Page 56 of That Emerald Vow

My mouth gapes open as rage fills me.The fuck I am.“I’m not leaving you alone. What if you’re next?”

Adrian adds, “I’ll be okay. Damon’s right.”

“Fine, then he’ll come over in three hours after dropping me off at work. Better? I will be safe there.”

“Fine,” I grumble in agreement, but I don’t like it.

She glares at me as tears fill her eyes. “At least your boss knows what’s going on. I have to go and pretend like everything is fucking fine.”

I pull her to my chest. “I know, baby. I know.” I look back at my phone. “I’ll see you in a few hours, man.”

Charlie suddenly leaps up. “Hey, Adrian, you know what we didn’t think about? Her job.”

“Her job?” he asks.

“It’s the only angle we haven’t touched on. She mostly works with at-risk folks and those who need help. But there is a small list of people we flag as potentials because of their history of possible abuse. We hold them there until we can vet them and prove it. Unfortunately, there are those people who cry wolf to hurt innocent people.”

“I guess that’s worth a shot.”

“Damon and I will go through those specifically again.”

“Okay. I’ll talk to you both soon,” Adrian says, hanging up.

We look through the flagged files forwards and backwards until I need to drop Charlie off. Unfortunately, just like the first few times, there’s nothing that seems to stand out.

Once I reach Adrian’s house, I see him walking out with a giant gym bag. “What are you doing?” I ask, knowing exactly what kinds of “equipment” is inside those bags.

“Craig Scott. That’s probably the moron who has her.” He seethes as he packs his trunk.

“How do you know?”

“Octavia was able to get me into Lily’s secure server. She keeps thorough notes. And her last session before her run was with him. He’s a scumbag who wouldn’t take no for an answer. She terminated the therapeutic service, and he threatened her. It has to be him. It fucking has to.” He chokes out the last words in a plea. I put my hand on his shoulder.

“Let’s go,” I say.

I call Charlie as we head over to Craig’s. “Hey, does the name ‘Craig’ mean anything to you?”

“Fuck me!” she yelps. “Yes! His file is sitting on the desk in my office. We never finished filing it because I got called into work. But Lily hated him; he was always hitting on her, and it got worse and worse. I think she was going to move him from flagged to our new victims list.”

“I think you’re right. We’re about to head to his house to find out more.”

“Fuck, I want to come, but I am about to head in to cover for another nurse in surgery.”

“I’ll keep you posted.”

“O-okay,” she stutters. “Stay safe, Damon, I lo—I need you.”Was she about to say love?

“I will always find my way back to you. Safe is for the weak though. No, we’re all gonna come back. I’ll let you know.”

Right before we make it to Craig’s house, Octavia calls. “Hey, we were able to look into his phone records. And you won’t guess who he’s been communicating with . . . WalterfuckingEvans.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say. Walter Evans hates Adrian, and we’ve been waiting—not so patiently—to kill him. If only we had ignored Alex and done it, this may not have happened.

“FUCK!” Adrian yells as he slams the steering wheel multiple times.

“You won’t find him at home. Apparently, there’s a missing persons report filed on him. He hasn’t gone to work in a couple of days, and his landlord confirmed not seeing him for a similar amount of time.”

“I am going to skin him alive!” Adrian promises. “Both of them.” He does a very dangerously fast U-turn heading to X’s headquarters.

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