Page 1 of Still His

Prologue

SIMON

She’s gone.

She thinks she can get away with just leaving home? Leaving me? Not a fucking chance.

Does she think I won’t find her? She’s my daughter, for fuck’s sake! There is nowhere she can run and hide where I won’t find her.

She’s my girl. She may not be my blood, but I raised her.

She knows better than to think she can hide from me. My money means I can do and find anything.

If I want it, I get it.

Or that’s what I thought, but she’s been gone for three weeks now without a trace.

She’s even smarter than I gave her credit for, and I always knew she was brilliant.

But this?

Her leaving wasn’t just some whim. If it were, she wouldn’t have been able to leave town, transfer buses or transportation along the way and just vanish into thin air. The cameras caught her getting on the bus but according to the PI I hired, she never got off.

People don’t just get on a bus and disappear. That shit doesn’t happen without considerable thought and planning.

I’m beyond angry.

I’m angry at the bus company for not having working cameras inside each bus, and angry at the PI for failing at his fucking job.

I’m angry at her for leaving without so much as a goodbye, for making it impossible to track her and for not at least finding a way to let me know she’s safe.

I know things have been…rough between us lately, but she should have come to me with any problems she had instead of thinking running was her best option. She’s only eighteen, this had to be the absolute worst option!

And most of all, I’m angry at myself for not fixing what was broken between us. The invisible wall that I put up as she got older and started acting differently shouldn’t have stopped us from being together.

I’m still her father. Even if she had misguided feelings, it was my job to steer her away from those thoughts and onto a clearer path. Help her understand that her behaviour and feelings towards me were misplaced.

But instead, I did what I do best.

I put distance between us, but it had nothing to do with her. Not really. Her feelings towards me weren’t right, but neither were the things I started to feel for her.

I’ve barely slept since she left. I need her to function because, even when I put distance between us, she was still here. Safe in her room down the hall. I knew she was protected and always would be because I made sure of it.

Not sleeping is how I find myself on my computer at two a.m., trying to do anything I can think of to find her when an email notification pings.

I grind my teeth as I stare at the email from my best friend, Greg.

Simon,

I think you need to see this. Don’t shoot the messenger.

Greg

Followed with a link that he wants me to check out.

It isn’t the first time he’s sent me porn or some woman getting herself off for money, but he knows I’m not into that shit. I have no desire to watch a woman pleasure herself on camera for random men and women across the world, especially with Catherine up and leaving without a trace.

I have better things to do.

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