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“Cayenne, we need your help,” I say, keeping my tone measured. “Did you check the security cameras at Aria’s place? See if you can pull any footage from last night.”
There’s a pause on the other end, and I can almost hear her thinking. “Hold on,” she says. “I passed out trying to pull them. I got as far as finding the shadow in the apartment. Let me check.”
I listen to the sound of her typing, the silence stretching between us. Zane glances at me, his expression questioning, but I just shake my head. We need to give her time.
A few minutes later, Cayenne speaks again. “Malachi, something’s not right. The cameras…they are all offline. Everything I pulled last night is fucking gone. Everything is gone.”
“What do you mean, offline?” Zane interjects, his voice edged with frustration.
“I mean, they are gone,” Cayenne replies, her tone firm and really angry. “Someone removed them. I’ve been hacked.”
So the hacker got hacked. I’d find that funny any other day of the week, just not today.
I close my eyes for a moment, trying to process this new information. “Can you get any footage from nearby buildings? Maybe someone caught something?”
“I’ll try,” Cayenne says, “but it’ll take time.”
“Do what you can,” I tell her. “And, Cayenne, thank you.”
“Always,” she replies, her voice softening. “Anything for my boo.”
As I hang up, Zane turns to me. “What now?”
“We wait,” I say, my voice resolute.
Zane nods, his gaze unwavering. “Fucking hate waiting.”
I chuckle dryly. “This waiting game is a shadow of our San Diego stakeout. Three days, and the darkness itself became our ally.”
Zane grimaces at the memory. “Don’t remind me. I still have nightmares about those damn rats scurrying around.”
“At least the company was good,” I quip, trying to lighten the mood, but the tension doesn’t dissipate. We both know the stakes are high this time. This girl has gotten under our skin.
“I remember Dash getting a sixty-four-ounce Slurpee.” He shudders at the memory.
“I don’t know how the hell he drank that entire thing. So much sugar.”
“Yeah, and then he had to run a mile to the nearest convenience store to take a shit.” Zane grunts as though he’s laughing. It’s an odd noise. I don’t hear him laugh often.
“Kid is going to get himself in trouble one of these days,” I mutter.
“Let him.” Zane rolls his head to look at me, still resting on the headrest. “You can tell him what to do and not to do until you’re blue in the face. He won’t learn unless you let him fail.”
Just the idea of letting Dash fail makes me feel like a failure. I don’t want him to fail, I want him to thrive.
“Malachi,” Zane begins, his tone softening. “You can’t protect everyone all the time?—”
I cut him off. “I know, I do. But that doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying.”
Zane’s eyes bore into mine, his expression unreadable. “I know you want to protect the kid, Malachi, but at some point, you have to let him make his own mistakes. It’s the only way he’ll learn.”
I sigh, rubbing my temples. Deep down, I know Zane is right, but the thought of Dash getting hurt, or worse, because of a mistake I could have prevented is almost too much to bear.
“I just… I can’t lose him, Zane. Not after everything we’ve been through.”
Zane’s expression softens, and he places a hand on my shoulder. “I get it, Malachi, but remember, we went through some pretty rough times ourselves, and we came out stronger for it.”
As we watch the street, my mind drifts to how Zane and I got here. The long nights in foster care, two scared kids swearing to protect each other and the younger ones. That innate sense of duty, forged in the crucible of a broken system, now expressed in our work. I glance at Zane, seeing not just my partner, but the boy who stood beside me as we promised to never let anyone mess with our little family again.
