Page 60 of Kneeling to Candy

Learning Candy knows Patrick Duffy’s location—a man who violated my woman in unthinkable ways—has me itching to go on the hunt.

“I’ve heard this name before,” Piero says, rubbing at his chin like he’s deep in thought. “I’ve seen his name written somewhere in some of Lorenzo’s files.”

Piero pulls his cell out from inside his blazer and makes a call. “Angelo,” Piero clips in his Italian accent into his cell. “I want you to do a deep dive into Lorenzo’s archives. Dig up anything you can on Patrick Duffy. Report to me with anything you find.” He ends the calls without a farewell.

“Chase,” Atlas barks into the speaker. “Do your thing. See what you can find on the dark web.”

“On it,” Chase says through the speaker.

“You won’t find anything,” I interject. “He’s a ghost on the Internet.”

Everyone looks at me with surprise. Candy squeezes my hand, seeing all the attention is on me.

Atlas cocks his head at me. “Why do you say that?”

Gauge shakes his head. “Isn’t it obvious, brother? Butch has already been looking for him.”

Atlas eyes narrow. “Is this true?”

“Yes,” I admit, unashamed. “Candy told me about him last year.”

“Who is he, Candy?” Atlas asks, shifting his attention back to my woman.

My goddess shifts in her seat, looking at the ground. “A man who did terrible things to me—he was close with Luca and another who favored me.”

Atlas glowers, turning back to me. “Why didn’t you come to us with this, Butch? Why didn’t either of you come to us?”

A heavy sadness falls over Atlas face as he eyes my woman. “We could’ve helped.”

“You knew I came from a bad situation when you asked me to join the club,” Candy reminds him in a brittle voice. “My past isn’t pretty, and not something I like to reminisce about. Surely, you can understand that.”

Prez’s face is grim as he nods at Candy before his eyes fall on me. His jaw tightens like he’s pissed at me. He has Candy’s excuse. I need to give him mine.

“At the time I found out, we were hunting Esteban Moreno, searching for Opal’s abuser, and handling a shit ton of other cases. The club had a priority list of more pressing threats. So, I made Patrick Duffy and the other fuckhead my priority, searching for them when I had time.”

“We would’ve made it a priority, Butch,” Gauge tells me, with a pained expression. “You and Candy are part of this family.”

“Be real, Gauge.” Candy releases a humorless laugh. “I wasn’t high on anyone’s priority list a year ago, especially after I came clean about being forced to help Lorenzo’s hacker break into Mercy Ravens’ internal database.”

“The key word was ‘forced,’” Gauge interjects heatedly. “Luca put you in an impossible position to help his boss. No one blames you for your actions when we know your history with the sadistic pig.”

Atlas raises his hand to silence Gauge. “What’s done is done. Candy made a mistake by not trusting the club and paid a high price for it. Butch handled finding this Duffy dude solo. The good news is, we know not to waste our time searching in the areas Butch has already combed through, and we have an eyewitness to this fucker’s residence.”

“The area Candy described where the manor is located could be Maroon Bells, in the Elk Mountains, near Maroon Lake,” Triple says through the speaker. “I’ve done my fair share of snowboarding in Aspen to know what she’s describing. Pull up some images from the area and show them to Candy. See if anything jogs her memory.”

Atlas types on his computer keyboard before turning the monitor toward Candy. “Does it look familiar?”

Candy bites the corner of her bottom lip, examining the images on the screen. She points to one picture, her eyebrows shooting up. “This picture looks a lot like what I saw. Although, when I saw it in person, I was much closer to the peaks. Maybe this is it, maybe not. I was escorted inside after my blindfold was removed, not giving me a lot of time to observe my surroundings.”

“A lead is a lead. It’s worth investigating,” Atlas reassures before turning his attention to the speaker on his desk. “Chase, can you get aerial footage of the Maroon Bells?”

“The Elk Mountains are a sizable chunk of land to canvas,” Chase informs Atlas. The clicking of his keyboard can be heard through the speaker. “It’ll take some time, but Ziggy and I will work on it.”

“Good. Look for secluded three-story stone manors. How many of those can there be in Aspen?”

“It’s Aspen,” Piero mocks. “Every home is a mansion near Maroon Bells.”

“But not every mansion has acreage large enough to not have neighbors,” Atlas counters, with a grin. “This fucker is toast.”

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