Page 77 of Dollhouse

“What the fuck happened here?” I demand, coming to their side.

“Eli.” A detective walks toward me, extending his hands for me to shake.

“Detective Roberts. What’s going on?” I shake his hand. Just like nearly every other cop in the city, Detective Lyle Roberts is also on the Triad’s payroll.

“There’s been a shooting. Three people were DOA, there’s no suspects. Unless you have someone in mind that would want to attack Bella’s?”

“Who died?” I ask through clenched teeth, my eyes snapping toward Ro and King.

“Two cooks and a waitress,” Detective Robert says, opening his notepad and flipping through a few pages. “Alba, Bruno, and Giovanni are the deceased.” Somewhere in the distance, his name was called, and he turns his head. “Excuse me.” He walks toward the group of officers who are wasting time taking pointless statements of bystanders.

“What the fuck do we know?” I snap, needing answers and needing them right fucking now. Fabio is like family, his staff is like family, and now we’re out for blood for whoever killed three members of his staff.

This isn’t random, it’s personal.

Rowen shoves his phone at me, showing me a text message.

Unknown:You took what’s mine, so I took what’s yours.

“Tate.”I scoff, handing the phone back.

“Yup, and I’m going home now to check on her,” King states coldly, not bothering to wait for a response before he takes off, leaving the two of us behind.

“What are you planning to do, E?” Rowen asks. Sometimes I hate that he knows me so well.

“Fuck, I don’t know.”

“Don’t ruin a good thing while you’re stuck in your head trying to figure it out. Oh, and clean yourself up before you go home. I can smell the pussy on you, and she will too.” He looks me up and down with disgust, a look he’s never given me before. He shoves past me, hitting my shoulder with his as he too leaves me alone to deal with this mess. I didn’t fuck Elena. I tried, but I couldn’t. Though I know I smell like her cheap perfume.

I had no choice but to stay behind and talk to both Fabio and Detective Roberts to get more information on the shooting.

From what they had to say, two men entered the restaurant and open fired. Three people were killed. Both cooks were outside unloading a grocery shipment. While they were unloading, they were shot in the head and then came the waitress.

After Detective Reynolds left, Fabio took me into his office and showed me the surveillance video. It was hard to watch considering they were people I knew. They never stood a stance. They didn’t even see it coming.

The two men wore all black including their ski masks. From what I could see, there was nothing about them that could be used to identify them. This wasn’t random, this was very much planned. And whoever was responsible for this, was also responsible for ambushing us. The text Rowen received is proof enough.

As if I needed any more of a reason to distance ourselves from Tate, this is it.

* * *

I went backto my office afterward and spent hours speaking with my security team that we’d hired to run in depth background checks on everyone we did business with. Anything that was buried that someone didn’t want us to find, that’s exactly the type of things that our security team found.

They found the deep dark secrets of everyone we encountered.

They’d sent me the information they tried to obtain on Ace, which was barely anything. All that they were able to find was his address, which we already knew, and his bank statements. As great as my security team is, there’s not one piece of fucking information that’s useful.

Up until nine months ago, Ace Jackson didn’t exist. He’d been a ghost up until he opened a bank account and rented an apartment. No one deletes their past unless there’s something they don’t want someone to find. Whoever this fucker is, he’s good.

Clearly I wasn’t aware exactly how great his skills were.

It’s not a coincidence that he happened to show up on paper the exact moment Tate arrived. I believe now more than ever that this shady fuck is out there stalking her again.

The only charges that appear on his account are minimal charges from coffee shops. We searched the surveillance footage from each location he visited, and found the footage was wiped clean, so we have no idea what he looks like. He could be anywhere at any time, and we’d never know what he looks like.

First, I suspected Tate’s piece of shit husband, they’re always the likely suspect, but that fucker checks out.

He was a suspect in her disappearance, but thanks to his family connections, he was cleared of any wrongdoing.

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