jaxson reasoned, “If this was D.C., we’d at least have a few places to check. Fuck! The only possible place she could be is back at the rental. Let’s go.” Jaxson took off at a jog towards the front door, and Chase was about to follow when he ground to a halt.

  “Don’t just stand there. You’re hired. Your first job is to help us find and protect Emma.”

  Miguel leaned down to grab his bag before nodding. “Yes, sir. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Five ~ Jaxson

  “Emma! You here?” Jaxson shouted into the empty rental house. He’d made the normal ten-minute drive in less than five, luckily not getting pulled over along the way.

  The lights were off. Exactly how they’d left them six hours before when he and Chase had left for the mansion.

  He felt it. She wasn’t here.

  He’d almost talked himself into thinking he was overreacting in the car. He’d been so sure she’d be here. He’d refused to consider the alternative.

  Vaguely aware of Chase rushing past him to head towards their bedroom, his lover clearly hopeful Emma was there taking a nap, Jaxson didn’t have the heart to dash his hopes. Chase would find out soon enough the bed was empty.

  He’d been pushing down his own subconscious warning signals for weeks. He’d made reckless decisions and put his family at risk. And that is what Chase and Emma were to him… his family. He’d put business ahead of them. Worse, he’d dragged them into the same insane schedule he’d signed himself up for. No one had held a gun to his head making him expand from two to four clubs. No. His own ego had done that.

  Ryder’s words haunted him. Gnawing at him that, at the present moment, Helms seemed to know more about what was bothering Emma than either he or Chase did. That was simply unacceptable.

  “She’s not here,” Chase lamented incredulously.

  Only then did Jaxson become aware they weren’t alone. “What’s her cell phone number?” Miguel had followed them, and he was sitting at the kitchen island having swished aside the piles of paint palettes, fabric swatches, and mammoth books of carpet samples. On the one hand, Jaxson wanted to rail at the interloper for being so presumptuous, but considering the security guy was taking charge at a time when he felt paralyzed, he instead felt grateful for his help.

  Chase rushed to Miguel, giving him the additional information he needed. Emma’s date of birth, driver’s license number, recent photo. Damned if the guy wasn’t compiling a missing person’s report on the only woman to ever hold Jaxson’s heart.

  Relieved he wasn’t needed to help Miguel, Jaxson collapsed into a cushioned chair on the fringe of the kitchen. He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He ran his fingers through his own hair, yanking hard enough to hurt. Normally a sadist, not a masochist, he felt the deep need to punish himself for being a dumbass.

  His mind kept racing to all of the evil things that could be happening to Emma, but he wrangled for control, forcing himself to remain calm and think through the recent clues he’d had to how unhappy his baby girl was.

  He’d lost track of how many times he’d seen tears in her eyes for no apparent reason. He hadn’t missed that she seemed to carry a portable pack of tissues with her wherever she went these days, often dabbing at her eyes.

  What a fucking asshole you are, Davidson. She needed you, and you worked late instead.

  He pushed aside his guilt, remembering how many times Emma had not felt well recently, often laying down for short naps. At first he’d thought she was using her naps as euphemisms for wanting the men to come to bed for a little afternoon delight, but the few times he’d gone to her ready to play mid-day, she’d actually been sound asleep. He should have driven her to a doctor the first time it happened, but he was always running late for some meeting, or on the phone with an investor, or some other unimportant task he allowed to suck up every waking moment until there’d been little left for the people most important to him. What if she were really sick?

  He only half listened to what Chase and Miguel were working on. “I’m accessing the L.A. County law enforcement database. I’ll run her driver’s license there to see if she’s been in an accident or been reported in any incidents.”

  Jax didn’t want to know how the hell Miguel had access to a secure system like that, he was just grateful that he did. They only had a few more hours left for her to turn up and explain herself before he’d have to call the police and get their help. He dreaded making that call since their help would also come with public scrutiny on their already unconventional relationship, but they wouldn’t rest until she was home safely.

  Chase was pacing, his phone in his hand as he texted her over and over again, hoping for a different outcome.

  Jaxson jumped out of the chair as soon as Chase’s phone dinged with an incoming text. He rushed to Chase, only to find out his lover had texted Khloe. He leaned close to read the screen.

  You need to talk to Emma. This is her secret to tell.

  “What the fuck? What secret?” Jaxson demanded.

  Chase looked up at him, fear evident. “She’s not happy. I think she’s planning on leaving us.”

  The words were a punch to his gut. He wanted to argue how ridiculous they were, but considering the signs, he couldn’t come up with an alternative.

  “Then we’ll need to make her happy again, won’t we? As soon as we punish her for this little stunt. The second I see her I’m going to hug her so tight she can’t breathe and then I’m going to paddle her ass so hard she’ll have trouble sitting for a month.”

  Chase shook his head. “I think that’ll be a mistake.”

  “Well, I’m the Dom of this family and there’s no way I can let her blatant disobedience go without a punishment, and you know it.”

  “Jax, you can’t spank her into happiness.”

  “No, but I can damn well spank her into common courtesy—into simple observance of our long-standing rules. She knows she’s supposed to have one of us or security with her at all times in public. She agreed to have her cell phone on and charged in case she needs us. And I told her explicitly to stay at Khloe’s and we’d come pick her up, yet she left almost immediately.”

  Like he had at the club, Chase reached out to stroke his arm, doing his best to keep Jax calm. The problem was, Jax had a front row seat to the worry in Chase’s caramel brown eyes. He may not be able to help Emma at the moment, but he sure as hell could do something to make Chase feel better.

  Jax reached out and yanked Chase into his arms. The men clung to each other. As much as he loved holding his lover, he knew both men desperately missed the woman who was normally sandwiched between them. The clean smell of his lover’s mint-scented hair products helped calm him.


  Miguel kept working as the two men clung to each other, unsure what they could even do to help, but bringing comfort to each other.

  “Bingo. Her credit card just took a decent hit. Looks like she took one hell of a joy ride. She just paid a taxi tab over two hundred bucks.”

  The men rushed to look over his shoulder at the screen.

  “Does it give the location of the cab?”

  “Unfortunately, not. Just the cab company and the taxi number. Let me see if I can get into their database to track down the right medallion number. If I can’t get in, I’ll have to phone there and do it the hard way.”

  Chase said what Jax was thinking. “Once we find her, you’ll have to fill us in on how it is you have access to all of these private computer systems.”

  Miguel looked up, briefly stopping his mad typing to add, “I’m pretty sure you don’t want to know. Plausible deniability and all that.”

  Jax growled, “Maybe we don’t want to hire someone with such questionable moral fiber.”

  Miguel actually chuckled. “Bullshit. I’m exactly the kind of guy you need on your team. I’ll always be able to get you info you need under the radar.”

  “Right now, I’d appreciate you finding out what the hell is going through Emma’s head,” Jaxson grumbled.

  “Sorry, I won’t be able to help there, but I hope to at least locate her head. The rest will be up to you two.”

  Chase’s phone rang. He answered it without even looking at the screen. “Emma?!” he shouted.

  Jaxson couldn’t hear who was on the other end, but he knew from the look on Chase’s face it wasn’t their girl.

  Chase ran his free hand through his shoulder-length hair in frustration. “You’re gonna have to deal with it. Send the rest of the candidates home and reschedule them for tomorrow.” He held the phone to his ear, but Jax could tell Chase was more interested in watching Miguel work his keyboard.

  Jax approached his lover who mouthed the word Lola to him, and he held out his hand for the phone.

  Chase handed it over, relief in his eyes as Jaxson moved the phone to his ear and caught Lola’s bossy ramble continuing on, unaware the listener had changed.