by Lisa Shelby
For the most part, they keep quiet and listen to me carry on with my tale of misery and bliss. The misery of every moment of London blackmailing me and how I had her followed around the clock while I watched surveillance videos of her building. Then the hits just keep on coming when I tell them about my father, who isn't really my father at all but instead, my uncle. This revelation elicits a “what the fuck” from Ben and a “you are fucking kidding me” from Richie. I get it, it's a big one. It's like I'm living in my very own soap opera.
When I get to the part where I tell them about my secret lair and how my girl found me hiding out there, Baxter is the most vocal. "You son of a bitch! How am I supposed to protect you if you have secret homes and businesses under different names? You dumb-ass. Now keep talking and let's see what else you're keeping from me. Stupid asshole."
I knew he would be pissed if he ever found out, and I'll talk to him about it another time. For now, I carry on and tell them the blissful part of my story. The part where I have my girl back, and we spend a perfect two weeks at Eclipse. How we came back to the city and we kept her hidden at the hotel. About the fight over my night with London and then her escape while I was resigning from EVC.
I finish up by telling them about what we found at her apartment, the information from the desk clerk at the Inn at Union Square, and the subsequent video footage Baxter was able to get from one of his contacts at the city. Baxter pulls up the footage that I have tortured myself with over and over again. All this time, Richie has been pacing the backyard, but he stops long enough to watch the video of the large man in head-to-toe black with the hood of his jacket up and covering his face as he takes Olivia and clearly drugs her with whatever was on the cloth he put over her nose and mouth.
To watch another man, not only put his hands on her, but to do it to cause her harm leaves me feeling helpless and unworthy of her love. I should have had more protection around her. I should have been more specific in my messages to her and told her that Brown was in San Francisco. I can think of a hundred things I should have done differently. If I had done just one thing differently she might be here now.
Ben slams his palms down on the table. "Ronan, I can see you over there wallowing in self-pity and thinking of all the things you could have done differently, but dude, you may have made a lot of mistakes along the way, but it isn't your fault Olivia knows how to mess with a toilet and got one over on her bodyguard." He pushes up from the table and points his finger at me. "However, it is your fault that you didn't call me and let me help. Did it escape your mind that I'm a cop, in the city that Olivia has been taken in? Why the hell didn't you tell me?"
"And I'm your lawyer! How could you not have called either one of us? What the hell were you thinking?" Now Richie and Ben are both standing and pointing at me in anger.
"I'm so sorry if I hurt both of your feelings by leaving you out of my shit show of a life, but my head hasn't really been on too straight the last three days. So, please get off my back and help me figure out a way to find Olivia!"
I light up another smoke and walk to the other end of the patio and lean against one of the pillars. Hearing myself tell our story, has me warring with my emotions, and I am a God-damned mess. I can hear Ben calling the department and Richie is watching the video of Olivia being taken again.
Baxter calling them was the right thing to do, and I am glad they're here, but it's all too much, and I'm suddenly finding it hard to catch my breath. I put my hands on my knees and bend over trying to stop the panic that has me shaking. I take a couple deep breaths and when I stand up, Ben is there.
"Hey, man, you okay?"
"Am I okay? What the hell do you think the answer to that question is?" I rip my hands through my hair and over my face.
"I know, Ronan. This can't be easy and I know you're worried about her." Baxter and Richie are standing on either side of Ben now.
"Worried about her? Are you kidding me? A drug dealing murderer and his thugs have her and who knows what he's doing to her. She just came back into my life and I've lost her again. There isn't anything I wouldn't do for her. I'd sell every house and give up every penny I've got to have her back." Baxter surprises me by pulling me into a hug. He pats me on the back, and I don’t break the embrace.
"We're gonna find her. You're going to get her back."
I pull back and look at the men that are more my family than my actual blood relatives. "You guys, I don't work without her. Fuuuuck!" I scream to the sky above. "She's my God-damned heart! There is no me without her!"
