Page 30 of Ghost's Obsession

Ghost doesn’t push me anymore. Instead, he just jerks his chin towards the front door and says, “Come on. Zen’s inside.”

When we walk through the front doors, everyone glances at us. Several brothers throw their hands up at Ghost and smile. Afew throw me admiring looks. I just press myself closer to Ghost and he wraps his arm around me.

Their overt friendliness doesn’t make the fear crawling under my skin ease up. I know they don’t mean any harm, but I’m all tapped out when it comes to social graces right now.

Inside the main room, a guy I’ve never seen before sits at a battered wooden table, a laptop open in front of him, wires and devices scattered like a mad scientist’s lab. He’s lean, all angles and sharp edges, with a messy ponytail and a Monster energy drink gripped loosely in one hand.

He looks up when we enter.

“Hey, Ghost. I got your text. Grab a seat and let’s see what you’ve got.”

Ghost tosses the tracking device onto the table, sits down, and pats the chair beside him. I sit down huddling close to Ghost.

“What’s up with your office? I’ve never seen you drag your equipment out into the main room with the rest of us riffraff. Thought you were scared we’d mess with your shit.”

Zen’s smirk disappears. “My office is being rewired. And that shit cost thousands so hands off.”

He picks up the device, turning it over between two fingers.

“We found this on her truck,” Ghost says, voice tight.

Zen whistles low. “Cheap, but effective.”

He sets down his drink and cracks his knuckles. “Gimme ten. Maybe fifteen if they’re smart.”

He pulls a cable from the mess and plugs the device into a black box with blinking lights.

I sit quietly beside Ghost watching Zen’s fingers fly over the keyboard.

I’m really scared that this is my ex. And these bikers are taking this seriously as well. And that’s somehow even scarier than if they were acting like it might be some kind of mistake.

Zen works fast. His fingers fly over the keys, bringing up lines of code and black screens full of numbers I can’t even pretend to understand. He’s muttering under his breath, something about encryption layers and cheap knockoff tech.

Ten minutes later, Zen clears his throat and leans back in his chair, sipping his caffeine drink again.

“Well,” he says, tapping the screen, “whoever planted this isn’t exactly subtle.”

Ghost stands up and looks over Zen’s shoulder.

“I want to know who this fucking device belongs to. Can you tell me that?”

I stand up and join Ghost, looking at the computer screen.

“It’s registered to a burner phone. No contract, no ID. But people are lazy as hell. He didn’t scrub the metadata. I pulled the associated accounts.”

He taps again. A name that sickens me pops up on the screen.

Jerry Masters.

My breath catches in my throat and for a long moment, I can’t breathe. My world tilts out of alignment.

“It’s him,” I whisper.

Ghost’s hand finds my lower back, steadying me before I even realize I’m swaying.

Zen’s voice cuts through the fog. “You know him?”

“He’s my ex,” I say. I concentrate on just forcing myself to breathe through this moment. I thought that man was in the past.

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