Rage's Story (Vanish Book 1) by Elle Michaels Read Free Book Online

I enter the unlocked back door. I plumb the depths of my memory to pull out the room number, I didn’t note it when I left this morning. Six, Seven, or, Three, no, Five.
    Three sixty seven. It comes in a flash, I see the golden numbers on the door closing behind me. I step out of the emergency staircase onto the third floor and head down the hallway, reading the numbers as I go. Three fifty nine, three sixty, three sixty one…
    Three sixty seven. Auna. I gently knock the sides of my fingers against it and lower my head. What am I going to say when she opens that door? How is she going to look? When I see her eyes, will it be anger or rejoice that fills them?
    “Come in.” My head cocks back and my neck stiffens. Blood instinctively floods into my muscles, and my nostrils flare. It’s a man’s voice. Who the fuck is here? I push against the door and it drifts open to a dark room, except for a dim red light emanating from the scarf covered lamp. It casts itself upon the image of a man seated on a folding chair in the center of the living room. I recognize him. The pretty boy in the suit. He wears another, or maybe the same. What sort of prick wears suits every day of the week?
    “Who are you?” I stand beside the kitchen, ten or so feet in front of him as he raises his chin to pull his reddened eyes from the carpet to meet mine. He’s got dark hair, a dark complexion similar to Auna’s. I might mistake him for her brother if I didn’t remember how he touched her in the parking lot of the Pussycat Lounge.
    “Aston,” he replies. “Who are you?”
    “Nobody you need to know.”
    One of his hands rests in the grasp of the other, his fingers twisting a class ring. They separate and retrieve a pistol from behind his back. He’s not pointing it at me, just dangling it between his knees as he hunches, swinging it, tauntingly. “I think I do,” he says.
    “Rage.”
    “Really? Cute.”
    “Where is Auna?” I don’t have time for his foolish behavior.
    His head raises, his eyes squint. “I could ask you the same, friend.” He shakes his head. “Where the fuck did you come from, bad boy? All jacked and brooding, I should’ve known…” he looks away. He has a thing for Auna. Or maybe with her. And he knows what happened with us. It hurts him. “She’s gone,” he mutters.
    I step forward. “What do you mean ‘gone’?” I raise my voice.
    “Don’t you know? Stranger from out of town, sweeps stripper off her stilettoed heels, next thing, she’s gone without a trace of where.” He grits his teeth, grips the pistol in his hands, but doesn’t raise it. He hasn’t held one seriously before. “If you’ve done anything with her, harmed a, a goddamn hair on her perfect head, Rage, so help me--”
    “What? You’ll shoot me?” I reply. “Lift it. Let me see you aim that at another human being.”
    He eyes the pistol, then looks back at me. “You think it’s hard for me? Think I can’t?” His arm begins to raise, but his hand is wavering. Aston’s drunk. I see the bottle now, resting behind him, tipped over and spilled out into the carpet. He shuts one eye as he very poorly steadies his aim. “I got you in my sights, Rage.” He suddenly drops his arm. “What kind of name is that, anyway? Rage? Seems ridiculous to me.”
    “What sort of a name is Aston? Seems pompous to me.”
    A single laugh bursts from his wet lips. He nods. “You’re probably right.”
    He doesn’t know where she is. He’s just another boy following after a pretty girl without an understanding thought in his head as to her nature. A fool. No question. More a pity than a concern to waste time with. I turn my back and head for the door, thinking of Auna. She’s missing. She might be in trouble. I can’t leave now. Not like this.
    “I’m watching you, big boy.”
    I pause at the door. I think to tell him he’s got his eye on the wrong man, but instead, “Watch closely,” comes out of my mouth in a defiant, fuck you