Just as I feel myself starting to reel from the pain and anxiety, the moment is interrupted when the last voice on earth I want to hear right now splices through the air from the French doors that lead to the kitchen.
"I might be able to help you get her back."
My head of security is across the patio in a heartbeat. "Miss St. James, you need to leave. Now," Baxter says, taking London by the arm and attempting to lead her back into the house and out the front door.
She pulls her arm from his grasp and tries to walk around him but he grabs her around the waist. "Ronan, please! I can explain everything! Please!"
"Oh, I already know the explanation, London! You're a heartless bitch who only cares about herself. You don't give a damn that Olivia has been abducted, and we have no fucking clue where she is! Get out and consider our little facade over!"
"Just give me two minutes, Ronan, and I might be able to help you find Olivia."
Afraid to pass by anything at all that might lead me to Olivia, I cave and appease her. "Fine, say what you have to say."
"Can I speak to you alone?"
Baxter lets her go, and she motions to the house, but there is no way I can stand to be alone with her.
"Whatever you have to say to me you can say in front of all of us. You know I'm going to tell them whatever it is you tell me, so why waste the time? What information do you have?"
She takes a seat at the table, and the rest of us stand around the patio waiting for her to speak. "Ronan, I don't really know how to say this."
"Just fucking say it, London!"
She's turning bright red, and I can tell what she's about to tell us is going to implicate her even more than she already has.
"Ronan, I had no choice. I had to blackmail you, because I was being blackmailed too."
Ben jumps in before I get a chance. "By who?"
"Daniel."
"As in, Daniel McKinley? His father?"
"Yes, Ben, that Daniel."
I take a seat across from her. No longer able to stand on my own two feet and afraid the reason my father, or whoever the hell he is, was blackmailing her is going to be for reasons I don't want to hear.
"London, why was he blackmailing you?"
She lifts her eyes to mine and the tears begin to fall. "Ronan, I am so sorry. What I've done is unforgivable, but he has pictures. Pictures of us together."
"Pictures of you and I together? From when? We haven't been together since we were kids."
"Not of you and I..."
"Then of you and who?"
"Daniel."
I feel sick. "What are you talking about?"
"When you and I broke up, your dad comforted me and…things happened."
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Ben chirps from the table on the other side of the patio.
"I know! I know how messed up it is. The thing is he had money and power, and I liked it, and it happened more than once. What I didn't know was that he was filming us and Ronan, he isn't into normal things. He has it all on video. When he found out you were dating Olivia, he didn't like it, and he sent me a file with the videos on it. Of course, he blurred himself out but it's more than obvious it's me. He said that if I didn't get you away from Olivia, he would release the videos. Ronan, he's the one who gave me the information about her. He's the one who had investigators following her."
"Fuck," I hear Baxter say under his breath.
"I'm so sorry, but
your father is the one who told that drug dealer where Olivia was staying. He wanted her gone. I really am sorry this has happened to her. I would never want this for anyone, and I can't say I'm sorry enough."
Without saying a word to London, I rise from the table, grab my keys off the kitchen counter, and head out to the garage. Ben and Richie are hot on my heels, but they don't try to stop me.
"Give me the keys, Ronan," Ben says, taking them from my hand. "You haven't slept in days, and you're in no condition to drive. If I know you, we're headed to your dad's place, right?"
I nod my head to confirm and get in the passenger side of my black Q7 and let Ben take the lead on this one. He's right, I have no business driving right now.
When we pull out of the garage and pass the driveway, I see Baxter shutting London's driver’s side door. He waits for her to pull away, and then he jumps into his own car and pulls out in front of us. He too knows where we're going without me saying a word, and Ben follows him out onto Franklin Street.
My head is spinning with the knowledge that not only did my father sleep with my ex, but he played a hand in Olivia's disappearance. He may not be my father, but he is still my own flesh and blood, and I can't believe he could really do this to Olivia, to me, to us.
