Chapter Thirty-One
Storm
“I’m going to go try and find some food in this place,” Ali says, and I smile.
“I think you’re forgetting something, Kitten.”
Her brows rise in question, and she glances around the room, only making me grin wider. “What?”
Holding my hand out, I give her an expectant look, and she smiles as she skips over to my chair and braces her hands on the arms, dipping down to kiss me.
“Is this what you were looking for?” she asks, and I nod.
“Yeah, this is almost perfect.”
She jerks back and glares at me. “Almost perfect?”
Nodding, I push her hands off the arms of the chair and pull her into my lap. She straddles my legs and huffs as her stomach growls.
“It might be a little chilly in hell today,” she quips, challenging me with just a look, and I laugh.
“Why’s that?”
“Because I’m hungry, and you’re not feeding me.”
“Careful, Darlin’. That’s like challenging my manhood.”
She crosses her arms over her chest and smirks at me. “Well, then I guess you should do something about it.”
“You’re just askin’ for trouble today,” I tell her as I pull her closer and capture her lips. She melts into me, a little hum rising up from the back of her throat, and as badly as I want to pin her to the bed and make her sorry for going up against me, I’m not gonna let her starve. Pulling away, I smack her ass. “Why don’t you go see if there is any food downstairs, and if there’s not, we’ll go out?”
“Is it safe?” she asks timidly, and it breaks my fucking heart. I never wanted any of this to touch her. I never wanted her to know this fear.
“Yeah, Baby. We’ll take some of the guys and make them sit somewhere else.”
She smiles and leans in, kissing me again before she jumps off my lap. “I love you,” she says, smiling as she walks away from me backward.
“I love you, too. I just gotta talk to Streak, and then I’ll be down there.”
She blows me a kiss and leaves the room. I stay in my seat, watching her leave until she disappears from my sight before sinking back into my chair for a second. My mind has been working overdrive since Sunday night, trying to figure out what the hell is going on. It seemed so straightforward until she told me that the man in her window looked like me. Why the fuck would Ian’s brother do that? Is it part of the game?
Shoving out of the chair, I slip out of my room and go down to the end of the hall where Streak’s office is set up, knocking on the door twice before I open it. He glances up from one of the three computer screens in front of him with bleary eyes.
“Yeah?”
I close the door and sit in the chair next to his desk. “Did you find any social media profiles on the brother when you searched him?”
“No. He’s probably one of the only people in the world without Facebook.”
“Shit,” I curse, running a hand through my hair.
“Why? What’s going on?”
I shake my head, trying to work it all out in my mind but it’s just not adding up for me, and that makes me uneasy. “The other night when Ali saw that guy in her window, she said he looked like me. He even had a scar through his eyebrow but his looked fresh.”
“That’s awfully coincidental,” he muses, and I shake my head.
“Or not.”
“You think someone made themselves look like you?”
I shrug. “It’s either that or it really is a coincidence, and I don’t really believe in those.”
“Yeah, me either,” he says, turning back to his computer and typing. “Well, this is interesting.”
“What?”
“I’ve been trying to access some of Ian’s medical records since you asked me but it’s been difficult. I just got one this morning from right after he was sentenced. It’s from a psychologist.”
I lean forward, trying to look at the screen, but I have no idea what I’m looking at. “What does it say?”
“It says that Ian is perfectly normal mentally except mental illness does run in his family.” He stares at the computer screen again, and I can see the wheels turnin’ in his head.
“What are you thinking?”
“Well, Ian is just an abusive narcissist, we know this, but what if his brother has other mental issues? What if the brother started following Ali and became obsessed with her himself? Whoever is sending those letters and presents clearly thinks that he and Ali were or are in a relationship.”
I drop my head into my hands and let out a breath. Jesus Christ, did I do this to her? Did I lead a crazy person straight to her door? Maybe I should have just stayed away, but even thinking that makes me feel like I’m being ripped apart. Sighing, I stand and slap Streak’s shoulder.
“Keep diggin’, yeah?”
He nods. “You got it.”
I leave his office, needing to get my hands on my girl for just a second so I can breathe again. Goddamn it, if anything happens to her, I’ll never fucking forgive myself. Stopping in the middle of the hallway, I press my forehead to the wall and pound my fist against it. How was I supposed to stay away from her? It was impossible, and now she might pay with her life. My stomach lurches violently as I think about that possibility, but I pull away from the wall shaking my head.
No. I’ll do anything to keep that from happening. My phone rings, pulling me out of my thoughts, and I answer without even glancing at the screen.
“Yeah?” I bark.
“Hey, Storm. It’s Ray. I…uh, I heard some shit, and you’re not gonna like it, man.”
The other shoe comes crashing down, and this is the bad news I’ve been expecting since the moment I gave into this. I just know it is.
“Tell me.”
“Shaun, my guy up at the prison, just heard Ian boasting that he hired some guy to take out your girl. I don’t know many details but I know he’s got enough money to make it happen.”
“Fuck!” I roar, slamming my fist into the drywall as my entire world crashes down around me. I can’t erase the picture of Ali in a pine box out of my mind. I can’t fucking do this again. I can’t lose her. This time, I won’t survive it. “I gotta go.”
I don’t even wait for his reply as I hang up the phone, and the door to Streak’s office opens. “You okay?” he asks, and I glance back at him before stalking off toward the stairs. I’m not thinking as I fly down the stairs and scan the room for Ali. She walks out of the kitchen with a plate of fruit, a huge smile on her face, and I suck in a breath. Glancing up, she spots me and her smile fades as she looks me over. She hands the plate off to Smith and practically runs across the room to me.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, running her hands down my arms. I suck in a breath, breathing a little easier now that she’s in my grasp.
“I need you to listen to me, okay?”
She nods, her eyes vulnerable as she looks up at me.
“I have to go handle something, and I need you to stay inside this building, no matter what. You can’t go outside, you hear me?”