Page 89 of Deadmen's Queen
We fell silent and listened to the waking birds and the growing traffic on the road past the hospital.
“I’m… I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner,” I said. “I thought… I don’t know what I thought.”
“He made you feel ashamed. Weak and powerless,” said Bast. “But you aren’t. None of us are. He needs taking out, Nate. If the Syndicate won’t do it, we will.”
I shook my head. “We can’t risk that.”
Bast sighed. “I’ve kept something from you too.”
I looked at him as he brought out his phone and started flicking through it.
“My contact at the station told me there was a camera found on Pauline’s body. A spy camera, designed to be concealed in a room that picks up visual and audio. Quite high spec, but not difficult to find online if you know the right people.”
“It filmed the attack?” I asked quickly.
“Only picked up audio, and even that is pretty muffled. My contact sent the details to me, and I got Joe on the job. He traced the feed back to Pauline’s laptop and hacked into the files.”
“Will they help us find this dead man?” I growled.
“No. But that wasn’t what I wanted to show you. From the audio file, it does seem that Pauline wanted Paige to plant the camera in my office. Seems she has a vendetta against us all. Paige refused. This time.”
“This time?”
“Pauline tipped off Bates to hit our warehouse last night to get us out of the way so she could come and see Paige and set up the camera in my office seeing as Paige wouldn’t.” he swallowed. “Our girl really came through, Nate. She stood up to her so well.”
“Good,” I said gruffly. “But how did Pauline know about the warehouse location?”
“Because Paige did hide another camera. In your father’s office during the Christmas party. Pauline must have got the info from there.”
“Shit. Paige did that?”
Bast nodded. “She was fucking terrified of Pauline. I’m not going to hold it against her.”
The story Paige had told me about the dinner flashed through my mind and I nodded. “Me neither.”
“That’s not what I was worried about keeping from you though, Nate. Joe sent me all the footage from the office. I thought it might prove useful if we wanted to take Caver down at some point. And then I found this right at the start of the recording.”
He passed me his phone, staring ahead as I watched the grainy images on the screen, my heart starting to pound as I watched my father walk in on Paige just as she’d hidden the camera.
“Bast, what is this?”
“Keep watching.”
A decade of shame, sickness and anger at my father was nothing compared to the white hot fury that flashed through my veins as I watched him push my girl down onto his desk and push his hand between her legs. The camera was pointed straight at her face, and I could see the tears sliding down her cheeks onto the desk as he hurt her. Sick relief followed as he pulled away before going further, and I passed the phone back to Bast, my hand shaking.
“Nate?”
I didn’t answer. I got up and walked away. I made it ten paces before I dropped to my knees and screamed, my wrath echoing around the car park. I’d done this. I’d brought her to my home, right into the path of that monster. This was on me.
Bast came up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder but said nothing.
“He needs to die,” I gritted out. “Die. He needs to fucking DIE, Bast!”
“He will,” said Bast quietly. “And we’ll make sure both of you get your vengeance on him. But right now, we need to find her, Nate.”
I took a few deep breaths, fighting the urge to hit, to hurt, to destroy. Paige. She was what mattered. Just her.
After a moment, I got to my feet, and turned to Bast.