Page 67 of Enticing the Monster

She sleeps beside me.

Watching her, I wonder if I’ve done the right thing, then I shake my head once. I don’t have a choice. There is only one way to do anything in the family. I’ve done it all the way it needs to be done.

Now, I just have to deal with Claire’s sibling. Running my fingers through her hair, I shift my attention toward the ceiling and stare at it. Tonight is the last night of my renting this hotel. My time here is done. I have no use for paid escorts anymore. Claire has proven to me, again, that she is all I need in this life.

And she is.

She is everything.

My phone buzzes somewhere in the room again. It’s at least the fifth time it’s rang. I slip out of bed and move through the room as quietly as possible, grabbing my pants and slipping them on before I shuffle out of the room and dig into my pocket for the device.

Six missed calls from Hendrick.

Using my thumb, I quickly put the passcode in, then find Hendrick’s name and call him. I place the phone against my ear. It rings a few times before he picks up. He sounds winded, and that confuses me. It’s well past four in the morning. He should be balls deep inside of Allison or whatever current fuck he has at the moment.

“Hendrick, what’s happened?” I demand.

He lets out a heavy breath, then what sounds like a cry. “It’s Allison,” he rasps.

“What is?” I ask again.

There is a moment of silence, and I wonder if he’s dropped the call. Then I hear him sob. The sound is foreign. I don’t think I’ve heard him cry in any form since he was about ten years old. When Mom yelled at him for spilling his water all over her computer and he fucked the whole thing up.

She was trying a new system to keep all her work notes digitally. That was the end of that, which is why she still does handwritten notes and paper is all over her fucking office. Hendrick ruined her for the digital world, no matter how many times we tell her that shit is waterproof now.

“You need to calm down. What’s happened?”

He takes in a deep breath, holds it, then lets it out slowly. I attempt to wait patiently. Even though I feel like screaming for him to hurry the fuck up, I don’t.

“I went to her shop to get her. The whole fucking place is burned to the ground, and she’s nowhere to be found.”

What.

The.

Fuck.

“You checked her apartment?” I ask.

“Her apartment, Parker and Wells, nobody has heard from her or seen her since yesterday. I’ve been busy with the family and haven’t been with her since the night of the wedding. So it’s only been a day, but she’s fucking gone.”

I think about asking him who her enemies could be, then I realize she doesn’t have any. Only we do. And it’s not like Hendrick has kept her any kind of secret. They’ve been out in public together. A lot.

“Where is Wells?” I demand.

“He’s on his way.”

“I am, too. Give me an hour. I need to get Claire home.”

“Home?” The devastation is no longer in his voice. It’s instead filled with curiosity.

“I brought her to the hotel.”

He hums before he speaks. “Nice. Last night in the place?”

My brothers know me so well. They are my coworkers, but more than that, they are my best friends. They know me better than anyone, and even though I attempted to keep this place a secret, it’s Wells who paid for it, not me. I even tried to lie to myself that I didn’t do that, that I wasn’t like my brothers. But I am exactly like them, and it doesn’t surprise me that my hacker brother knows all about it.

“I’ll see you in an hour. Update me with any information.”

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