Chapter 2

Sebastian

"Sebastian,"the Starbucks barista yelled out.

I swiveled my head around, my heart rate skipping a beat and then giving a one two punch in my chest. I sighed as I checked the drink placed on the counter.

Yep, it was mine.

"It's just Bastian," I said as I accepted the cup, but they'd already moved on to the next customer by then and didn't hear me.

It was just a mistake. There was no way anyone here knew my real name, though my current moniker of Bastian wasn't all that far off. Really, I shouldn't be surprised when that kind of thing happened, but I suppose all the years of being hyper-vigilant had taken their toll. Fifteen years of being hunted. Fifteen years of staying one step ahead of the potential danger with my head on a swivel and my brother at my back. Fifteen years of hiding from David Russo and his henchmen. The New Jersey Mafia Boss and his goons had been a royal pain in my ass for a long-ass time.

Really, was it any wonder I startled sometimes when someone called out my real name?

Well, at least my order was right. A flat white with hazelnut. I sighed again, my heart returning to a normal beat beneath my chest.

Stepping out onto the street holding my correct coffee, I was hit with a face full of stinging rain. Winters in Baton Rouge rarely fell below freezing since the city was so far south, but harsh rain could turn even the slightest bit of cold into a blizzard of misery.

Luckily, my long coat had a prominent collar, which I turned up to protect my neck from the rain. I clutched my coffee to my chest as I headed back to the office, hoping it would still be hot by the time I got there.

We were meeting a new client today, which always brought new headaches. I was going to need the caffeine.

The client was already there when I arrived, though they hadn't sat down yet, so I wasn't too late.

When I closed the door, I made sure to create enough noise to draw attention to myself. That was a mistake I'd made one too many times in the past. Clients didn't appreciate being startled when they were already on edge.

"Sorry. Got held up."

The client nodded, but otherwise barely paid me any attention, eyes locked on my brother, Damien. Right now he was going by Daz, the latest in his revolving list of pseudonyms.

At least his wasn't quite as close to his real name as mine was, though I knew if Russo's men looked hard enough all the name changes in the world wouldn't keep them off our tail. Still, it was just one more step in the ever-evolving plan to keep ourselves free from being unalived at the hands of that fucker.

We'd become somewhat lax in that effort lately, even going so far as to tell our friend Mason from the Federal Protection Agency, a group of men who'd gained our trust the old-fashioned way and who we now trusted with our lives, the truth about us and our situation. Something we hadn't dared do in all the fifteen years since we watched our parents shot and killed execution style and testified against David Russo, putting him behind bars for two counts of murder in the first degree.

Most people assumed my brother was the one in charge of our firm. They weren't wrong. Damien typically gave out orders on the rare occasions when such things were necessary, and he was usually the one dealing with clients directly. However, this wasn't because he was in any way my superior. The two of us owned our PI firm, Alias Investigations, together and all decisions were a joint effort. Plus, at age thirty-four, he was only a year older than me.

No, he was not my superior. I just hated talking to people I didn't know.

Like the man sitting before us now.

According to the information we'd been given earlier, the man's name was Jason Dahler.

Average looks and average height with sandy brown hair, his appearance didn't draw attention at first. However, further observation revealed a few startling details.

My years of experience as a PI had taught me to categorize clients on sight. By the time I sat down at my desk, I already had a running list in my head. There was a notch in the top of his left ear, cleanly cut like it had been sliced with a knife. The wound was old and long since healed, but it was a startling hint of violence on such an ordinary looking man.

He was also younger than I'd first thought. Exhaustion creased his face prematurely, making him look aged beyond his years. Yet, there was also a hint of concealer under his eyes. He was aware of his tired state and put in the effort to hide it. People didn't hide things without a reason. Either the man was incredibly vain, or he felt threatened and didn't want to appear vulnerable.

Altogether, the man's appearance spoke of desperation.

Dahler wasn't coming to us because he had a strong lead on whatever problem he needed fixed, but because he had no other choice. That meant more trouble for us, and even more headaches.

I looked over at Damien sitting at his own desk and he gave me a slight nod. He'd noticed the same things I had.

