Quintessentially Q (Monsters in the Dark #2)(59)

I’m not good enough.

I wasn’t even strong enough to hunt the woman I loved.

I’m a f*cking loser who deserves to be alone.

I wanted to gut the Wolverine and read his intestines like tarot cards. He had answers but I’d been too stupid to make him talk. I was too hasty, and now he was f*cking dead along with the chance of ever finding Tess.

I slouched and poked at the wound in my arm. The dull pain wasn’t enough. I deserved more. I deserved to be electrocuted, to be mauled by rabid tigers. I deserved every horrible way a man could die. I deserved to be put down for failing my esclave.

My fingers plucked at the stitches. Some lucky pre-med student got a free flight in a G650 to patch me up on our way out of Moscow. We’d managed to get out before word had spread, but I had no doubt a bounty hung around my neck from more than one trafficking bastard now.

Sitting at some desk, in some office, in some city, in some country, I hung my head and wrapped my fingers around my skull. I squeezed, digging harder and harder, inflicting pain, inviting a migraine. I wanted to crack open my brain and stop all the emotional pain.

Some moments I couldn’t breathe with the thought of what was happening to Tess. I wanted to suffocate all thoughts of her from my head until I no longer had to endure such agony.

But on the heels of such self-pity and loneliness, came furious anger. Livid hot temper that she left me. I hated that she made me care. I cursed her for the way she turned me into this tangled, twisted creature and then disappeared.

Six days passed.

Then a week and a half.

Twenty-four hour blocks all stacked on top of one another creating an unmovable mountain, barricading me from ever finding the one person I ever cared for. Time obstructed me from finding my f*cking other half.

I would live alone. I would die alone. I would exist in the netherworld all f*cking alone because Tess had been stolen and I was too worthless to save her.

Fuck. Where the hell are you, Tess?

“We just had a tip-off. We’re flying to Singapore in an hour,” Frederick said from the doorway.

I looked up, still clutching my head.

I couldn’t even remember what country we were in. We’d been everywhere. Russia, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Thailand. Following whispers of rumours. Hints that someone knew someone who knew where Tess had been taken.

It’d been a f*cking rabbit chase. All lies. All of them hiding the truth.

The truth would be found only by finding the source. Not bribing underworld contacts, or threatening to turn their precious names into local authorities. I had power, but it didn’t mean shit when no one knew a thing.

Goddammit. You’re a f*cking imbecile, Mercer! The truth can only be found at the source! Why didn’t I see it?

It was as if someone wrenched back the curtains, inviting piercing sun to chase away the gloom of a disused room.

I stood up so fast the chair fell back and clattered against the tiles. I remembered now. This office belonged to Lee Choi. A man I’d built two casinos for in Macau in return for four slaves. Hong Kong was sleek and money-shiny, but beneath the surface—just like every cosmopolitan city—lurked the dangerously sick and twisted world.

Lee Choi no longer ran that world.

Lee now rotted in a foetus position stuffed in his closet.

“I don’t care about a tip,” I snarled. “I know where we need to go.”

Frederick frowned, coming closer. “Q, when was the last time you slept? You need to eat. You’re gaunt. You can’t live on revenge and bullet casings.”

The urge to hit him rose, but I swallowed it back. “No more leads. They’re useless.”

He shook his head. “One of Choi’s underlings gave up a name of a man who has a harem in Singapore. He might know where Tess is.”

I rubbed my face, trying not to snap. “It’s a waste of time. He won’t have Tess. We need to go to the source.”

“The source?”

I moved fast, pushing past Frederick. No one in the usual circle would’ve bought Tess. Gerald wouldn’t have sold her to be used so…kindly. He was out for blood. Where was the payback if she was sent to a sick f*ck, but someone who would ultimately keep her alive? No, he’d send her to someone who would ruin her. Break her. Someone who would stand to earn just rewards for destroying her.

Fuck. Why didn’t I think of it before?

It felt right. My gut knew I was on the right path.

“Pack up. We’re flying to Mexico.”

*****

Four days.

Four long f*cking days we’d patrolled the sin-stained world of Mexico. Hunting drug dealers and spineless thieves, we lurked in dives and sniffed around illegal enterprises. No matter how many men Franco tortured, or how many palms I greased, no information was forthcoming.

No one knew who kidnapped a blonde girl on a scooter four months ago.

“Eat this, boss.” Franco skidded a plate of noodles under my nose, obscuring the map of the slums of Mexico I’d been studying for the past three hours.

Tess could be anywhere in this filthy city, and I might walk right past whatever building she was imprisoned in and never know.

As much as I was starving, the thought of eating, of surviving, when Tess might not even be alive, ate at my soul.

I ignored him, shoving the plate away.

Franco clasped my shoulder as Frederick came over from the bar with three mugs of icy beer. “You need your strength. For her. Your brain will work better with fuel.”