In love with his own killer

XLV

Chapter 45
Treasure POV:

The week passed by us without notice. I'd been taking care of Elijah while he got back to his top-tier shape. I somehow managed to convince him to stay in bed the next day after that. Not that he was resting, as I insisted. He had other plans—plans I couldn't complain about. But it distracted him enough to allow himself to stay home, and that's all that mattered.

The day after that, though, he wouldn't let me manipulate him into staying home again. His wounds had improved but weren't fully healed. Yet his delusions somehow convinced him that after two days, they'd just disappear. Sadly for him, that's not how the world—or life—works.

He left in the morning before I even had a chance to stop him. I called him, asking for his whereabouts, only for him to tell me he was at his office. He apologized for not informing me in person and said I wouldn't have let him escape my self built hospital in his home.

I took that time to get out of the house myself. As much as I hate to admit it, I do still have a job to do. I needed to clear my head and reset. So I headed to the hotel where the boys were staying.

The elevator dinged softly. When I stepped into their suite, Santiago had a whiteboard full of notes and arrows, and Amari was hunched over a keyboard like a man possessed.

We gathered and they started informing on anything new.

"We managed to figure out the guards switching schedule. Thanks to a lot of surveilling," James stated, rubbing the back of his neck, clearly exhausted.

"We got into the cameras in the house, and there's a lot." Amari spun in his little chair, kicking off from the floor to face the screens behind him. With a few taps, the monitors split into a grid of footage. "There are forty-eight cameras in that house. Excluding the underground. We couldn't get satellite data down there. Every time we tried, it defaulted to the cameras outside the tunnels."

I took a slow step closer, eyes narrowing on the screens. Forty-eight cameras just confirmed how massive that house really was. What kind of place needs that many eyes? Only one that's hiding something.

"So that means there's no camera coverage underground?" I asked, folding my arms as I leaned over to get a better look.

"Maybe not," Amari said. "Or it could be that there's a separate vault system for those cameras and we can't access it. But considering how good we are at our job, we would've at least found a trail. And there was nothing down there."

"Maybe it doesn't matter to have cameras down there," I muttered, pacing slowly behind the monitors. "If they can already track who enters and leaves, maybe there's another type of ID system... facial, chip, something old school but effective."

Santiago's brows pulled together like something clicked.

"Didn't you say Elijah has a barcode tattooed on him?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said, blinking back to the present. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Do you have a picture of it?"

I dug into my phone, thumbing through old photos until I found the one. I paused for a moment, staring at it longer than I intended. Then I sent it over.

"He didn't have any other tattoos like that," I added as the file went through.

"Where exactly was it on his body?"

"Looks like collarbone area, near the chest," James answered first, peering at his phone like he was zooming in on the image.

"You think that barcode could be the key to unlocking something on the drive?" I asked, voice quieter now.