Page 2 of Merciless Obsession (The Bloodline #2)

ZIORA LAMBERT

I bit the inside of my cheek and gripped my mouse tightly as I stared at the video footage from my front door.

The past couple weeks I’d been getting red roses taped to my door, a note attached with a different message written on it each time.

The guy leaving the roses never showed his full face but his eyes always showed and he always winked at the camera. It was taunting and made my blood buzz.

My tongue dragged across my lips as my eyes dropped down to the latest note.

Until I’m able to make you mine, I’ll find pleasure watching you from the shadows. Our time is coming.

A shiver shot down my spine. A sick part of me found pleasure in these notes.

Some were ominous like this one, others were sweet, then there were times when they were straight filthy.

Whoever he was kept me on my toes. I never knew when the rose would come either, so there was no way I could try to catch him in the act.

Most people would get freaked out by the note and even call the police, but I wasn’t most people. I learned a long time ago that the police didn’t care about people like me and the only way to get results was to take matters into your own hands.

Twisting to face my other computer, I dragged the camera file to that screen then went to the facial recognition software I used when someone I wasn’t familiar with came up while I was looking into the missing girls.

It mirrored the same software law enforcement used when investigating.

It was only the eyes and a long shot, but I hoped eventually I would get a hit on who my admiring stalker was.

Frustration shot through me when I came up with nothing.

“Who are you?” I rolled my neck and tapped my keys, hacking into a nearby street camera to see if I noticed a car out of the ordinary. Just as the footage was coming up, my other computer dinged.

I spun around and quickly hit the notification that popped up.

My teeth sank into my bottom lip once I realized it was a message from my blog, Shadows of Silver Stone.

I opened the message from an anonymous sender.

My eyes scanned the email. My blood ran cold and my skin grew tight by the time I got to the end.

It was another missing girl, this time a twelve-year-old. The third one this month.

Unfortunately, I got messages like this often. A lot of time they came in anonymously from a family member or friend. Always a missing girl, ages ten to fourteen. Always overlooked by the police. A knot built in my stomach as I stared at the attached picture of the little girl.

Originally I started Shadows of Silver Stone to reveal how corrupt the legal system and wealthy were in this city.

In Silver Stone, in order to matter, you had to have money or status of some sort.

For years girls had been going missing and the police force had done nothing about it.

My sister, Charlie, being one of them. She was thirteen when she was taken and murdered.

There was a half ass investigation done by the cops and the man suspected of doing it was found but never convicted.

Eventually the case went cold, but I refused to let it go.

My blog gained a lot of traction over the years and my sister’s story caused a lot of people to speak up about someone they knew going missing as well.

Most of the time it was anonymous, but that didn’t matter to me.

There was something going on in this city, something that wasn’t being talked about or investigated and I planned to reveal it.

The more I looked into it, the clearer it became that the guy charged with my sister’s death didn’t act alone.

The cops might not give a damn, but I was going to bring the people involved in my sister’s murder to justice and I didn’t care how long it took me to get answers.

Pushing back from my desk, I stood and walked over to where I had my evidence board set up.

For the past nine years I’d been trying to figure out who was behind all these missing young girls.

Most of them vanished without a trace and stayed gone.

Some of them turned up dead days later, just like my sister.

What I knew was that there were multiple people involved in what was going on.

They stayed in the shadows and had been able to avoid detection.

I studied the map of Silver Stone before grabbing a red tack and marking the location the message said the girl was last seen.

The clutter of red in The Sticks made my stomach churn.

While that part of the city was considered a high poverty area, not all of it was bad.

The Sticks was looked down on a lot. No one cared to clean it up or improve the living conditions when I was still living there.

The schools weren’t the best nor were the living conditions for most. Over the years it had gotten a little better.

The city attempted to gentrify it to some extent.

Regardless, they deserved to be found and cared about like everyone else.

Another notification went off on my computer, garnering my attention.

I scanned the board a little longer before spinning on my heels and going back to my desk.

This time my heart slammed against my ribcage.

I had the Tavarez name flagged and anything concerning them always dinged and came straight to my computer.

Turned out they were throwing a charity event tonight.

My hands balled into fists. That family was one of the worst in the city.

They had everyone fooled. While they were well respected, I knew the truth.

Dominic Tavarez was a corrupt, retired judge whose very existence caused my blood to boil.

He’d never been proven to be dirty, but there had been speculation and whispers.

Rolling my neck between my shoulders, I sat back in my desk chair and pulled up the charity they were raising money for.

A lot of these rich families used charity events as a cover up to embezzle funds.

I didn’t trust the Tavarez family. I didn’t have solid proof but there was talk on a few dark web forums about the family.

Since Nazai, the oldest brother, married Cashlynn Cavana, the talk about them had only increased.

It was no secret her parents were assassins turned mercenaries.

Their names were all over the dark web when they were alive.

They hardly tried to hide what they did.

They must have had clients in high places because they were never arrested or charged for their speculated crimes.

My fingers tapped on the desk. I clicked the folder I had pertaining to the family.

I scanned the screen, pausing on Ezra. Clicking his picture to enlarge it, I studied it.

He was a lawyer, a highly sought out one at that.

He defended some of the biggest criminals in the city without batting an eye.

I focused on his deep set, whiskey-colored eyes.

One side of his medium size lips tilted upward in a cocky smirk.

I never met the man, but something always drew me to his profile.

Maybe it was because out of all his brothers he was the one who chose to work closely with the same kind of scum going around snatching up little girls.

My top lip curled.

While there was a lot of corruption going on around here that I happily exposed, taking down the Tavarez family would always be my top priority.

____

Sweat dripped from my forehead as I leaned over the bed scrolling on my phone. Lips pressed against my bare shoulder and my heart pounded behind my breast pocket.

“I was happy to see you tonight,” James, a guy I saw from time to time, said against my warm skin.

Brushing my hand through my hair, I glanced over my shoulder at him, flashing him a modest smirk. “I told you I’ve been busy.”

He lifted and ran his eyes over me. “You’re always all work, no play. Don’t you ever just take time and smell the roses.”

“I hate roses,” I informed him blandly.

“Okay, then let me try a different approach. Let me make you mine.”

“Excuse me? You know that’s not our arrangement.”

He chuckled and swiped his bottom lip with his thumb. “Arrangements can change, right?” His head cocked to the side.

Chewing the inside of my cheek, I continued to stare blankly at him.

I met James when I was twenty-one. My blog was doing well, I had sponsors who believed in my cause to expose the corruption in the city, but I wanted to do more which meant I needed more money.

I made sure to keep my identity a secret when it came to my blog because I knew the things I talked about could come back and bite me in the ass later.

If I wanted to take down the organization who murdered my sister, then I needed to stay hidden.

James, however, was an exception. He originally hired me for some freelance work for him before I started offering my hacking services on a larger scale.

One of the first things I noticed when I met him was how attractive he was.

It didn’t matter to me that he was twelve years older.

Sex was never about an emotional connection or anything.

It was always just a way to get off, if I even did, and release some stress.

James always tried to buy me material things I couldn’t care less about.

He knew about my sister somewhat but not what I was doing behind closed doors.

One day I told him to stop with all the gifts and instead invest in my business, more so my cause.

I didn’t tell him everything but enough to where he agreed.