Chapter 25

Twenty-Five

Rook

T wo days later, I was sitting in the garage with Aiden.

"What are we going to do?" Aiden asked, looking back over the paper. The place we lived together had officially sold, and they wanted us out in two weeks.

"About what?" I asked, my mind wandering from what we were talking about. I'd been too busy looking at my phone, wondering why Regan hadn't responded. I texted her yesterday and hadn't heard a word since. I'd been so busy working that I hadn't been able to go check on her, but it didn't seem like a good sign that she was ignoring me after we slept together."Move? If they are selling the place and want us gone, what else would we do?"

"There's seven of us, Rook. Where the fuck are we supposed to move to?"

"Buy an entire apartment building? How the fuck would I know?"

"You want your name stamped on the mortgage? Do you want someone digging into us for five seconds and finding out where we all live? Unless we own the entire building, we don't have any good way to make sure it's safe enough."

"Pay cash. Buy a damn house. I don't care."

"Rook."

"What?" I yelled. "We have the shop. We'll stay here if we have to for a while until we find somewhere."

We had the garage door open, trying to get a little fresh air in the place after Hero dropped an entire can of cleaner earlier. A figure stepped into the open door, and we both jumped up, not expecting anyone back here this late.

The light spilled onto her, and I could finally see the girl's features. "Harper?"

"Hey," she said, taking one step into the garage. Her face was red and tear-stained, but she still straightened her shoulders to face us.

My heart thundered in my chest, wondering why Harper would be here, crying and upset. Regan hadn't messaged me, and now this.

Panic bubbled, and I clutched my phone hard. "Regan?"

"Not here, but she's fine."

"Okay," I said, taking a deep breath. "What are you doing here, then?"

"I need…help, and from what I've seen and heard, you guys might be people who could do what I need."

I glanced at Aiden, who raised an eyebrow. "We probably could," he said. "But you're going to have to be more clear."

"I'm being harassed, followed a lot. A guy won't leave me alone."

"And that is making you come to us to do what?"

"He pretty much attacked me tonight. I started a new job because I need some cash since my parents split, and I can't exactly be away from him since he's my manager."

"How bad?" Aiden asked, nodding at her.

"Bad enough that I think if something doesn't happen right now, there will be a next time and I will be in the hospital."

"And why wouldn't someone like you go to the police?" I asked.

Harper's family was wealthy. Since the divorce started, it seemed that most of that money had been tied up with a fight between her parents. Evie had dug up plenty of shit on them, but even with a string of public crimes, they were still a highly respected family. Between the divorce and one very private court case for fraud, most of their more liquid assets were frozen solid.

"There's been issues since my parents got divorced. They have all these ideas that I'm depressed and since they pay my tuition, I'm forced to go to therapy every week. I'm worried they will label me crazy and not do anything about it. They also don't know I got a job."

"Fair concern. Why not just quit?"

"I struggled to find this job. No one really believes someone with my last name would need a job, so they don't take me seriously. I'm looking for a new one, but he found out I would be leaving and it escalated. Fast. I think even if I never went back, he's going to be bothering me."

"Hard to argue that being possible. A rich, beautiful woman," Aiden said. "People would do depraved things if they thought it would get them a chance at that money, or you."

"And why would you think to come here?"

"Regan told me some of what she's seen. And she seems to trust you. A little, at least. I thought you might be willing to help me."

I wanted to ask more about the part of Regan trusting me, but I couldn't bring myself to say the words.

"What do you want us to do?" I asked. Aiden wasn't wrong about people trying to get close to her for the wrong reasons. And if she felt like he wouldn't stop even if she left, she was also probably right.

"Stop him? Scare him? I don't know. Don't you break legs and gouge eyes out or something?"

"You want his eyes gouged out?" Aiden asked, the disgust on his face clear. "Where's Hero? I don't need to be there for that."

"He hates the eyeball stuff," I said, smiling. "We prefer cleaner methods usually, but I guess we can take requests."

"Okay, no eyeballs, but is there something you can do to help? I don't want to walk around looking over my shoulder every second of the day and night."

I didn't answer. It wasn't a hard decision. I really didn't have a problem helping her, and it was something we did enough that it wasn't an added stress, but I debated asking something in return.

I wanted to know what Regan was doing now, what she had been doing, and if there was a reason she wasn't talking to me.

If I did, though, it might seem like I cared about Regan.

But this would take up one more night of my life, which meant not going to see her.

"It would help Regan, too!" she said fast. "If this guy is following me, he would inevitably follow her. We're together almost every day."

"I was already going to agree, but way to fight for it," I said with a smirk.

"We're going to need all the information you have," Aiden said, looking at me. "Maybe we can get him tonight? We have…other things to do tomorrow."

Other things being looking into one name that kept coming up on Cameron's paperwork. They had managed to make it into Cameron's office the other day, but there wasn't much to find. The man was smart, and besides some papers on his desk, everything was locked up tight. We hadn't managed to get any further into his safe or records. We did get a bug put in his office, though, and hopefully that would help once he was back in town.

The one thing we had found, though, was a mystery. A name, Candy Collins, kept coming up, but we couldn't find a single trace of her besides an address to an old warehouse in the next town over. There was no birth record, no home addresses, nothing. We couldn't figure out if she was an escort for Cameron or some made up person he used to keep his business hidden. Maybe both.

It wouldn't be the first time a man was a little too trusting of his mistress.

We had found one paper with tomorrow's date and a time on it, but no indication of where anything was happening. The warehouse had seemed like the best bet.

