Chapter Nineteen
Samuel
“Dammit!”
A day. A damn day had gone by already, and still he didn’t have any leads! Hell, neither did the police, even though he wasn’t banking on them this time. Even if they found nothing, his security team, the newly hired ex-military guys he’d added to the semi-untrained men he’d previously hired should have by this point already, or what the hell was he paying them such exorbitant fees for? They had come at the recommendation of Jacobs, but he didn’t know them personally and he regretted hiring them sight unseen, but the other men weren’t ready to go out into the field as it were to track down leads on Adrien. The mercenaries, because that is what they really were, were giving his crew on the job training.
Samuel hadn’t been idle though, no. He’d meticulously searched Adrien’s room from top to bottom, going through pockets, and searching the bottom of the dresser drawers looking for anything that would tell him what Adrien had been up to all this time. The only thing he’d found were left behind pill bottles for his meds. Obviously, Adrien had stopped taking them.
If he didn’t have to stay behind to look after Brianna and Morganna, Samuel would have been out there searching for Adrien himself. Hell, he’d have gone to the loft that Adrien had leased and gone through it with a fine tooth comb as he’d done here. However, he couldn’t leave, so he’d had to trust the task to his security team.
There was no way he could keep waiting. He knew that the longer they waited, the longer Camila was missing, the higher the chances that she could be suffering. If they were too late, they might not catch up to Adrien before he killed her.
“I have to do something, screw waiting for answers.”
After checking up on Morganna and his sister, Samuel moved to his private office and closed the door behind him. He didn’t lock it just in case someone came looking for him with important news. Sitting behind his computer, he let it log on as he tapped his hands on top of the desk, looking off to the side in thought.
Where could Adrien be? What could he be planning?
He was really worried whenever he thought about it. He’d never really learned how to read his brother, but as far as he knew, this was the worst thing Adrien had ever done in his life. Adrien had always been a little rougher around the edges. Samuel had known about Adrien’s BDSM events, and his penchant for extoling pain and punishment. However, those events had been consensual, and though a few had ended with some injuries to the women he’d partnered with, he’d never killed any of them. He hadn’t wanted to believe that Adrien was capable of that either.
Samuel gritted his teeth. He’d been wrong and he’d missed the signs that something was very, very wrong with his brother. He’d been blinded by family loyalty. And it had cost good men their lives. Adrien’s body count, well, what Samuel knew about was now three. He couldn’t allow him to take any more lives. Especially not Camila’s.
Once his computer came on, he clicked on his private browser and typed in the message board Jacobs had told him about. It was on the dark web, and Jacobs had only known about it because of one of their buddies, Vernon who’d started the board. As he planned out his message in his head, he recalled the conversation with Jacobs.
“Jacobs, I need people, former military, you know who’s out? Who’s good?”he’d asked.
Jacobs had looked at him, frowning. “You aren’t gonna let us do our job, are you?” Jacobs had commented, his voice hard. Looking around, he’d gestured for them to enter Samuel’s office and closed the door. “Remember Vernon?”
“Sargent? Dark hair, Dark eyes, kind of crazy?”Samuel had arched a brow at him.
“That’s him. He’s got a page on the dark. Contact him. He’s running mercs, pay them enough, they’ll come through.”Jacobs had written an address on a notepad on the desk. “Anyone asks, this didn’t come from me.”
Samuel had contacted Vernon as soon as Jacobs had walked out the door. He’d been right, he’d found they guys he needed. Now he had another task. He pulled up the message board and wrote: Investigators needed. Private. Sensitive task. Possible danger. Money negotiable.
After about ten minutes, he had several inquiries. He gave them each his number along with a time to call, and then took their calls. Several of them were interested. For every one of them, he promised them a hundred thousand dollar reward if they could find his brother and Camila. They would get ten thousand for just getting viable leads, anything that could help corner Adrien before he did something. He was spending a fortune, but he hardly cared. There was plenty more where that came from, and if he had to liquefy more of the family assets for this, it didn’t matter. Money was something he could always make more of, but he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he let something happen to Camila at the hands of his brother.
After all the calls came through and he set them on their tasks, he had nothing else to do. He locked up his office and went to look after Brianna. He was worried about her, especially since she’d reverted to the same girl she’d been before Camila had come into their lives.
She hardly ever left his room, even when he tried to get her out of it. She looked really scared, and he knew she was also worried about Camila, but she wasn’t trying to communicate, either. She wouldn’t even sign or write her thoughts out when he provided her with paper and pencil. It was as though she’d reverted back to the young traumatized child she’d been years ago. Everything she’d learned through therapy was gone.
Samuel allowed his mind to go back to the time after this first happened. He’d been a child himself, and he hadn’t really known what had happened. He’d come in from playing in the yard to a very quiet house. He’d seen his brother leaving with someone he hadn’t recognized, so he’d gone in to see what was going on. He hadn’t known Adrien was going anywhere. He’d found his parents in Bri’s room, she had been curled up in a ball, a cast on her arm, which he’d thought was weird.
“What’s wrong with Bri?”he’d asked.
His parents had looked at him and said, “It was an accident. Bri was injured.”
“Well where did Adrien go? I saw him getting into a car—”he’d attempted to question them.
His mother had smiled, but thinking back now, he realized that her smile hadn’t been a real smile, it had been tight and fake. “Adrien is having an adventure. He’ll be back in a few weeks.”
His parents had taken care of everything back then. Only this time, his parents weren’t around to help. Though, if they were he feared their answer would be to throw Adrien back in the psych ward and dope him up on more drugs. As if the ones he was supposed to be on weren’t working. He sighed. If Adrien had been taking his meds, Samuel bet that all of this probably wouldn’t have happened.
Shaking his head, he tapped on his bedroom door. “Brianna?” he called gently, opening the door to his room.
Because she’d been sleeping in his bed, he’d spent his nights on the sofa. He didn’t want to be far away at night, especially since she’d had a few nightmares ever since the whole thing.
She was tucked under the covers, but at the sound of his voice, she squirmed, and slowly pulled the covers down until she could look over the sheets.