Page 19 of Prey

“Have you got a name?” I asked, not because I thought he had found her but because it prompted my sullen cousin to open up and talk to me.

She was working with the Larsson Police Department and FBI to set me up and organize her protections and new alias. It was likely planned months beforehand, which is why it hurt us so badly, but in the end, the police got it wrong, and with the best legal team money could buy, I was released and charges dropped.

He hesitated, and I read his mind about why. “Gunner, I’m not planning on hunting her down or sending a liquidator her way,” I reassured him. “I’m curious. What’s her name?”

“Riley Laws,” he finally replied.

“Apart from her ass, what else about her that makes you think she’s Annika?” I pushed, draining my glass and topping up Ronan’s glass, then my own.

“She does have a nice ass,” Gunner replied as a little smile wormed across his face. Finally, the conversation was warming up, and their postures relaxed, dispelling the awkwardness of history.

Ronan snorted behind his whiskey glass. “Sounds like you just need a girl to wet your wick.”

“I can get any girl I want, but I don’t want any girl,” he argued, tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair.

“Do you want this girl? What’s her name again?” I teased.

“Riley,” he replied, slinging his arm behind his chair. “That’s all I’m saying.”

I swirled the whiskey in my glass. “Do you want Riley? Huh? Want some action with the girl?”

“I’m saying nothing,”

“As long as you both stay away from the staff. Number one rule…no fucking the staff,” I asserted as if they didn’t already know, but it was worth reminding clueless young men to keep their cocks clean.

“C’mon, Mikky, you know glitter girls are not to my taste,” Gunner replied, and I believed him. I suspected he put little value on jewelry, sequins, and scarlet lipstick.

“Now, I’m back. The rules will be reinforced under my watchful eye,” I warned. “Got it?”

“Absolutely, boss,” Ronan replied, and I flicked my hand at him.

“No one in this room calls me boss. Outside of this room…is a different story. Because the boss is back, and I’m taking no fucking prisoners.”

“Is that prison humor again?” Gunner hit, making me smile.

“Right,” I drained the glass, clapped my hands together, and pushed back my chair to step to the safe behind the painting. “Let’s get down to business. First, I want to go over the books. Second, we will take back what was stolen from us.”

“What do you mean?” Gunner asked with the cigar hanging from his mouth.

“For every hour of every day, while I was dehumanized in that fucking prison, there were two debts that plagued my mind. So I replayed the events over the last four years.” I paused a few seconds to remember the code for the safe that I opened three or four times per day, yet the numbers weren’t coming to me. Three fucking years had killed my memory.

Too stubborn and proud to ask Ronan, I wavered for a few seconds until the code finally hit me. I pressed the numbers, and the safe door popped open. Good. The code hadn’t been changed, and Ronan had kept everything as if I just left a moment ago instead of three years ago.

“One,” The books were neatly stacked, thanks to Ronan, and I took them out and shut the safe door. “Hunting down who killed your father, Gunner? Then, making them pay.” I placed the books on the desk and took my seat. “And two. Find the girl.”

“What are you going to do when we have her?” Gunner asked, probably because he was the only one trying to find her.

“Don’t know yet. Ask me again when you bring her in here,” I answered honestly, as my chest tightened even at the thought of that moment when I found it washerthat snitched.

Ignoring the intense silence in the room and the pang of tension in my chest that became a permanent infliction while in prison and the only way I could relieve that brick-like sensationwas punching the bag in the gym until sweat profusely poured from my skin and my muscles became fatigued.

I exhaled, trying to put everything behind me, but it was three years of my life. Three years wasted in that place condemned of something I didn’t do. It’s not going to be easy moving on when the real killer hasn’t been found, and the police don’t seem to be in a hurry to convict anyone. Apparently, the only suspect they had was me. They didn’t try to pursue any other leads.

It screamed a setup. Mr. Kaiser was a headache for the Larsson Police Department, so they were relieved to have him gone. The second person on their hit list, though, was me, and that’s why they cooked it up to make me look like the guilty party.

But I had an alibi they ignored, and I also had family, friends, and employees to vouch for me. Instead, they chose the word of a sixteen-year-old girl, Annika Kaiser.

Mr. Kaiser’s adopted daughter, who I suspected was being blackmailed all along, said she saw me there on the day of my uncle’s murder. She was allegedly the only reliable witness who saw the killer fire the gun. And if that was true, which it wasn’t, then she knew it couldn’t have possibly been me.

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