How did my life get so fucked up, and how did I let it get so out of control that someone as perfect as Olivia could be in this situation now?
Because of my family.
Because of me.
We break every speed limit on the way to my parents’ house. Ben and Richie concoct a strategy for how to approach my father while I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that the man I knew as my father is such a sinister piece of shit. Pulling up to the house, Ben asks for the gate code.
I can tell Richie is afraid I haven't been listening to them, and he thinks I'm going to ruin their plan. "Ro, I know you're pissed, and I know you want to go in there and rip your dad's face off but not yet. He has the information we need, and we can't go in there guns blazing until we have what you need to find O…"
My phone, which hasn't left my hand in days, lights up and pings with a text message from Olivia. My heart is thundering in my ears, and I know in my gut, it's not going to be her when I see a dark video with a play button in the middle of it displayed.
Ben parks outside the front steps to the house and takes the phone from my hand when it's clear I don't have it in my own power to push the play button myself. He hits the forward arrow, and the car is filled with the sound of nothing but static through the Bluetooth. The video on the screen is grainy but slowly starts to zoom in, and that's when my heart drops to my stomach, and I feel the life slowly drain out of my body.
Olivia lay bound by her ankles and wrists in the corner of some sort of room in a warehouse or factory of some kind. Her hair is matted with blood, and she looks like she has had the shit beat out of her. There is a pile of what looks to be her own vomit on the ground and she is balled up in the fetal position shaking and cold. Another text comes through.
Olivia: $5 million. We will be in touch, Mr. McKinley.
Ben rips the phone out of my hands and plays it again. As the static starts to fill the car once again, I push my door open and take the steps up to the house three at a time. I hear Richie yelling for me to wait for him, but I can't be stopped. The door is locked but just as I lift my hand to break it down, it swings open and there stands my mother.
"Did you know?"
"Know what, sweetheart?" With all of the lies I have been told in my lifetime I have no idea, nor the time to figure out, if she is truly ignorant to the situation or if she is complicit.
Does she know where Olivia is?
Did she know her husband had an affair with London?
Does she know about the kink he's into?
Does she know all of it or does she live her life in ignorant bliss because the money and lifestyle are all worth it?
God-dammit, Olivia is right. Less is so much fucking more.
"Never mind, Mom. Is Dad home?"
"Well, yes he's home. He’s just returned from his golf game with your uncle and a client. He and your uncle are in his office."
I rush past my mother, and as I walk through the halls of the house, everything is grainy. Dark, gray, and grainy just like the video that showed her bloodied and being held hostage. How dare they lay a hand on her. I will tear Dickey Brown and all of his goons apart piece by piece, until there is nothing left of them. I think I'll practice on my loving father first.
Nearing the office, I can see the light from the room pooling into the hallway, and with each step I take, I can feel the storm inside me brewing to an irrational level. When I take the left into the office, the man I used to call father is sitting at his desk, and the weak man I used to know as my uncle is sitting in the chair in front of him. My father sees me and sits back in his chair, looking relaxed, smug, and as though he hasn't a care in the world. At least Patrick has the decency to stand from his chair while a clear look of alarm washes over his features.
"Ronan, to what do we owe the distinct pleasure of your company today?" Daniel says, forming a steeple with his hands in front of him.
Just as I'm about to spew the hatred and disgust I feel for him, I feel Baxter and my two best friends fall in behind me. It reminds me that I'm here for a reason. To find Olivia. Not to destroy the flippant man sitting at the desk in front of me.
"Sir, we have a few questions about the whereabouts of Olivia Adams." I hear Ben say, diplomatically from my right.
"I'm sorry, did you say Olivia Adams? I don't think I know who it is that you speak of."
"Fuck you, old man! I know you know where she is." I lunge for the desk, but my friends hold me back. I know it isn't the right move, and I know we need to gather information from the bastard but if they weren't here to stop me, Daniel McKinley would be about to take his last breath.
