Page 67 of Mine To Possess

The coffee shop had turned up something a little bit more interesting. It was the one all of the guards used daily – the one on the road to my estate. One of Lenny’s men had ‘persuaded’ the young barista to talk. He explained how a man had approached him and gave him the description of the two gate guards and he had confirmed they were regulars. The man had offered him a huge sum of money to put the drugs in their coffees. He had refused at first, but then he found out it was only a perfectly legal, over the counter sedative that wouldn’t harm them, and he had agreed to do it. I’d been fuming then, demanding to know what Lenny planned on doing to him.

Lenny had shaken his head. He explained to me that the barista was only a kid – barely eighteen – and that Igor, or a man matching Igor’s description at least, had offered him a sum of money big enough to get him through college. It was life changing for the kid for something that in his mind was essentially harmless.

Igor’s story had been that he had messed up at work and he wanted to be able to put his mistake right without his colleagues watching over him. It was a stretch of a story, but I could see how the kid had chosen to believe it. As pissed off as I was, I had to admit I didn’t really blame the kid for taking the offer. It really was an offer you just couldn’t refuse in his position, and it’s not like he’d drugged them with heroin or something.

As interesting as it was to learn how Igor had taken out the gate guards, none of this information helped me to find him. It did explain how he had gotten access to my estate though, and it saved the jobs of the gate guards, and stopped their heads from rolling. It was hardly their fault. They hadn’t even broken from their normal routine.

Lenny also informed me about all the added security measures he had put in place. I was tempted to ask him to put some men in the trailer park, but it would ruin the impression Amelia and I had broken up. I had to make it look as though I didn’t care one way or the other about what happened to her, and if I put men in the trailer park, it would make her more of a target because it would be clear that I did care about what happened to her.

Jerome told me his team was searching all of Igor’s usual haunts and some new locations they had scouted out. And that was pretty much it. A lot was happening, but nothing was changing. We were just hitting dead end after dead end.

I felt so useless in that moment, because there was really nothing I could do but sit back and wait for Igor to be found. And plot my revenge, of course. I daydreamed constantly about how I’d make the bastard pay, while in reality I knew I would go in and deal with him quickly and efficiently. I didn’t need to make him suffer or drag this out. I just wanted it over and Amelia back in my arms.

The daydreams were just another way of passing the hours without letting myself think about the smell of Amelia’s hair or the feel of her lips brushing against mine.

That was easier said than done.

Every day, Jerome checked in with me and every day it was the same old story – sorry boss, nothing to report. It wasn’t that his men weren’t trying. They were tearing the city apart looking for Igor. It’s just he wasn’t in any of the places we would have expected him to be in and it was starting to seem like he wasn’t in any of the places we wouldn’t have expected him to be in either. It was like the guy was fucking supernatural, a shadow that was visible only when he chose to be.

37

VIKTOR

Jerome’s men did come close to finding him once, but it was the same story as the day Jerome and I went to the safe house looking for him. They were always just a step or two behind him and always arrived to find him gone. They even found a mug with an inch of still lukewarm coffee in the bottom. They must have missed him by less than fifteen minutes.

The more I heard, the more I knew that I had definitely underestimated Igor. I had believed at first that he was just an entitled druggie, but he was more clever than that. So clever he was starting to make me, and my men look like idiots.

While I waited for news, I went through the motions of going about my day as normal. If Igor had people watching me, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of letting him think that he had me running scared. I went into the office every day or to one of my other businesses and I did what needed to be done to keep my businesses ticking over nicely.

My secretary organized the compensation payments I’d promised Lacey and Justine, and on a whim, I sent a similar payment to Amelia’s account. That would give her something to live on until we were together again, and it wouldn’t seem suspicious. In fact, it would seem more suspicious if she didn’t get a payment. This all added to the ruse. She had witnessed something terrifying and discovered who I really was, so she left me. She was paid off along with the other maids to keep her mouth shut. It was a simple and effective story, and it was much more believable than the version where she left me the day after a shooting on my estate without being paid to keep her mouth shut.

I’m sitting in the office now, dealing with emails and reports. It feels so mundane when I know I should be out there dealing with Igor, but if Jerome’s trained men can’t track him down, then I can’t see how I could. My cell phone rings, and I feel a tingling of hope deep down inside myself when I see Jerome’s name on the screen. I try to ignore the hope. I’ve fallen into this trap several times, assuming it was going to be Jerome calling with good news, telling me he had Igor’s location confirmed, only for it to be an update on a fresh disappointment or a question about something.

This time, it’s different though. I can hear the excitement in Jerome’s voice the second he speaks. It's three simple words, but they are words that send my whole body into an adrenaline spike.

“We’ve got him.”

“For real this time?” I ask, trying to remain cautious and not let myself believe it’s really this close to being over.

“For real. We know his exact location and I have men positioned all around the place so there’s no way in hell he can escape. I’m outside your office now,” Jerome says.

“Coming,” I say.

I cut off the call, grab my jacket, and leave the office without a word to anyone. If anyone needs me for anything, they’ll find out I’m gone pretty quickly. This is way more important than any phone call or signing some letter or something. I don’t even wait for the elevator, I take the stairs, running down them two at a time, putting my jacket on as I go. I sprint through the lobby and across the parking lot to Jerome’s waiting car.

“How far away is it?” I ask as I slide in.

Jerome fires up the engine and pulls out of the parking lot, the tires squealing. He’s not messing about this time. He joins the steadily flowing traffic heading east.

“About a ten-minute drive,” he says.

“He’s been right under our fucking noses this whole time,” I say, in wonder.

“Yeah,” Jerome agrees. “But it’s not somewhere we ever would have thought to look. I’ll be honest, boss, getting the word on this place was a lucky break.”

“So, what is it? Some sort of safe house?”

I don’t know of any safe houses around these parts, and Jerome’s words make me think it’s not, but what else could it be? It’s not like Igor was just going to rent a house in his own name when he knew my men were looking for him, and it’s not like they wouldn’t have found him if he had become that cocky.