Page 134 of No Longer Mine

Benson

No can do, ole Oliver has me locked out of the system. But I do see that she took an Uber at 2 o’clock. It dropped her off five minutes from the Subway station.

I clenched my jaw.

Can you tap into the security footage of where she was dropped off?

Benson

Nothing. It was on a loop.

I slammed my phone down and stood up. Alexei reached for me, but I shrugged him off. Ice coated my veins.

“What’s going on?” Ace came up behind me.

“Scarlett is missing. She was dropped off by Uber near the station at 2 o’clock, but security footage around where she was left was on a loop, or it was wiped.” I scrubbed my face with my hands. I should have known better. I shouldn’t have let her go bySubway. We’d been so careful. I’d been so careful, but then I had to go on and agree for her to go on her own to Oliver’s.

I gritted my teeth and forced a breath through my nose. The music of the gala continued like nothing was wrong, like she wasn’t out there somewhere—gone.

Alexei and Ace flanked me as we moved toward a quieter part of the museum, the hallway lined with Greco-Roman statues and shadows. I didn’t give a damn about the art, for once in my life. My mind was spinning.

“I told her not to go alone,” I muttered. My voice was low, rough. “She said she’d be fine. That she didn’t want to live in the back of a car.”

“She’s independent,” Alexei offered, voice quiet. “You love that about her.”

“I do.” My throat tightened. “But now she’s gone.”

My phone buzzed in my palm. A new message from Benson.

Benson

Still digging. I’m going to check black market comms. If she was taken, someone will want to profit from it.

Find her. Whatever it takes.

I turned to Ace, my heart hammering like it was trying to break out of my chest. “I want full access to Father’s communications. Every call, every associate. If he’s behind this?—”

Ace grabbed me by my suit lapels. “If he’s behind this, then he’s a dead man.” He stared straight into my eyes, and for the first time since we began working together, I truly believed him. “But I can’t get all of that information because I’m not privy to it. I’ll see what I can do. Benson can’t hack his system?”

Hack my father’s system.

Benson

You know it isn’t that simple. I would have don’t it a long time ago if I could. It’s locked tighter than the White House.

With shaking hands, I paced back and forth in front of our table. I couldn’t have a meltdown here, not in front of these people and the press. But I also couldn’t sit still and idle. I had to do something.

Ace wrapped his fingers around my wrist and sat me down. “We need to be care Father'sful here, you know this… If your career is important to you!”

I shook my head. “My career isn’t important any longer. Nothing is if she can’t be with me. Nothing matters if he wins again. Do you understand me?”

Ace bounced his knee while his eyes skipped around the room. “Some of father’s men are in attendance tonight. Have Benson dig into each one and see if there’s anything we can exploit.”

Alexei shook his head as Audrey came up behind him. She ran her hands over his shoulders and leaned down to press a kiss to his temple. “What’s going on?”

Alexei gritted his teeth. “Something has happened to Scarlett.”

“No,” she breathed. “No. Not again.”

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