by Kaylee, Katy
But now the puzzle and problem were one and same. Aiden. What the hell was I supposed to do know? How could he so casually say those things to me? What did he expect me to do? Just pretend like nothing had changed.
Oh, by the way I’m the head of a mafia family and I’m going to be your body guard. Great, fantastic, no problem.
I snorted to myself, ignoring the look from the cabbie as I turned to look out of the window, trying to focus ahead instead of the memories of what I had just left behind at Aiden’s house.
The lab was located in a small, run-down unfashionable suburb about thirty miles outside of the city. My equally small, run down, and unfashionable apartment wasn’t too far away from that. I hated to be far away from work and more often than not I would find myself working late at the lab and sleeping on the small cot I had in my office.
The lab itself was in an updated warehouse. As the cab pulled up to the front door I quickly paid and got out, looking around with pride. It wasn’t much, but inside it held a lifetime worth of work, thanks to Noah Kramer.
He was the one who had founded the lab, and while technically he was my boss we had become more like partners over the last few years. Noah handled the business side, getting grants, finding funding for new research. And I was head of the research department.
I snickered at that as I walked inside. Yep, head of the whole research department. Which consisted of me, Will, and an endless rotating stream of interns from the university.
I drew in a deep breath as I walked into the pristine, white walled space. I was still trying to stop the tremors that shook me but as always, the lab made me feel better, grounding me. I knew exactly who and what I was here. Exactly where everyone fit in to the puzzle. There weren’t any anomalies to try and decipher, outside of an odd finding every now and then, but nothing like Aiden Diorno. He was off the charts.
“Well, well, well, look who finally decided to show her face around here.”
“Back at you, Will.” I muttered, fighting back a grin. It was good to see her assistant again. He was older than his disheveled, curly hair and youthful dimples belied, but he was still a few years younger than me. I couldn’t help but look at him as the little brother I never had, and sometimes couldn’t resist teasing him like one.
But my expression dropped in horror as I looked around at the work station.
“What the hell have you done to my desk?” I demanded, staring at the scattered notes, haphazard stacks of paper and take out containers. “What is that?”
I pointed at the little plastic figurine, all in black with a cape and a mask with pointy ears.
“My role model and advisor,” Will said, his voice rife sarcasm as he rolled his eyes up at me, “Since my actual real life role model and advisor had been MIA for over three weeks.”
A pang of guilt hit me.
“I know I haven’t been here as much as I needed to be.” I said but Will cut me off with a comforting pat on my shoulder.
“Hey, I get it. If it was my sister, as bratty as she can be sometimes, I would do the same thing.”
My chest tightened a little at his words and I had to blink back the sudden sting of tears.
“Thanks Will.”
“You can thank me by taking a look at the quadrant thirty six frequencies. There’s some sort of competing frequencies and I can’t get a clear read on it.” He grinned at me and I felt the familiar sense of excitement as he pulled up a satellite image as well as a chart full of data points as he tracked the rotation of stars in the night sky, universes away.
This was what I loved more than anything else. Exploring and decoding the mysteries of the cosmos. I knew that most people, my parents and sister included, didn’t understand my fascination but for me, I felt like a pioneer exploring the wild west for the first time.
There were still vast swaths of space that no human had ever seen, let alone explored or understood. It was enough to get my heart racing every time.
For a time, I lost myself in the work that I loved. Forgetting all about Aiden, all about the heart ache that I felt over losing Leah.
“Here! Will, right here.” I pointed at what looked like a speck of dust on the screen but it was actually just hundreds and thousands of light years away, “It’s a pulsar.”
“Damn. How did I miss that?” Will muttered as he peered close to the screen. He turned to me with piercing green eyes, “See? This is why I need you here. Not to mention no one else can deal with Noah.”
“Will, you’re the only other person here.”
“Exactly. And I can’t deal with him.”
“He’s just–.”
“Patronizing? Kooky? Totally off his rocker?”
“He’s…eccentric,” I said as kindly as I could, “And grant programs love him for it.”
“Yeah, I’ll give him that.”
I watched his grin start to fall and the way he glanced away, shadows in those green eyes of his.