Ben and Richie are both holding me back, and with the rage coursing through my body and taking control of my every thought and feeling, I can vaguely hear Ben in my ear.
"Don't let him get the best of you, Ronan. Remember the plan. I know you want to kill the man, but you need to think about your girl."
He's right. I said I would do anything for her, and at the moment, as challenging as it may be, that means keeping my hands off the man who did this to her long enough to get the information I need.
"Ronan, what's going on? What's happened to Olivia?" Patrick sounds concerned, even though he clearly was never concerned for my well-being growing up.
"Why don't you ask your brother. He seems to know what's going on, don't you, dear old dad? Excuse me, I mean dear old uncle."
"If you have something to say just say it, boy."
"Where's Olivia? And don't say you don't know who she is! I know you're the one who told Dickey Brown where she was, and I know you're the reason she's been taken!" I bark at him, unable to keep the pain tapped down inside any longer. "Do you really hate me this much?"
"Oh, Ronan. Life is just so simple for you, isn't it? I think you know why she had to go, and I think you understand it as clearly as I do, but you just don't want to come to grips with it." The hands around my arms tighten with every word. It's getting harder and harder to stay on this side of the desk. "You know your time with that girl from the wrong side of the tracks was all just a phase. Something you had to get out of your system."
"You son of a bitch—"
"Ronan, don't!" Baxter steps in front of me as I try to go after my father yet again. He tries to get me to look at him, but I look around him and don't let the man behind the desk leave my line of sight.
"Just tell me where she is! I need to know where she is!" I can hear the desperation in my voice as I howl my need to find Olivia for the world to hear.
"Daniel what is he talking about? What's happened to Olivia?" my mother asks from the doorway.
"Don't worry yourself, Ruth. I've helped Ronan clean up a mess, just like I always do."
"What the fuck do you mean clean up my mess? What have you done, you piece of shit?"
"Ronan, I had to protect the company, the family name. I wasn't going to let you disparage EVC and the McKinley name because you have a fetish for white trash."
"You son of a bitch! Do you know what you've done?"
"I simply helped a man find a woman he was looking for. I was helping him reconnect with his family."
Before I get the chance to reply, Ben steps in front of me, still holding my phone in his hand and slams it on the desk in front of us. He pushes play on the video, and my uncle hovers over the phone and watches the woman I love, curled up in the corner of some cold concrete room battered and beaten, shivering from the cold and probably from the fear that comes along with being held hostage.
Ben puts my phone in his back pocket and addresses my father yet again. "How do you explain this, Mr. McKinley? It doesn't look like you were helping a friend reconnect with a family member."
"You're right. It does look like she's gotten herself into quite a predicament. I guess that's what happens when you consort with drug dealing gangsters."
I can't be held back any longer. Breaking free from Richie's grasp, I round the desk and push my father into the dark book cases behind him. Book cases filled with books that I know he's never read, that he simply has there for show, because that's all that matters to him, appearances and the version of our family he wants the world to see.
"Where is she?" I scream with my hand so tight around his throat his feet are starting to dangle from the ground. And still he looks smug. I could kill him right now, with my bare hands, and he has the audacity to look smug.
With a sinister smile on his red face, he continues to take pride in what he's done. "Boy, I have no clue where your whore is. I simply let the man know of her location and left it at that. He promised he would get her out of our lives, and he would keep her away from you. What he did with her after that, wasn't my concern." It's getting harder to understand him, and I loosen my hold on him just enough to understand him, in case he actually tells me something worthwhile. He makes sure he looks me in the eye when he says his next sentence. "She's trash, Ronan. Her mother was a drug-addicted whore, and her father was a gambler who couldn't afford to pay his debts. She isn't good enough for this family, and even though you may be a bastard, you are still part of this family, and our blood does still run through your veins. You don't get to just consort with any slut that you hire to work in your office and wear short skirts to keep you entertained all day."