The part that bothered me the most about my investigation was how nonexistent Hannah Ashton was. I had been digging into people’s lives for a while—it was how I survived. Even people who went to great lengths to conceal their identity had trace elements online. It literally looked like Hannah Ashton was finger-snapped into existence on the day Ashton Retirement Fund was registered in Chicago ten years ago. There was no way that was her real name, or if it was, she went by another one prior to that. I was leaning towards the former because outside of Ashton Retirement Fund’s registration, she was still as much of a ghost as she was before the company was registered.
If she’s challenging the will, her real name has to be out there somewhere…
I started doing cross-references for the names Hannah and Ashton with Josef Weber, but it was another dead end. I repeated my searches, just typing everything into the search engines I could think of, each one making my frustration grow. Searching the past was useless, searching the present was an array of dead ends, and I couldn’t very well see into the future. I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. Exhaustion was starting to take a toll. I was seeing the same glimpse of madness that I felt when the darkness consumed me inside the cage for the first time—then an idea caused me to open my eyes immediately.
Reynard. He was able to track me down—he found my chat logs—that means he must have Wyatt’s laptop. Wyatt is—was the only person outside of Josef Weber that knew Hannah Ashton. I’m sure he would have kept something—especially if he was so torn up about this. I need that laptop.
I needed to talk to Reynard, which meant I was going to have to pay a visit to him in prison. That was the only way I could gain access to his house and possibly get my hands on Wyatt’s laptop. I wasn’t even sure if it was going to provide me with information that the brothers themselves hadn’t already uncovered, but it was the only thing I could think of that could. Maybe I was just looking for an excuse to see Reynard and once one presented itself, I couldn’t let go of the thought. Either way, I was just banging my head against the screen and I wasn’t willing to give up—not without exploring every option that I could think of.
I’m sure he hasn’t even thought about me since I left. Why would he? I was a girl in a cage that deserved nothing but punishment. Once that moment passed and he no longer saw me as his object of revenge, he could barely touch me—not the way I needed him to touch me.
But that isn’t what this about…
Or is it?
Reynard
One week ago
“You son of a bitch!” I lunged at Josef Weber, catching him by the thro
at before I slammed him against the glass window overlooking Chicago. “Give me one good reason not to put you straight through this fucking window!”
“Reynard! This isn’t going to solve anything!” Mauro grabbed my arm. “We need information—he won’t be able to give it if you splatter him on the sidewalk.”
“You should listen to your brother.” Josef Weber choked his words out.
“Then you better start talking.” I narrowed my eyes and relaxed my grip, but I held onto his neck in case I needed to remind him that I could crush his windpipe. “Where is our sister? What the fuck are you trying to do to us?”
“Nothing that you didn’t try to do to me” He snarled and tried to get out of my grasp. “You tried to put me out of business, so I returned the favor!”
“This goes deeper than that and you know it!” Mauro leaned forward. “You set this up a long time go—why?”
“You shouldn’t be asking me that question—you should be asking your brother, Wyatt.” Josef Weber managed to grin slightly. “Oh wait, you can’t.”
“That’s it.” I pulled him away from the window and slammed him hard enough for his head to bounce and leave a blood spot where he struck. “Say my brother’s name one more fucking time!”
“Where’s Hannah?” Mauro wiped the blood off the window and showed it to Weber. “Or do you want Reynard to find out what cracks first—your skull, or the window?”
“That’s not the question you should be asking.” Weber grimaced in pain. “You should be asking—who is Hannah.”
We didn’t get a chance to ask Josef Weber another question. His security team finally broke through the barrier we put in front of his door, and then we were in a brawl. There was at least a dozen of them, but we didn’t give a fuck. We threw fists, kicks, and Mauro managed to send one of them crashing through Weber’s desk with a move that would have made a cage fighter jealous. They were only a distraction though—the real problem was already on the way—the boys in blue. Chicago PD—and they came at us with weapons drawn.
“Fuck.” I lifted my hands when I saw them approaching.
“Don’t do anything stupid.” Mauro looked over at me.
I know how trigger happy those mother fuckers are, so I don’t have much of a fucking choice.
The handcuffs went on our wrists, and then we were forcibly removed from Weber Acquisitions. We really did try to handle things peacefully—as peacefully as the two of us could when our beasts started to rage in the face of the man who was the source of our problem. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any answers before I lost my temper—and that didn’t help. I used my phone call to let Fisk know we needed him to bail us out, but I didn’t realize how much of a stranglehold Weber had on Chicago. He used his influence to get a judge assigned to our case that wasn’t eager to let us out of jail considering the fact we flew from New York just to assault one of the city’s residents—his words, but not what truly transpired.
The next day
“Well, this fucking sucks.” Mauro looked up from his cell, which was adjacent to mine.
“You’ve said that at least a dozen times since yesterday.” I sat up and sighed. “Hopefully Fisk can figure something out. We might not have gotten the answer we needed, but we got something—we’ve been asking the wrong question.”
“I don’t know if that’s very beneficial.” Mauro exhaled sharply. “We already knew that Hannah Ashton wasn’t her real name.”