Leaning back in my chair, I took a sip of my already lukewarm coffee and gave our client my full attention.

"So, tell us what brings you here today, Mr. Dahler," Damien inquired, his pen poised above an old style yellow legal notepad. Yes, he truly still used the paper and pen method for recording pertinent details our clients revealed in conversation, while I was more the type to just sit back and listen while they talked and then later add a summary to the file on the computer. Not that Damien didn't use the technology or had any issue with it, he simply liked the sound of the pen scratching on the paper and the simplicity of taking notes that way. Meh, to each his own. Who was I to judge?

"It's my brother, Clay," Dahler began. "He's been missing for nearly a decade. I've spent years looking for him, I even had another PI on his case for a while but they found nothing concrete. Anyway, I think he might be somewhere in this city as that's the last bit of potentially useful information they may have found. I just can't find him. That's why I'm here. I need your help to find him and bring him home. Friends of yours from Gaithersburg recommended your investigation firm as the best in the business, and since your business just happens to be here, in the same city, it made sense anyway."

I already knew what my brother was going to say, even before he leaned forward on his desk and laced his fingers together in a contemplative pose.

"That is an incredibly vague statement, Mr. Dahler. Can you give us a little more information to go on? How did your brother disappear, for instance? Or, what makes you think he is in Baton Rouge?"

Dahler tapped his fingers nervously against each other like he was counting his words in his head. "I don't know how Clay disappeared. We just woke up one morning and he was gone. Nothing was missing and there was no sign of a break in. Nothing. He was just gone."

That was an incredibly unhelpful answer. Not only did it give them nowhere to start, but it lacked details. This man wasn't reliving a painful memory. He was reciting a story.

As Damien continued interrogating the tired looking man—receiving less and less helpful answers with each question—I flipped through the information we already had in the file about this client. A lack of details in a story could be a sign of someone lying, but it could also have another cause.

Ah, there it was. Jason Dahler was just seventeen when his brother disappeared. That's the age where kids generally start to feel that they need to be adult about things, while they still very much have the feeling of being children and an unconscious desire to remain a child as long as possible. He probably felt like it was his fault somehow when his brother suddenly disappeared, and his family would have likely unintentionally fed into that guilty feeling with all their focus being on finding the brother and pretty much ignoring Jason while they did so. To him, it probably felt like it was his all fault, like he should have or could have done something to prevent his brother's kidnapping.

Quickly scanning over the information, another detail caught my eye that nearly made me drop my coffee.

Clay Dahler was the younger of the two brothers.

"How old was your brother when he disappeared?" I suddenly asked.

Dahler stared at me with a startled expression, mouth gaping like a fish for a moment as he struggled to form words. People tended to forget I was in the room when my brother took over a conversation, so when I did speak it usually startled them. I'd had people in the past compare the unexpected sound of my voice to suddenly hearing the furniture speak.

I tried not to take offence, but seriously, people treated silence like an abnormality. As if there was something wrong with me just because I didn't feel the need to constantly fill the air with words.

Raising one eyebrow, I took another sip of my coffee and waited for Mr. Dahler to answer. Hopefully, he heard my question the first time, because I wouldn't be repeating myself.

"Oh, um, right." Dahler shook his head to chase away the shock and managed to find his voice again. "Clay was fourteen when he disappeared. He'd be twenty-three now. Old enough to drink. I never thought he'd be gone long enough to miss that milestone."

Hmm, not as young as I'd originally thought but still young enough nonetheless. I frowned but didn't say anything else and let my brother continue with his line of questioning.

Dahler's wording bothered me.

Gone.

Not missing. Gone.

That word almost made it sound like Clay Dahler had just decided to leave one day, and his continued absence was his own fault. No child just up and left home on their own unless there was some very nasty reason they didn't want to be there, and that wasn't the feeling I got in this case.

I wasn't sure if Jason Dahler was hiding something important that he simply couldn't handle admitting to, or if he refused to use the word "taken" so he wouldn't have to face reality, but either way, I didn't predict a good outcome for this job.