Page 63 of Scarlet Promise

I want hotel rooms, unexpected buys.

“Not on one and two. But the third…yeah. One thing. At a store before he stopped to get gas. Food, drinks, snacks, and…fuck. Yes.”

He goes silent again, and Isaak clears his throat.

Chase looks up, pushing a hand through his sandy hair. “Sorry, man. He bought a burner. And I’m betting it’s been used.”

“You can’t trace a burner,” I say.

“You can if you’re me,” Chase says. “I’ve been ID scraping. I’ll be able to get who he’s texted and called. We can’t read the texts, but we’ll know the numbers. Give me twenty.”

“Make that fifteen,” Isaak mutters.

He slaps me lightly on the back as he reaches for the bourbon to top up my barely touched glass. He opens a beer and switches to that.

But I’m too anxious to drink. I wait in anticipation as Chase works to find the data I need.

This is as close to a lead as I’ve come. The photos were a good start, and finding out about his three cards was a gift because now we can look out for those, too, in an effort to track him. He’ll use his cards again when he runs out of cash, but that could be a while if he’s smart and frugal and has places where he can lie low for free.

Knowing he’s got an active burner we can trace is a game changer, though.

I hope it’s a game changer.

The information in the people he’s been calling can lead us to their phones, and it brings us closer to tracking him down.

Though I try to stop myself, I can’t stop thinking ahead. Can’t stop imagining and planning all the things I’ll do to Melor.

None of them will be good. The fucking bastard’s going to suffer greatly at my hands, triply so for touching Alina.

She still has the fading bruises from him on her face, and that… That’s a death sentence, one that’ll come after protracted suffering.

Broken bones, a beating so bad he will barely be able to breathe. I want to rip out his guts and chop off his dick and shove it down his fucking throat. I want to dance on his remains. Fuck. I want to burn him alive. There are so many sick and twisted things I could do, things that will make him wish for death.

Normally, I don’t do this side of things.

But this time?

Hands-on, all the fucking way.

When Chase is done, he hands me a number to watch. It’s another burner, so apparently, it’ll be a longer process to try and access any information on who the owner is. But from what he tells me, Melor and this person have been burning up time in a couple of lengthy text exchanges.

Kion? Or Simonov? Or someone else? I don’t know, but it fills me with confidence. The fact that Chase hasn’t uncovered other sightings means he’s in one place. At least to me, it does.

Melor’s arrogant, the type who covers tracks enough and takes certain precautions to a baseline, but no deeper.

That means he’ll slip up.

After all, his goal isn’t to run and hide and start over. His goal is what’s mine. His goal is power and money, and he thinks he can just take it from me, with the help of a shifty enemy, who is a man known for not giving a fuck about others apart from himself.

That is, once their use is over.

I can see it.

Let Melor do the work to get this, and then either betray him or work with him long enough until my empire falls into his hands.

But even if Melor’s goal were as simple to achieve as he thinks, I’m not letting go.

No. He’ll slip up. And when he does, you can bet I’ll be watching.