“Put this shit on and we’ll go down to my office to pull up the security feeds.”
Taking the clothes out of his hands, I hurriedly pulled on the t-shirt and shorts before following Drake down to our office floor. We walked along to his office. The place was silent. No lights were on, just as we’d left it earlier. He sat down at his computer whilst I stood next to him.
It took him a few minutes to get into the security feeds. West and Prescott joined us as Drake brought the feeds up on the screen. He found the cameras in the stairwell and rewound it back until we could see Scarlett entering from the roof. We watched her walk down the first set of stairs. As she approached the second, a body slammed into her. They wore a hood. We couldn’t see their face and their back was to us.
“Do we have another angle?” I asked as the person put a hood over Scarlett’s head and looked like they jabbed something into her neck.
“Yes,” Drake replied, fiddling with the screen and bringing up the camera covering the next part of the stairwell.
We still couldn’t see who it was, but what they’d done to Scarlett was clearer. They’d covered her mouth with their hand and stabbed her with a needle.
“They fucking drugged her,” West ground out.
I glanced at him, finding a furious expression on his face and his fists clenched into balls at his sides. Anger was simmering in my veins too, but there was worry there too. Worry for our girl.
My eyes went back to the screen. Scarlett had stopped struggling. The person picked her up in their arms and carried her down the stairs, disappearing from view.
None of us were going to state the obvious. Someone had taken her from us. Again. Fucking stolen her. Again.
“How the fuck did they get into the stairwell? No one should be able to do that,” Prescott said, waving his hand at the screen.
“We need to check everything surrounding the stairwell from the last hour and a half. And I mean everything,” Drake said, ignoring Prescott’s question.
He sounded like he’d shut down all of his emotions and was trying to stay level-headed, but I wasn’t fucking level-headed right now at all. Our girl was gone. Fucking gone. And I wanted to kick some fucking heads in.
You sound like West.
I didn’t care. Scarlett was the most important person in my life. I’d do whatever it took to get her back and keep her safe.
“We should be going after her,” West said.
“How the fuck do you think we’re going to find her if we don’t know who took her and how?”
West didn’t respond, glaring at Drake even though he was right. We couldn’t find her without knowing who took her.
“What if it was Stuart?” Prescott said. “He threatened to come after her. To come after all of us.”
It was the logical explanation, but Stuart wasn’t the type of man who acted quickly. He had always been calculating in his approach to us. However, perhaps now he knew Scarlett had remembered the past, the thing he actually wanted, he may have acted faster. Somehow, it didn’t sit right with me. We couldn’t rule it out, but we needed to look at every possible avenue.
“It could have been him, but we have to find out how they gained access to the building and the stairwell first.”
Drake sighed and started bringing up more cameras.
“Look, I know. Someone has taken our woman and I’m fucking mad about it, but I am not going off half-cocked without a plan or knowing what happened. Our position is already precarious in the first place with Stuart threatening her. We need to be thorough. Now is not the time to be reckless.”
West paced away towards the window. The tension lining his shoulders spoke volumes. This was not what any of us wanted. It was the second time she’d been stolen from us. We were meant to protect her from any and all threats, but how the fuck could we have known someone would infiltrate our building. We had security to prevent this shit from happening. Clearly, we needed to re-think it. Maybe increase it in the future.
“What about Mel? Shouldn’t we check in with him?” I asked.
Melvin was our weekday night-time security guy.
“You’re right. Call him. I’ll keep going through this. There’s no point checking the tracker on her phone since she didn’t have it on her, did she?”
“No, she left it in my room.”
It had been on my bedside table before I left my room. We couldn’t track her, and it frustrated me no end. I should have insisted she took it with her. Maybe then we wouldn’t be on the back foot. Then again, whoever took her would have probably checked her for a phone and got rid of it. We were going to have to work out a better way to track our girl. Something more discreet. I’d talk to the boys about it when we got her back. We were going to find her. I was in no fucking doubt of that. We would move heaven and earth to get to her. This time, we wouldn’t fail Scarlett. We would never fail her again.
I picked up Drake’s office phone and rang down to the front desk. The longer the phone rang without being answered, the more concerned I grew. Melvin normally answered straight away unless he was taking a toilet break.
“He’s not answering.”
“Go down and check on him. Take West with you.”
We could have checked the feeds, but it was going to take Drake long enough to go through the footage as it was. I moved over to West, pulling him by the arm. He came willingly, even if he looked about ready to unleash hell upon the world. I was fully on board with that fucking idea. Heads were going to roll when we found out who had taken her. This time, we weren’t going to allow her to go missing for ten years. Even ten fucking seconds was too long.
I swear to you, Scar, I swear on my fucking life we’ll find you and bring you home.
“I know Drake’s right,” West murmured as we walked along the hallway towards the lifts, “I know he’s fucking right, but I am going to murder the motherfucker who took her. I will tear him apart.”
“How do you know it’s a him?”
West gave me a look.
“I have a very good idea of who took her, Frankie. In fact, I will put fucking money on it.”
I eyed him as I pressed down on the button to call the lift.
“Who?”
“Think about it. Think long and fucking hard and you will come up with the same idea I have.”
“Why didn’t you say anything to Drake?”
West shrugged.
“You know what he’s like. He will need proof. But I know in my fucking gut.” He pointed at his chest. “I fucking know.”
The lift arrived and the two of us piled in. I didn’t ask him again as we rode down to the ground floor. West wasn’t going to share his thoughts with me when he was in this kind of mood.
When the doors opened, both of us stepped out and walked over to the reception desk. My eyes darted around, seeing no one about. West made his way behind it.
“Frankie.”
He disappeared from sight, making me race over to find out what was happening. The marble floor was cold under my bare feet, but I didn’t give a shit. West was kneeling down next to Mel, checking for a pulse. There were no visible injuries on his body.