“Will. What is it?”
“I…was meaning to call you, actually.” He said haltingly, and I hated the hesitation in his voice. It made my stomach clench in dread.
“What is it, Will?”
“I, uh, I was able to work on cleaning up that message a little bit more. The one from your sister.”
I hated the way he said that too. His voice told me that he hadn’t found anything good on it, and his eyes confirmed it.
“Play it for me.”
“I still don’t have all the audio processed.” He warned me as he turned to sit down at his computer next to mine.
“Just play me what you have. Anything that you have.”
Desperation filled me. Desperation to know the truth, and dread at finally finding it.
But when Will opened up the audio file and played the clip it only conjured more questions than it answered.
I could hear the beginning of the message, the one that I’d played to myself over and over. Leah’s voice, talking normally at first and then her voice changing, sounding confused.
No! What are you– Who are you?
And then the sound of static fills the message, making it hard to hear the words that come next. But my sister’s screams, those I can make out loud and clear. I can hear her pleading for her life. Pleading for the stranger not to hurt her and then more static, rougher this time as if the whole phone was being dragged over gravel.
But now there’s a new sound. A voice. A male voice. It’s distant, barely discernable but Will was able to amplify it and I can make out two clear words.
Redman. And Diorno.
I gasped. That was Aiden’s last name.
Then there’s a loud crack and the message goes silent, cutting off abruptly. What did it mean? My stomach roiled as the most terrible of thoughts shot through me. What if the man I just slept with had something to do with my sister’s disappearance?
“There’s something else.” Will said slowly, and that awful look was back in his eyes.
“Just tell me.”
“I know it’s hard to make out from just listening, but I was able to isolate a noise just after Leah…” Will paused, swallowing hard, “Just after your sister screams. It…It was a gun shot, Beth. I’m so sorry. I was able to identify the frequency. I don’t…”
“It’s okay.” I said weakly after he fell silent. “It’s been almost a month. I knew…Deep down, I knew…”
I was on the verge of shattering, of falling apart. I didn’t know how I was going to go on, but I knew one thing. I had made a terrible mistake in trusting Aiden. For all I know, he was the one who ordered Redman to kill her.
If it really was Ian Redman on the tape.
“There’s something else.” Will said and that dread grew inside me.
“What?” But what could be worse?
“I recognized one of the places in those photographs. It’s actually not that far from here.” He turned, clacking at the keys of his keyboard as if grateful for something to do. He pulled up a grainy black and
white photograph, one of the ones that Leah had sent me.
“It’s Fair Oaks.” He pointed to a big, sprawling old oak tree that sat silhouetted in the distance. “I recognized the tree. One of the oldest in the area. It used to be a park but it’s abandoned now. No one goes there. There’s nothing there but a field and some old sheds, but…”
“It’s a clue. That’s enough for now.” A clue that I was going to investigate. On my own. “I appreciate it, Will.”
“I wish I could give you better news, Beth.”
“We’re scientists, Will. We can’t change the facts, no matter how much we want to. We research and adjust accordingly. That’s all we can do.”
“I have to go,” I said hastily. If I didn’t get out of there, I was going to scream. Rage. Break apart right there in the middle of the lab. “Tell Noah I’ll be back soon, I promise, I just need…”
“I’ll tell him, Beth. You do what you need to.” His voice hardened, “Find out what happened to Leah. I’ll keep working on the missing parts of the audio.”
I nodded, unable to speak, unable to say a single word because I knew if I opened my mouth I would start crying and never be able to stop.
My expression like ice, I walked out of the lab, my mind already turning over the new clue that Will had unearthed. I had to do something. I had to find the truth. And that was where I would find it.
Chapter 13
Aiden
The words on the page in front of me blurred and I tried to focus for the hundredth time, but my mind refused to cooperate.
It had been two days and three hours since the last time I had seen Beth. Or heard from her. You have twenty-one hours left, tesoro. Then I’m coming after you. I didn’t know how I was going to make it.
It had been nearly impossible for me to keep my mind on the family and business since that moment in the office with her.
