Page 2 of Wed to the Devil

Frick takes a deep breath and gives me a steadying look.

“We've been looking for her since she headed out of the living room without telling us. She's been gone for…”

Frick looks at her watch, flicking the cuff of her shirt back.

“Almost half an hour at this point. I think it's advisable that we consider her missing now. We need to examine all the security footage from the house's entrances and exits and try to determine if she left or was taken. Then we can figure out if we just have a search of the house to do or if we need to expand our options.”

I grit my teeth. “How could you let this happen?”

Frick and Frack simultaneously bow their heads, the closest that they will come to admitting fault.

“We’ll find your wife.”

“You better fucking hope so,” I snarl. “One of you, go get the security tapes from the security closet near the front door. The other one, go look for her outside. I will corner my father and uncle, herd them into the library, and try to ascertain whether either of them knows anything about Talia's whereabouts.”

Frack nods and starts toward the front of the house. Frick immediately heads for the side door, exiting into the back gardens. My heart bangs against my ribs as I turn, looking for my father or uncle. I find my uncle standing very close to where I left him a few minutes ago. He is nursing a glass of whiskey and looking as grouchy as ever. I head straight toward him, pushing people out of my way. Felix sees me coming and takes a large swig out of his glass, hissing at the burn of the whiskey sliding down his throat.

“Felix, where is Talia?”

He arches a brow, managing to look completely expressionless.

“What do you mean?”

I stalk right up to him, grabbing his tie and yanking it up. His head snaps backward, his carefully combed silver and black hair flopping. I glare down at him, my aqua eyes probing him. His hands flap uselessly at his sides when I give his tie another yank, threatening to choke him.

Felix looks stunned. But that could easily be an act. It's impossible to tell whether Felix knows what is going on or not, though he seems perfectly innocent. His hands come up to my chest, pressing against it in a fumbling attempt to free himself. That only makes me double down and I pull his tie straight up, stepping his head back further, strangling him.

“Where is she?” I demand to know. “Did you have someone take her?”

All I can see in my mind's eye is a dark man wearing a balaclava and gloves with his suit, hauling a frightened looking Talia out of the back door of the estate. The thought worries me so much that I drive a fist into my uncle's stomach, knocking the wind out of him.

He gasps for air and writhes as I maintain my grip on his tie. Felix is roughly my size but gaunt, years of drinking and smoking making his muscles weaker than they should be.

I lean close to his ear and spit out the words. “If you touch her, if she so much as says you looked at her wrong, I will fucking gut you. I'll run you through and wipe your blood off on your own shirt.”

Felix grits out, “I don't know where she is. I swear. I've just been standing here the entire time.”

His distress is starting to make him break out in a fine sheen of sweat.

“Dare!”

I whip my head around and see Frack waving at me, motioning me over. “We found her. Come see.”

The way that he says the phrase ‘we found her’ makes my blood cold as ice in my veins. Releasing my uncle, I turn and move through the crowd, which has now mostly turned to gawk at me. Everyone moves back, parting a wide aisle between me and Frack. I open my mouth to demand to know where she is, but Frack shakes his head.

‘Not here,” he says. “Come to the security room.”

He turns and heads towards the front hallway. I am right on his heels, my thoughts running wild. Talia has been taken. That's the only thing that I can think of that Frack would need me to see for myself.

Or… Or an unknown assailant has wounded her or knocked her unconscious and then dragged her body away from the Morgan Estate and put her in a car.

No one but Talia and I know that she is pregnant, so some harm could come to the baby without the assailant even realizing it. I trudge forward, trying to steel myself for whatever I'm about to see. By the time that I step into the security room, nothing more than a closet really, I swear that every nerve ending I have is on high alert. My hands are clenched into fists, my lower back is sweating through my crisp linen shirt. I look at the wall ofcomputer screens, seeing that each one covers a different angle of the security cameras inside and outside the house. One appears to be the upstairs hallway. Another shows a view of the inside of the multi-car garage, every one of my grandfather's precious collection of rare cars still in their bays. Most of the cameras capture footage of the exterior doors. I noticed just then that there is a nervous looking, young Hispanic man in a dark blue blazer, a white polo shirt, and a pair of dark brown khakis.

Frack moves toward him, gesturing. “This is Carlos. He is going to show you the footage.”

My heart pounds. My mouth is dry. Carlos moves forward and gulps as he presses a button on a remote in his hand. Frick taps the top of a particular display to draw my attention to it and I see that it is the feed showing the outside of the back exit into the garden.

“This is from forty minutes ago,” Frack says.

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