Page 14 of Hunt

Eagerly, I stalked down the hallway with my phone in hand and ran down the stairs instead of using the elevator. The stairs open onto the casino floor, where the old regulars, Mr. Rogers and Mr. Kelsey, sit at their favorite blackjack table. It’s early, but these two were often here first starting the evening off with a little gamble before heading to the dining and bar area, finish off the evening watching the dancing girls wiggle their bunny tail arses.

I slipped into the ‘staff only’ hallway, pulled by sizzling grills and tinkering plates, and peered inside the kitchen, trying to spot my girl. When I realized she wasn’t in there, I assumed she had gone to update her details with Betty, so I went to her office to find it empty. This was unsurprising since she was likely rushing about the place, organizing the staff.

The reception area where the members entered was at the end of the hall. I found Betty, but Riley was nowhere to be seen. I asked Betty if she had seen Petra, and she replied with a frown, “Don’t you mean…” I checked her notebook. “Riley Laws? Previously Petra Black.”

“Yeah, her. Have you seen her?”

“Don’t tell me you’re acquainted with the little rat as well,” she inquired curiously.

“A little,” I told her. Riley confessed her lies to Betty, but I hope Betty wasn’t unkind to her.

“Ha.” She stabbed me with a knowing look, like she wasn’t born yesterday. “It’s weird how many available girls there are around, and so many of them are prettier than Petra and more honest than her, too, since, you know, she used a fake ID. But you and Ronan go for the same girl? That’s leaning towards psychotic.”

“Don’t you mean Riley?” I corrected her, even though she used Riley’s correct name earlier.

Betty rolled her eyes. “That might take a while to get used to. Anyway, she should be in the kitchen because that’s where I pay her to be.”

“Okay, maybe I missed her,” I mumbled, not making much of it because I didn’t want to get Riley into deeper trouble with Betty. At the end of the day, we’re the ones who call the shot around here, but Betty was virtually irreplaceable and we didn’t want to piss her off so much that she left us high and dry. Besides, her opinion means a lot to Ronan and Mikael.

I retreated down the hallway and spotted that little creature whose eyes grew the size of saucers as soon as she noticed me looking at her. She was carrying a container of dirty dishes and then snuck into the kitchen before I could call her name.

I'd come after her no matter how much she tried to run from me. I was hooked on her. Completely and utterly obsessed.

I followed that sweet arse into the busy, frantic kitchen at the height of dinnertime and when she turned around and found me right on her tail, she gasped a little. “I should be angry with you,” she snarled quietly so the other staff couldn’t hear.

But she refused to look me in the face. For a fleeting moment, I saw Annika in her expression, only for Ronan’s voice in my head to remind me that I see Annika in everything, including lampposts, billboards, and petrol spills on the road—everything and everyone.

“Can I speak to you for a sec?” I asked, even though it wasn’t a question. It was a demand and an expectation that she would obey. “I’ll be quick. I want you to identify someone in a pic.”

I scrolled on my phone to find the picture of that grumpy girl with glasses who decided that because I was a Kaiser, I must be bad and stay away from Riley. The photo was taken of her in Riley’s dorm room, so I had to edit out the surroundings so she couldn’t tell.

“Her.” I held up the phone close to her face. “Who is she?”

Riley cringed. “Why do you want to know that? Am I forbidden to have friends according to you?”

“Well… it depends on who the friend is,” I assert, and her left eye twitched. I’d love to ask about that lady cop, but I knew it would fuck up Mikael’s plans of finding out first if Riley was Annika, the lying snitch and also my foster sister. “So, she’s a friend? What’s her name? Just give me a name,” I demand impatiently.

“Why?” she frowned. “What are you going to do?”

“She pounced on me accusing me of shit, then told me stay away from you,” I explained as I slipped the phone back in my jean pocket.

“Huh, she’s very astute,” she stated with her nostrils flaring, looking so fucking sexy that I had to use all my strength not to claim her sweet face in my hands and kiss her.

Still, she refused to look at me, and my patience ran low. I took the phone out of my pocket again, found the picture of the bossy girl in glasses, and held the screen in front of her eyes again. “Again, Riley, tell me her name.”

Someone dropped a saucepan into a sink, and it made a piercing clanging sound that startled her. She placed her hand against her chest to catch her breath as grills hissed and steam filled the space. The kitchen staff were receiving orders from the wait staff, and I was in the way of everyone. The only reason I got away with it was because I was the boss’s nephew.

“Riley, tell me who this is,” I repeated with a firmer tone to grab her attention, but she was so distracted by everything happening around us.

“I have work to do,” she shrilled at me, backing away, only to slam into the kitchen counter. “We’re at peak hour, and there’s a full house.”

“Riley,” I snarled, uninterested in her excuses because it was evident that she was diverting. My hand snatched at her face, gripping her cheek with my fingers to hold her head in place. “Again, Riley,” forcing her to look at the pic. “Who is this?”

She gasped, wrapping her little hand around my wrist in an attempt to stop me from squeezing so tight, even though I wanted to. Even though I had a strong urge to dig my fingers into her soft skin until tears flowed from her pretty eyes, she wasn’t behaving the way I wanted her to and that pissed me off, but what annoyed me even more was that she didn’t react to my unmasking like I expected from her.

If she were Annika, I’d expect her to freak out, unless she was so well trained at dousing her natural reactions, like the perfect little Hollywood actor. However, if she were Riley, why didn’t she look at me like a girl attracted to a boy? Instead, she avoided looking at me altogether, which was infuriating because I couldn’t stop looking at her even if I was paid a million dollars.

She swallowed, and those green eyes rolled around in her skull as we grabbed the attention of the bustling kitchen staff.

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