Fatal Attraction (Dark Desires 4)

“Bye, Michelle, I appreciate this again. You’re the best person ever, honestly.”

Once I hang up the phone, I glance around the apartment and try to work out what I need to do to get things ready for Michelle. I haven’t yet left Jordan with anyone so it’s weird, but it won’t be for long. If I’m about to get the worst news ever then I want to protect him from that. My emotions will be haywire and I don’t want him to pick up on that. If I’m sobbing, then my poor baby will be an absolute wreck. I can’t put him through any of that. Will wants him sheltered from all of this and he’s right about that. He doesn’t need to know everything.

I tidy around, gather up everything that Michelle might need to put it in an easy place for her, and I pump some milk. He’s only just fed, but there’s no way that I can leave him with nothing. I don’t want to be long, but I might be. Then, when I feel like I’ve done everything I can, I get myself dressed. I tug on some leggings, a big baggy tee shirt, and I scrape my hair back into a pony tail. Maybe I don’t look my best, but that’s hardly a priority.

It’s only when I stare at the front door to see if Michelle is here that I see something I didn’t spot before. I guess the lack of sleep and the craziness in my brain made me miss it. But it’s strange, really odd. It has me freaked. There’s a giant white envelope which has been pushed under the door and it has my name on it.

It feels like tense music is playing as I step towards the door. It’s like I’m in the middle of a thriller movie and I’m walking towards my doom. I half expect someone to jump out at me with a knife to plunge into me while I unsuspectingly walk towards this note which contains… well, I don’t know what it contains.

Nothing happens. Of course, I’m not in the middle of some bad movie so no one jumps out and stabs me, but the nervy, edgy anticipation doesn’t go anywhere. My veins fizz and pop while I lift the envelop towards me.

“What is this?” I ask aloud, just to break the silence. “What the fuck is going on?”

It takes me a few moments, but soon I work up the courage to just tear it apart. I get a series of photographs, presumably a little bit like the one Will got of me. Only these images are all from last night, and they tell a strange story. Him, walking from the police station, him inside a bar with a blond haired beautiful woman draped across him, him, walking alone down some sketchy alleyway all by himself. None of him coming home.

Then, there’s a note. A terrifying piece of paper which makes my heart stop dead.

‘You do not know where your man is most of the time. He isn’t the person that you think he is. You have to stop him from coming for me or next time he’s alone, he’s dead. And not just him. You and that beautiful baby boy of yours as well. If that isn’t enough of a threat

, then your mother, your auntie, your cousin… all of them will get it. I keep trying to tell Yoker, but he doesn’t get it. So, I’m leaving it to you. Don’t fuck up, Cici.’

He’s still alive, that’s the main thing that I get from this, but he won’t be for much longer if I let things carry on the way they are. The urgent need to find him is even more intense now. I’m itching to get out of here, I’m desperate to escape to find him. My hands shake like crazy while I wait for Michelle to arrive.

This has gone too far now. It needs to stop. Will needs to put me and our family first or we’ll all and up dead. I know he wants to do this, I get his point, but this has to be the end of it. I won’t have him killing me, Jordan, and the rest of his family for male pride alone.

Chapter Twenty Four – Will

Twelve missed calls. I stare at that message wondering when I’m going to do anything about it. There are also a lot of voice mail messages waiting for me to listen to them as well, but I can’t face it. I’m tired – sleeping on the floor in my office hasn’t given me the best night of sleep – stressed, and increasingly heart broken. I think I might have fucked things and I don’t know what to do. I don’t feel like I can improve things until Kingpin is gone. Much as I want to speak to Cici, I’m waiting on a very important call that I absolutely cannot miss. I’m starting to get a list of names who are on the shareholders list, and one, Charles Manz, is seemingly on all of them. I think he might well be my guy, I’m just waiting on a background check for him.

I rub my eyes, knowing that they’re blood shot from the exhaustion. It’s a struggle to keep them open.

“Anything?” Jones asks me as he brings in a mug of steaming hot coffee. Weirdly, he’s actually becoming a pretty good person to have around. I don’t hate him anywhere near as much as I used to. “Any calls?”

“No, nothing yet.” I rest my head on the desk. “I want to push them, but I think I’m just putting them off by this point. I’m sure they don’t want to keep fielding calls from me all day long.”

Jones sits across from me and his stares at me. I can see the sympathy there, but I don’t have the energy to snap at him about it. “Well, at least we haven’t had any letters from Kingpin today. That’s a good sign.”

“Hmm, that’s true. We usually get one in the morning, don’t we? Do you think we should worry about that?”

“Oh.” Jones taps his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t know. Maybe. It could mean a change in activity.”

Maybe he’s sensing that I’m onto him. There could be some way that he’s sensed what I’m up to and he’s freaked because I’m getting on his tail. He could have picked up and left town to get away from me. Or maybe he’s planning something big. Something that’s about to shake my world completely.

“What shall we do about that?” I ask, as much to myself as to Jones. “How can we solve this?”

I push myself into a standing position and I walk up and down the room while my brain spins over everything. I’ve been good, I’ve been getting somewhere, but all of a sudden, it’s ten steps backwards. Now I don’t know where he’s going and I’m off kilter again. Maybe that’s why there’s no note, just to fuck us up. Just as we think that we’re getting used to his behavior he switches it up all over again. Fucking hell, this is horrible…

Ring, ring… my eyes snap towards Jones is shock as my desk phone rings. Ring, ring…

“Shall… I get it?” Jones asks me curiously. “It might be the background check…”

“No.” I snatch the receiver and slam it to my ear. “Yeah? What do you have for me?”

“We have searched everywhere, we’ve been through records in all the countries that we could get the information from, and we’ve been in touch with the companies as well. Charles Manz doesn’t exist.”

My heart sinks. “How the fuck can he not exist? He can’t have stakes in all these companies with no name.”

“I don’t know.” The guy on the other end of the phone sounds shaky and stressed. “And we’re still on it. I just want to keep you in the loop. I don’t know where else we can search for information about him…”