by Hart, Eve R.
“Midori will not be able to make your appointment tonight,” I told him and I could tell by the flare in his eyes he wasn’t happy for my lack of apology. “If you would like, I will be able to set you up with someone else. Tell me, what mood are you in tonight?”
That seemed to please him.
“I’ve had a rather trying day, Miss Novak. If it is possible, I would like someone that can take a little punishing tonight.”
I did my best to give him a knowing smile. It was enough to relax him and that had been my goal.
“I do believe that Aurea is free now. She has beautiful pale skin.” My eyes cut over to Rowan and without a word said, she turned on her heels to handle it for me.
“That will do just fine,” he told me with a pleased smirk.
“Let me get you another drink,” I said as I pinned Turner with a stare. He wasted no time pouring another one for the man. “We’ll have the room all set for you in a few minutes.”
I pushed off of the edge of the bar.
“Thank you,” he told me in a tone that gave me the impression he’d only said it out of necessity.
I gave him a nod before I carried on.
As I walked back to the elevator, Garen came out of the security room.
He kept quiet until we were behind the closed door and headed up once again.
“From what I can tell, she’s been driving around all day.” He handed me a printed out sheet of streets she’d driven down as well as, stops that she had made. “She only stopped a few times and stayed no longer than five minutes at each place.”
His finger went to the three addresses that Midori had paused at.
“I’ll keep monitoring it,” he said as I stepped out of the elevator only long enough to grab my keys and purse from right inside my penthouse. He held the door until I was back inside. “I’ll fill in Rowan and send you updates.”
He left on the fourth floor and I rode all the way to the bottom.
As I slid into my car, my mind raced with what I had missed. It wasn’t like me and I couldn’t help but think that I might have let myself become too distracted with Iron.
I wondered if there was some way to find a better balance because I didn’t think I was ready to walk away from him.
Maybe deep down I knew that I couldn’t give him up.
I wouldn’t have said that I’d become dependent on him, but there was a higher level of trust between us. It wouldn’t be easy to find someone to replace certain things he did for me. If I let myself admit it, no one I’d had before could even come close to understanding my needs.
You would have thought that I wanted a complete sub. But I didn’t. However, that was what I’d found before Iron came into my life. Men that bowed down because they craved the power I held over them. I had no problem with that, but now I realized that wasn’t what I craved. There was a part of me that needed a man just as strong as I was, just as powerful as I was. Only I needed him to be strong enough to get on his knees for me.
There was no denying that Iron was very much that man.
Perhaps he was the closest thing to the perfect pairing for me.
I refused to think about it any further.
First, I had to find Midori.
Then, I could figure out everything else.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Iron
I wouldn’t have said that I was counting down the seconds until I rode over to Petra’s place, but that wasn’t far from the truth. Today had been pretty uneventful and if it wasn’t for Laurel dropping Catherine off for a couple of hours, I might have even been a little bored.
I stepped off the elevator like any other time.
There was no clicking of her heels as she came to me.
And no sight of her standing somewhere nearby.
A quick walk-through of the place told me that her penthouse was empty.
I didn’t think it was odd right away because I knew that she wouldn’t hesitate to go downstairs if she was needed.
With a shrug, I headed down to the fourth floor, figuring I’d find her in her office.
I opened the back door to her office to find a redhead standing behind the desk. She looked over at me with a raised brow but didn’t seem taken off guard by my presence. Still, the last thing I wanted to do was frighten her, so I stayed close to the door for a moment.
“Hey,” I said with a nod of my head.
“Hey,” she returned with a wide smile. “You were the one with Petra at my wedding.”
I chuckled and nodded.
“You were the one that got hitched,” I joked. “Congratulations, by the way.”
“Thank you,” she said with excitement. I could tell she genuinely meant that and I knew she was truly happy because her smile grew even more.
“I’m surprised you saw us all the way out by that tree.”
She let out a throaty laugh.
“I knew Petra would be there but I also know her, so I had an idea where I’d find her.” She gave a little shrug like it wasn’t a big deal.
“So you’re the one she has watching the place for her?” I asked because Petra told me things but not in great detail.
“Yes. I’m Rowan.” She moved around the desk and held out her hand. I took wide steps so that I could shake her hand.
“Rowan. That’s an interesting name. I like it though.”
She smiled but it was like I was missing out on something.
“It means little redhead. Guess Petra named me appropriately.”
My head jerked back at her words.
“Oh, God, no,” she said with wide eyes as she silently laughed behind her closed mouth. “Petra is not my mom. Wow, that’s a terrifying thought. We all have new names in this place. She gives them to us. I think it’s more of a color coding thing for her. Don’t ask me, because most of Petra’s brain I don’t understand, let alone know how to explain.”
I chuckled.
“Anyway,” she went on. “She gave me Rowan and the color I got to wear all the time… red. How flattering for a redhead, right? No, not at all. But I made it work.” She winked at me.