Aiden and I would go to the warehouse. Hero and Mason would try to keep tabs on Cameron, and Zack and Kane would be parked outside of the Fletcher mansion, just in case. I had little concern that any business was happening at that house. From what Regan said, she was there alone ninety-five percent of the time, but I didn't want to risk it.

Harper was already telling Aiden the information as he tapped at Evie's computer.

Twenty minutes later, we had all the information we needed on the manager. I grabbed my keys, deciding to take my car. Shoving a guy into the trunk was a lot easier than figuring out the logistics of him on our bikes. We'd done it before, but I preferred to make my life easier.

"Stay here," I said to Harper. "At least then you can make sure we have the right guy." I yelled for Hero, who appeared from the front. "Can you stay with her until we're back?"

He nodded, heading out and dropping onto the couch opposite of her, already ignoring her and tapping away at his phone.

Aiden headed to the car, and I followed, but I stopped at the open garage door.

"Harper," I said, getting her attention. "Is Regan ignoring me?"

"Yeah. She's all freaking out after the party and whatever date you two had. I don't know what happened, but she's been all anxiety, all the time. Give her another day or two."

I nodded, heading out to the car. At least I had something else to focus on for a few hours.

The guy screamed and squirmed when I opened the trunk.

It had barely taken two hours, and we were back at the garage.We had been dealing with so many powerful, dangerous people, I had almost forgotten how easy it was to take a normal person.

He had been camped out in front of his TV, watching a split screen. Porn on one, camera footage on the second. We barely had to break in, finding the side door unlocked, and he was too busy getting off to hear us walk up behind him.

"If we ever, and I mean ever, have to pick someone up who is actively rubbing his fucking dick again, I will riot," Aiden said, getting out of the car. "I fucking mean it, Rook. I would rather take my own eyes out than watch an old, nasty man flailing around to pull up his pants, screaming, with a boner. That image will forever be burned in my brain. I would rather the eye gouging."

I laughed harder now. It had been a pretty fucking awful sight. "You mean to tell me you would have rather waited? You wanted to see that and then possibly get something on your hands?"

"Oh, fuck. No. Pervert cum." He gagged out the words. "Oh god, that's worse. That's so much worse," he said, bending over to take a deep breath.

I nearly gagged at the thought myself, but quickly pushed the image aside as I popped the trunk.

"Hey, pervert," I said. "I saw your TV setup and thought you might like to see her in person."

I grabbed him by the little ponytail he had, lifting his top half as his bound feet kicked wildly. He screamed as Aiden grabbed his ankles to help lift him out.

"This is the easy part, man. Might as well save your breath," Aiden said. He stopped, pulling one of his hands away to inspect it. "This is disgusting. Now I feel like I'm touching pervert cum no matter what I hold on to."

"I can't imagine he's getting off on his ankles."

"You saw that setup. He'd glow under a black light. No amount of cleaning could clean up what he's been doing in there," Aiden said.

"Please stop talking or I'm going to drop him," I said through gritted teeth. Now I was the one who didn't want to be touching him.

"See, not very fun when you think about it," Aiden said as we hauled him into the chair. We had it set up under one of our lifts. It made it easy to put people in any position we wanted them in.

Harper came over, her eyes wide, the slight fear in them pissing me off further. "That's him."

"Perfect!" I said with a smile, turning to him. "It's your lucky day, well, kind of. We got the right guy."

Aiden smirked, reaching up to high-five me. I almost high-fived back, but stopped midway.

"We should wash our hands first."

"Definitely agree," Aiden said.

"Aren't you just going to get blood on you?" Harper asked, making the guy's eyes go wide.

"Blood and whatever nasty shit is on him are two very different things."

Hero stepped up to the guy, looking him over while Aiden and I cleaned up.

"This is the guy that's touching you?" he asked. The guy fought against the ties as Harper stepped up next to Hero.

"Constantly trying. He was groping me all day at work and when I left for the night, he attacked me in the parking lot and tried to assault me."

Hero flicked the guy's eyeball. The weirdo loved taking eyeballs out and I could never understand why. I didn't question it, but I didn't know why.

"You think you are so nasty that women won't touch you, so that gives you the right to force them into it?" he asked.

The guy violently shook his head no, and I laughed."No? What about those creepy cameras that are obviously hidden in the bathrooms?"

"Eww, you are sick!" Harper yelled as her mouth dropped open. "What do we do now?"

"We make it hurt so he remembers not to do it again."

"Where do I start?" she asked, making us all turn to her in surprise.

"Are you sure you want to help?" I asked as she stepped closer.

"Very sure," she said.

Hero reached next to the couch, pulling out a bat and holding it out for her. She grabbed it, pulling a little too hard. When Hero let go, the bat did, too, smacking him in the face.

"Oh my god," Harper said. "I'm sorry!"

Hero groaned, grabbing his chin as Aiden and I laughed.

"Him!" Hero yelled. "You hit him. I'm not the fucking pervert."

"I didn't mean to," she said, looking at me.

"He probably deserves it anyway. Are you sure you can do this? I don't need vomit on our floor."

"I won't vomit."

"You're cleaning it up if you do."

She lifted the bat onto her shoulder and stepped up next to him. I thought she would take a few deep breaths, maybe even yell at him first, but she only raised the bat.

"Fucking angry girl with a bat. Fucking Harley Quinn shit," Hero mumbled, sitting back on the couch. His lip had split a little, blood pooling, but otherwise, he was fine.

The bat connected with the guy's legs, and he screamed against the gag.

I smiled, looking over at Harper, who was panting, but it wasn't her that caught my eye.

It was Regan, standing in the open garage door, her mouth dropped open as she took in the scene. I was sure the last thing she had been expecting was Harper here with us, doing this. She didn't say a word, but she spun on her heel, running back into the night.