Chapter 150
Alex's POV
I stepped out of Emily's room and closed the door behind me with deliberate care, the kind of care that barely masked the rage pulsing through my veins like molten steel.
My hands were steady—they always were, control is a discipline I've mastered over the years—but inside, every cell in my body was screaming for violence. Someone had put their hands on her. Someone had hurt her. Someone had looked at Emily—my Emily—and decided she was fair game for brutality. The bruises on her face weren't just injuries; they were a declaration of war, and I intended to answer with overwhelming force.
I pulled out my phone as I walked down the hallway toward the living room, my mind already shifting into tactical mode. Emotion was a luxury I couldn't afford right now. I needed information. I needed to understand the scope of the threat before I could neutralize it. I scrolled through my contacts and tapped the name of Emily's colleague at the restaurant, Marcus, the receptionist who'd been there when she left work tonight.
He picked up on the second ring.
"Marcus, it's Alex Monroe," I said, my voice clipped and businesslike despite the fury simmering beneath the surface. "Emily—when she left the restaurant tonight, was she okay? Did you notice anything unusual?"
There was a pause, and I could hear the confusion in his voice when he answered. "Yeah, man, she was fine. I mean, she looked tired—she's been pulling long shifts—but nothing out of the ordinary. She said goodnight around six, headed out to the parking lot. Why? What's going on?"
"Someone attacked her," I said flatly, watching his reaction even though he couldn't see my face. "In the parking lot, most likely. I need you to pull the security footage. Now."
"Jesus Christ," Marcus breathed, and I heard the scrape of a chair being pushed back. "Yeah, yeah, I'm on it. Give me two minutes."
I hung up and stood in the hallway for a moment, my jaw clenched so tightly I could feel the muscles protesting. Ethan was still in Emily's room with Mason, the two of them trying to hold her together while she fell apart, and every second I spent out here not knowing who had done this to her felt like a failure. But I couldn't afford to go back in there empty-handed. I needed answers. I needed a target.
My phone buzzed less than a minute later. It was Marcus again.
"I'm sending you the file," he said, his voice tight with urgency. "Alex, man, I don't know what the hell happened, but—just watch it. It's bad."
I didn't respond, just ended the call and opened the video file as soon as it arrived. The footage was grainy, typical low-resolution security camera quality, but it was clear enough. I watched Emily walk across the parking lot toward her car, her shoulders slumped with exhaustion, and then—
A figure stepped out from between two vehicles.
I felt my blood run cold even as the rage surged hotter.
The man was tall, maybe mid-fifties, with the kind of hard, wiry build that came from years of physical labor or incarceration. He moved with the confidence of someone who knew how to use violence, and when he grabbed Emily, she didn't even have time to scream.
I watched, my hands gripping the phone so hard the edges dug into my palm, as he slapped her—once, twice—and shoved her against the side of a van. The sound didn't come through on the video, but I didn't need audio to know exactly how much force he'd used. The way her head snapped to the side, the way she crumpled against the vehicle, told me everything.
And then he was in her face, yelling, his body language radiating threat and dominance, and I saw Emily shrink. I saw her try to protect herself. I saw her hand him something—a card, maybe her wallet—and then he was gone, disappearing back into the shadows as quickly as he'd appeared, leaving her standing there alone, shaking, bleeding.
I replayed the footage three times, memorizing every detail. The man's gait. The shape of his face. The way he moved. And then I called one of my security contacts, a guy who specialized in running license plates and facial recognition for a very generous fee, and sent him a screenshot of the attacker's face.
"I need everything you can find on this guy," I said when he answered. "Name, address, criminal record, the works. I need it yesterday."
"Give me an hour," he said, and hung up.
I stood there in the hallway, staring at the freeze-frame of the man's face on my phone screen, and felt something inside me settle into a cold, focused calm. This wasn't just anger anymore. This was purpose. This was a mission. Whoever this man was, whatever he wanted, he'd made a catastrophic mistake when he decided Emily was an acceptable target. And I was going to make sure he understood the consequences of that mistake in excruciating detail.
The sound of a door opening behind me snapped me out of my thoughts. I turned and saw Ethan stepping out of Emily's room, his face pale and drawn. When his eyes met mine, I saw the same impotent fury I was feeling mirrored back at me.
"She's asleep," he said quietly, his voice hoarse. "Mason's with her. How the hell did this happen, Alex? How did someone get to her?"
"I don't know yet," I said, keeping my voice low so we wouldn't disturb Emily. "But I'm going to find out. Come on."
I led him into the living room, where Mason had set up the coffee table with a neat arrangement of first aid supplies earlier—bandages, antiseptic, painkillers, all the things we'd used to patch Emily up as best we could before she'd collapsed into exhausted sleep.
I pulled up the security footage one more time, and Ethan leaned in closer to watch it again. When the attacker's face came into clearer view for a brief second as he stepped under one of the parking lot lights, Ethan went completely still.
"Wait," he said, his voice suddenly strange. "Wait, go back."
I rewound the footage and paused on the frame where the man's features were most visible.
Ethan stared at the screen, and I watched as disbelief, then recognition, then something close to horror washed over his face.
"That's—" He stopped, shook his head like he was trying to clear it. "No. That's not possible."
"What?" I demanded. "You recognize him?"
"I've seen him before," Ethan said slowly, his eyes still locked on the screen. "Three years ago. Just once, but I remember. That's Emily's father."
The words hit me like a physical blow. "What?"