I wasn’t going to lie, Rowan had a lot of damn sex appeal oozing off of her. She was a hot package and her bright attitude only amplified that. There was something about her and I would bet that a lot of men could easily get caught up in a woman like her.
Yeah, I could easily notice other women, I wasn’t dead. But the big thing was that I wasn’t interested, not even a little.
Not that I was mistaking her friendliness and thinking she was hitting on me.
“You were there when the building was under fire.” I paused remembering that night. I wasn’t sure why I’d said it. Maybe I needed her to make the connection so she’d trust me more. “One of my men pulled you out, right?”
Her eyes went soft and I could see her retreat a little.
“Yeah. I never did get to thank him. What was his name?”
“Cable. And I’ll pass the word along.” I gave an appreciative nod of my head.
“Well, I’m sure you didn’t come down here to remember such fun times.”
“Yeah, right,” I said giving my head a little shake. “I’m lookin’ for Petra. She’s not upstairs.”
Rowan’s eyes turned worried.
“There was an issue with one of the girls. She didn’t show up when she was supposed to. Petra said she’d take care of it… but I haven’t heard back from her.”
It was like we both realized something at the same time.
“I’m sorry,” she sputtered frantically as she turned and rounded the desk again. “I got caught up in trying to reschedule Midori’s clients that I didn’t even realize how long it’s been.”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called Petra.
It was clear by the fourth ring that she wasn’t going to pick up.
Rowan reached for the cell phone sitting on top of the desk right as I ended the call and pulled up another number to call.
“I need a location on Petra,” we both said at the same time, though we were clearly talking to two different people. There was a look that passed between us but we didn’t bother to say anything about it.
“You got it, Prez. Give me a minute,” Cable said into my ear and I could hear his fingers clicking over the keyboard in the background. “It looks like her phone pinged off of a few different towers the last hour but is somewhere near her building now.”
“Hmm,” I hummed out as my brain tried to come up with an answer as to why she wasn’t here.
“Are you at that location?” he asked snapping me out of my thoughts.
“Yeah,” I quickly replied.
“And she’s not there?”
“No,” I said with a shake of my head though he couldn’t see it.
“Hurry.” I heard Rowan say in the background before she ended the call.
“She’s somewhere around there then. That’s about as good as I can do right now, Prez,” Cable told me. “Maybe she’s headed back there. The best I can tell you is that she’s somewhere within two blocks.”
“Alright. Keep watching it and call me back if you get any kind of movement.”
“You got it,” he said and then hung up.
I was worried but I wasn’t panicking yet. I knew Petra could take care of herself. That said, I didn’t like not knowing what was going on.
“Garen is pulling up her GPS stuff right now,” Rowan said when my gaze swung to hers. “He should have it in a minute.”
The far door opened and in walked one of Petra’s bodyguards. I recognized him but didn’t know his name. I could only assume this was the Garen that Rowan was referring to.
“It says she’s parked down the street. In the alley next to the dump building,” he said looking directly at Rowan as he spoke.
It was obvious he was loyal to Petra and that included respecting who Petra left to take her place when she wasn’t here.
“Dump building?” I asked with a raised brow.
“Sometimes things happen, and you need a place to take out the trash,” Rowan said with a shrug. “I’m sure you know about that all too well.” There was no judgment in her tone. I gathered that she wasn’t a stranger to the dark side of life. Maybe more so than the plushy kind of outskirts of illegal that Petra had here.
But it wasn’t the time to figure all that shit out.
I needed to know what the hell was going on with Petra.
“I’ll go check it out. You stay here in case she comes back and I miss her. My guy said her phone moved around a bit for an hour. Maybe she found…”
“Midori,” Rowan supplied and her eyes cut over to the other guy.
“Midori and is on her way here. Could be she needed to talk to the girl about something before they got back.” I shrugged. It didn’t exactly seem like a Petra thing to do, but I wasn’t all that sure. I figured she was the type that liked to conduct all her business in this office. “If there was a body to be taken care of I’m sure she would have called you in.” I looked over at Garen with a raised brow. His expression pretty much told me I was spot on with that statement.
I took a deep breath and tried to think of what the hell she might be doing.
“If she comes back, tell her to call me,” I said to Garen.
With a firm nod, he let me know that he would do it.
Thank fucking Christ I didn’t have to deal with him trying to give me shit.
“It’s the second building before you hit the cross street, on the left,” he told me as I turned and headed for the door.
Once I was outside, I jogged down the street since it wasn’t that far. Not sure why she’d taken her car, but I figured she had her reasons. Then I thought about those fuckin’ heels she wore all the time. Yeah, I’d have wheeled my ass up here too if I’d been wearing those things.
Then again, maybe she had stopped on her way back to her building.
I saw the back of her car and as I approached the rear driver’s side wheel, the door popped open.
All the air rushed out of my lungs in relief as I saw a tall, pointed high heeled shoe plant itself on the pavement.
