Severed Ties: A Dark Stalker Romance (Tainted Love Book 1)

I dropped Clara off at work this morning, and since then, I’ve been hunting.

Ace sent me the coordinates for where the phone call to Clara was made, but it was just an empty apartment. Nothing but an old fridge that smells like it’s been broken for the better part of a decade furnishing the place.

I sweep the place for prints but come up empty, which is suspicious in its own right. This is what criminals don’t seem to understand. Apartments are meant to have fingerprints. They shouldn’t be wiped clean completely, just the places you touched.

Idiots.

But I already knew Mack Johnstone was a fucking moron. That’s the only way you get into bed with the Lombardi family and then think you can steal from them.

Ace sends me a few more addresses, and I check each one out and find them empty, and the one place I do find someone, it’s a meth head who’s out of his mind. His gray, scraggly hair covers his glassy eyes, and angry track marks mar his aging skin. This is why I hate drugs. Well, one of the many reasons, I suppose, but it’s near the top of the list. They can turn someone from a normal, rational human being to someone who would kill their own mother to get their next high.

But is that really any different from my addiction to Clara? Wouldn’t I kill anyone, do anything, to keep her safe?

My inner musings are cut short when the meth head starts speaking, his voice croaky and hard to understand, but I move toward him slowly so as not to spook him. If he has any information that can help me track down Clara’s father, I’m going to need him to divulge it real fucking quick.

“The man,” he rambles. “He gave me drugs to keep quiet.”

Doing a good job there, I think to myself.

“He said there was a girl. That he had to get her away from bad people. Away from a killer.”

He stumbles over his own feet, his worn shoes doing nothing to protect them from the cold, but he doesn’t seem to mind, or he can’t feel them. Either way, his torn coat and ratty pants can’t be doing anything to keep him warm.

“Did the man tell you where he was going next?” I ask as evenly as possible. But the excitement is starting to rise. The hunt has always been my favorite part, and if any information this guy gives me is of use, I’m going to fucking love anything that comes next.

“Another man came. He was angry looking. And he said they had to go, that they were being tracked.” His eyes meet mine, but it’s like he’s looking right through me. “Is this him?”

I reach for my gun before I’ve made a conscious decision to do so and turn on my heel, putting my body between the door and the meth head, meeting the eye of two men, each with their own guns drawn.

“Tommy Hart, I presume,” the first one says, and I know immediately that he’s Mack. He doesn’t look anything like his daughter apart from his thick brown hair that’s the exact shade of my fawn’s. His blue eyes are a direct contrast to her brown ones, and his round face looks nothing like Clara’s.

“Mack,” I grind out, taking a step back and knocking the man into the wall. He doesn’t deserve to be caught up in this. His only crime was needing his next fix, and like always, he was willing to do anything to get it, including selling out a guy he’s never met.

“I didn’t think it would be so easy to get you alone, but then, you’ve always been a bit of a lone wolf.” His words are direct, and their meaning is hard to miss. He’s been reading up on me, and by telling me that, he’s letting me know how connected he is. Too bad I’ve been reading up on him too. Ace sent me every single bit of intel he could dredge up about this asshole, and boy, oh boy, is he one of those.

Assault and battery of women. Drug trafficking. Attempted murder. Sexual assault. Honestly, what this cunt hasn’t been arrested for isn’t worth doing. But it’s how he’s swindled his way out of every charge that’s interesting. It pays to have friends in high places, I suppose. I just can’t quite work out why they would help a low-level player like him so many times. There are a hundred guys that can do the shit he does, so why bother bailing him out?

There’s more to it, but Ace hasn’t had time to work it out yet.

I’m surprised he’s helping as much as he is. We haven’t exactly had the best relationship since we escaped the foster home we shared and lost our foster sister. But I think he sees her in Clara, and that’s why he’s going above and beyond to help me keep her safe.

In addition to spending every free minute he has tracking the asshole who stands in front of me, he’s also been looking into the Lombardi family. Finding out who works for them now, who worked for them back when Clara was hurt, their weaknesses and enemies. Usually he gets paid for shit like this, but when I transferred half a million into his account last night, it came right back an hour later.

“Ever think I wanted to be found?” I raise a brow in question.

This fuckwit and his buddy have no chance of taking me down, gun or not, and if they think it will be easy, they’re more stupid than I gave them credit for.

“I’m surprised you left my daughter for long enough to come looking for me. From what I’ve heard, you have quite the crush on my little girl.”

Each word out of his mouth has my vision turning red. He has no right to call her that, not after the hell he rained down on her, the childhood he robbed her of, and the future she barely managed to forge for herself with the trauma she lives with every day.

“How can I help you, Mack and…” I gesture to the other man.

I assume he’s muscle, but on the odd chance he’s someone of importance, I want to have a name for Ace to track. The man is midforties and stands half a foot taller than Mack, probably six-five at least. His dark hair is graying at the sides, along with flecks of gray in his beard. But the thing that has me intrigued is the scar that runs from his forehead down the left side of his face, barely missing his haunted green eyes.

“His identity is irrelevant,” Mack snaps. “You can help me by handing over my daughter. She doesn’t belong in Chicago with you or with the Saint James family.”

I chuckle, the sound low and dangerous, even to my own ears. “The fact you think you’re taking her from me just proves how little you know about me.”

“On the contrary. I know a lot about you. Orphaned as a child. Bounced around group homes and foster families until the last one that you escaped when you were sixteen. Worked for the Saint James family as their interrogator ever since. You became obsessed with Clara when she was held hostage by Angelo Russo, and you were the one who rescued her. To begin with, it was just to keep her safe, to make sure she was okay after the ordeal, but you quickly escalated to having cameras installed in her apartment and breaking in at night to watch her sleep.” He smirks. “How am I doing?”

I keep my face neutral, not giving up my surprise, although it is more than a little present. How the hell did he know so much about my past when Ace had done everything he could to wipe us both from public records as soon as we got out? It was part of our escape plan. Get the hell out and get off the grid.

“Cat got your tongue?”

“No. Just wondering how a low-level thug who uses and abuses his children has enough sway to get that kind of information.”

“It’s all about who you know. I would have thought you’d know that, given your line of work.”

My eyes flicker between the men. I could pop off two shots before they even had a chance to lift their guns, but there’s a reason he’s gone to these lengths to find Clara, and I have to get to the bottom of it in case there’s more danger lurking in the shadows.

“You’re not taking Clara,” I say, leaving no room for arguments despite the fact I know there will be some.

His eyes darken, and his finger tightens over the trigger. “You don’t seem like you’re in a position to argue.”

A smirk tugs at the corners of my lips, the cruel smile baring my teeth. “And that’s what your profile failed to gather. I’m like a cockroach, Mack. There’s nothing on the planet that can take me down.”

And then I shoot off two shots, one in each of their knees, giving me enough time to disarm them both. I grab the rope I spied when I first walked in and restrain them quickly, not giving either of them a chance to try to escape before crouching in front of Mack.

I grip his chin between my fingers roughly. “You’ll never hurt your daughter again.”