Page 26 of Iron Rose

Eoghan had insisted that I stay at his place. For once, I was grateful for the invitation. I could leave the country, but I wasn’t ready. The woman had slipped out the back door and out of my hands, and I had to find her.

Her absence fueled my obsession. I was on the hunt, and she was the most worthy prey. A fighter. No doubt, also a killer. She was a dangerous game, and I wanted to consume her, own her and toy with her in the worst possible way.

I hummed that infernal song,Rose Marie,for which she was named.I had watched the 1936 film starring Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. There was a 1954 version of that movie with Howard Keel, but I preferred the other version. In the first, the song was belted out of love, which was returned. In the Howard Keel version, it was unrequited.

Whatever was passing between us was, most definitely, mutual.

It had been two days since New York City. The MMA fight replayed in my mind over and over again; the way she laughed, flipped the bird at Vasiliev, and refused to go down without a fight. Everything about her drove me wild.

I sat at my computer, at the small desk in the in-house conference room reserved for big family meetings, and other more legitimate business. My laptop refused to ping the notification I craved to see. I had alerts for her name, her passport. Even her coach, Ajax LeBlanc, had disappeared. She couldn’t pass through airport security, rent or buy a car or run a credit check without it pinging me immediately.

But she was a ghost.

She had fallen off the planet, and I could not find her.

“For fuck’s sake!” Hugo came into the room and plopped on a seat beside me. The wheels rolled under his weight as he unceremoniously kicked his feet up on the table and leaned back as far as the chair would let him. “The girl is gone and does not want to be found.”

He had gotten annoyed at my searches. I couldn’t imagine why, as he was guilty of the same.

“You spend your free time stalking Ca—“

“Do not say her name!” He interrupted, scowling. I grinned, having intentionally poked the bear. Hearing her name sent him into a rage every time. Yet, he still watched her from any camera he could. He knew her location at every moment. His salary was dedicated to keeping some kind of secret bodyguard near his woman at all times.

For years, he had lived like a monk, praying in front of the screens as he watched her. Or, more accurately,stalkedher.

“My point exactly,” I said, smugly.

“It’s different,” he said, glaring at me in a rare show of emotion. “She’s my woman, and always has been. This fighter woman was never yours.”

“That’s beside the point.”

“What is the point?” He said, crossing his arms smugly as if he had me on the back foot.

“I need to know that she’s alright.” I whispered, because it was the only possible thing I could say.

Hugo wouldn’t understand the rest. The way my mind kept remembering her, her voice. I was obsessed with her.

“If she wanted you to know where she was,” Hugo said, after a moment. “She would have left you a glass slipper.”

“You’re a real knob, you know that?” I said dryly.

But he was right. I didn’t think she was dead. There’d be no reason to hide your name when you’re gone. The Mafia would have advertised her expiration if they had caught her. The bratva wasn’t one to let a good execution go to waste when it could send a message.

“Do one last search,mon ami.“ The Frenchman told me. “Then let her go.” He looked away from me to his own laptop, opening the screen to the familiar quad of videos. “Trust me when I tell you that this way, madness lies. If you find her, what you end up seeing may break your heart.”

He clicked his screen, and a humble, small apartment in Boston with comfortable, over-stuffed furnishings appeared.

Hugo watched with incredible reverence. The longing on his normally stoic face was unbelievable. He’d spend the rest of the day here, watching his favorite program. When the woman went to sleep, he’d switch to the night cameras, and would wait, watching the woman just breathe.

He was right. It was complete madness.

I had to finish this. Let the trail grow cold. But I wasn’t ready.

I got up and went to my cousin’s office. He had taken it over since my uncle died. It was past a large wooden staircase, grand and imposing, near the French double doors that led to the front porch. The eerie banisters were etched with dragons and serpents, intertwining down the individual rails. All hand-carved and intricately created.

As I turned to head down the stairs, a strange figure looked at me from behind a half-shut door in a dark, un-lit hall. Wild, curly red hair framed a white face. When she caught my eye, she gasped, then quickly shut the door.

That was Aoibheann, my late uncle’s surviving wife. She was a second wife, wed one year after Eoghan’s mum passed. They deeply resented one another, and they said she rarely leaves her room now.

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