“What the hell, Pet?!” I growled as my feet closed the distance between us.
Wrapping her up in my arms, I breathed in her sharp scent. Calming myself down was proving to be a problem right now.
“Why are you here?” she asked as she pulled away from me. Her eyes narrowed slightly at the corners like she couldn’t understand why I’d come looking for her.
“Why are you here? What the hell are you doing?” I shot back.
“Something is going on with one of my girls. I followed her phone. I found it next to a dumpster outside an awful smelling Chinese restaurant.” Her eyes closed and she gave her head a quick shake like she was trying her best to forget about the smell. “I was at a loss, so I thought it was best to head back and try to figure out what to do next. But then I saw wet tracks down this alleyway.”
“What are you saying?”
“No one should be driving down here. It rained yesterday, so everything should be dry. Except that behind this building there is a huge pothole that holds water for days.”
“So someone must have driven through it,” I finished.
“Yes,” she said with a slight nod. “I’m here to check it out.”
“Petra,” I said trying my hardest to stay calm. “When shit like that happens, you call me.”
“Why?” she asked like she couldn’t wrap her pretty little head around all the reasons. “I’m sure I can handle looking in a building by myself.” I could see the fire and the fight rising up in her eyes.
The last thing Petra ever wanted was for someone to treat her like she couldn’t do something. That wasn’t my point here and I knew I had to make quick work of getting her to see that.
“It’s not about that, babe,” I told her as I held her eyes with mine. “It’s about me being there for you. It’s about me having your back and knowing that I’m there with you for shit like this. It’s about love, Pet, not me thinkin’ you can’t do shit on your own.”
“Oh,” she said and I was honestly a little stunned at how the word fell out of her mouth. It was like she’d never thought of it like that before but now that I’d explained it, the whole thing made sense to her.
“So this is the dump building?” I asked with a raised brow.
She eyed me, more than likely trying to figure out how I knew that.
I smirked then nodded as a way to tell her to get going.
With a soft huff, she turned, her heels clicking over the pavement as she made her way to the back corner of the building.
I reached for my gun and put a hand on her shoulder. She seemed to understand my move and waited. I wouldn’t doubt she hated it but she still let me do the looking.
“Clear,” I called out over my shoulder and we both stepped around to the back. “No car. You think someone’s in there?”
“I have no clue. I would say no,” she responded looking over the door to see if it had been tampered with. “I have security on all of these buildings and no one has entered it recently. But it looks like someone has messed with the lock.”
“Maybe some punk-ass kids looking to get into some trouble,” I suggested.
She looked at me as if to say that people knew better. It was her street after all and with the exception of the club drama spilling over onto her, she hadn’t had any problems. People were scared of her. Rightfully so, I’d say, because I had seen what she could do.
“I’m going in first,” I told her in a tone that left no room for arguing.
“What happened to having my back?”
“Well, in this case, I have your front too.”
I pulled the door open without giving her a chance to say anything else.
The second I stepped inside, something collided with my head.
I stumbled, mumbled something to Petra about gettin’ outta there, and then felt another forceful blow.
Damn if I didn’t go down.
I shook my head, trying to clear the dizziness, and attempted to push myself up.
I heard a delicate grunt right after a thud hit my ears. Then a slap and Petra fucking whimpered.
She fucking whimpered.
“Don’t move,” a male voice said. I blinked but my vision was a little fuzzy and all I could make out were two figures in front of me. One of them was Petra. And the other was a man that clearly had his arms on my woman. One of those arms was raised at her temple. “I’ll shoot her. Toss the gun.”
With a sigh, I did as he commanded, tossing my only piece too far for me to grab if I even got an opening.
He had a gun to Petra’s head.
I wasn’t even going to take a chance on him pulling that trigger.
I took Petra in as she stood there stoically, even with her bottom lip dripping blood.
“Where is Emily?” she asked the man and I was confused for a split second.
“Don’t you mean Midori? Isn’t that her little whore name?” he spat out with disgust clear as day in his tone.
“I asked you a question. It would be in your best interest to give me an answer,” Petra said coolly.
“I am the one with the gun pointed at your head. I don’t think you are in a position to tell me what is in my best interest. I suggest you keep your mouth shut and do as I say.”
This guy was really starting to chap my damn hide.
I could see his end in my mind.
“Get up,” he barked at me and though it was slow going, I did as he said.
He directed me to walk and I did, he kept a decent pace behind me and I could hear Petra’s shoes shuffling along with his.
My blood was boiling and I tried to stay calm so that I could get us out of this.
He steered me into an empty room, save for the girl handcuffed to the pipes along the wall. She looked up with shock and apology written all over her face.
A pair of handcuffs flew through the air and landed with a loud clink next to the girl’s feet.
“Get over there,” he barked at me, the gun in his hands jerking as he showed me where he wanted me to go. “Handcuff him to the pipe, now.” His eyes were now on the girl that I was lowering myself down next to.
