Petal [h.s.]

Chapter 46

Harry.

Violet fell asleep uneasily after having taken a bath. She was crying and trembling the whole time in the bathroom as I paced around the bedroom, on my phone constantly with different people.

The envelope with the pictures was on the dresser, upside down so I wasn't constantly staring at some of the most intimate moments her and I had shared together in the confines of my home.

Liam had a knack for technology, and he had quickly figured out that it had indeed come from a camera that was installed somewhere in the ceiling of my living room, giving them a view of the hallway, kitchen and seating area of my apartment. It meant whoever had the pictures, had tapes.

It was unclear if there would be audio files too, another thought that made me sick.

Once Violet got out of the bath, her tired body fell down on the comforter, hair still wet as she was in sweats and a shirt. I held her for a bit, mumbling incoherent things into her hair as I rocked her back and forth until she fell asleep.

I knew it would only be a matter of time until a nightmare woke her up, but she seemed knocked out for now. Her head must be heavy from fatigue, worries and the crying she had done. I silently slipped out of the room, leaving her asleep beneath the sheets as I hurried down the stairs, heading towards Gabriel's office.

The meeting had come to an early stop once the glass got broken and the unusual package had arrived. There were no more shards of glass as I walked through the foyer, and I felt the cold breeze of the April night run through the broken window. Nobody had been allowed to leave at first as we all searched the grounds, but there was no one to be seen or found.

The security guards outside had been knocked out before they realized what had happened, and Gabriel was too paranoid to have any security camera's on the premises in case they got hacked. So we had nothing.

I threw the wooden doors open, being met with six pairs of eyes. Liam, Louis, Zayn, Niall, Gabriel and Bob were all around Gabriel's desk, hunched over and staring intently at the fingers that were sprawled out. Zayn was wearing gloves as he picked one up and examined it.

Louis' eyes glanced up to see me. "How's Vi?"

"Asleep." I answered shortly, jaw tense as I approached the desk, scrunching my nose up at the severed fingers on the wooden desk. Gabriel looked stoic, rid of any emotion as he sat in his chair. Bob was still pressing a cloth on the wound in his head. They had knocked him out at the front door.

"Yeah, these are definitely clean cuts. When these were cut off, the person was lying still and it was done in one swift motion with a sharp knife. Looks almost surgical. So they were most likely sedated." Zayn concluded, putting down the finger he was holding up. "They're all pinks, by the way. Anyone have any idea what's up with that?" He added.

"Sedated or it happened voluntarily." Gabriel piped up.

"Who on earth would cut their fingers off voluntarily?" Liam frowned.

Gabriel let out a hum and we all stared at him. He sighed and leaned back in his chair. "There's an old story, about a gang in Mexico. I've never seen it done here. But the main idea was that the gang leader would instruct his workers to cut off their pink fingers when they made mistakes. So a lot of people in the gang had missing pinks because that was their punishment whenever they screwed up a deal or a shipment." He spoke with a calm, low voice.

I was basically shaking on my legs, about to explode. I had held everything in for Violet's sake, but I felt the urgent need to punch something or someone. Whoever had done this, had made her scared.