I glanced around the room, seeing her everywhere. Spread out across the desk. Strew across me, boneless and satisfied. Tied up. Begging me to fuck her. I had been right. It was nearly impossible to get any sort of work done in there now, but I was drawn back to the room again and again. I couldn’t stay away. If I couldn’t have her there, I could at least have the memories of her.
But then what had come after tore through me. My confession about my feelings for her, about why I’d had to leave so abruptly after my father’s murder. And the truth and I had shared with her about who, and what, I really was.
Luca would have knocked me out for revealing myself to her, but I couldn’t lie to her. Not anymore. Not when her sister’s life was on the line.
You know the likelihood that she’s still alive is infinitesimal. I sighed at the insidious thought. If Redman was involved, I knew that more than likely, Leah Bell was dead. Probably had been since the first night she’d gone missing. Redman didn’t leave loose ends. He didn’t leave anything behind.
At the thought of Redman, my mind spiraled back to what had been keeping me up for the last two nights. Elizabeth was out there. On her own. And if I knew her, she was continuing to look into her sister’s disappearance and probable murder. With a psychotic hitman that was probably even now looking for her.
I knew first hand that Ian Redman wasn’t the type of man to take mercy on any one, or look the other way if he was in danger of getting caught. No. He was the type of man to kill an entire room full of people just to get to his target, regardless of the innocent lives he took.
He wasn’t a man at all. Ian Redman was a monster.
A monster who could be hunting Elizabeth as I sat there, trying to read the reports from my men about what was happening in the city.
I glanced down and noticed the paper crumpled in my hand and smoothed it out with a sigh. It was killing me, thinking about Beth and what she could be doing right now, what could have happened to her.
I should have insisted on watching out for her. I should have insisted my men go with her.
But then I remembered the look on her face. The horror when I’d told her what I did. Who I really was. She needed time. I could give her that, right?
I glanced up at the clock on my desk. Twenty more hours. That was all the time I could give her, and it felt like an eternity to me.
I was still lost in thought when the buzzer on my desk went off, the red light firing as it rang again. With a sigh, I leaned forward and pressed the button to speak.
“Yes?”
“Hey, boss. You have visitors.” Matteo’s voice crackled over the intercom and I sat back with another sigh.
“Go ahead and let them in, Matteo.” I pulled my finger off the button, hastily sweeping the paperwork off the desk and into the drawer before the door opened and three men walked inside.
Luca came in first with a big grin splitting his face.
“Aiden. Looking…lonely?” he said with a pointed glance around the room.
“Shut up, Luca.”
“Yeah, you shouldn’t talk to him like that.” Another voice chimed in, “He is the head of the family.”
It belonged to my younger cousin Antonio, who had walked in the room next. His father, my uncle Phillipe, tagged along at the end of the little parade that filed into my office.
“Uncle Phillipe,” I said, leaning forward to shake the man’s hand. He was in his sixties now but still prided himself on being part of the family and their business. If not for that man, I would have been completely lost after my father’s murder.
“Okay, we’re here. Even the little tyke.” Luca teased Antonio, ruffling his hair and my cousin flinched away with a sneer on his face. He was only a few years younger than me at twenty six, but still looked and acted much younger than his years.
I knew my uncle spoiled him, kept him away from the worst of the business, pampered him with expensive clothes and cars and women. I also knew it wasn’t doing the boy any good, but it wasn’t my place to say anything. My uncle had always felt responsible for my father’s death, though he had no reason for guilt.
A part of me even wondered if I would have grown up the same way if my father hadn’t died. If I hadn’t been forced to take on the responsibility of the famiglia before I was ready. Just a year younger than Antonio was now when I’d had to take the mantle on my shoulders.
I shook off the thought. It didn’t matter now. My father was dead. I knew I could never change that. But in the back of my mind, a thought had started. I couldn’t bring my father back, but maybe I could finally make Redman pay for the pain he caused.
“That’s enough, Luca.” I said, de-escalating the situation before anyone could blow up and say something they would regret. I didn’t know why but Luca and Antonio always rubbed each other the wrong way. Although to be honest, Luca rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. He just didn’t have a filter. Would say anything that came to his mind, especially if it got a reaction. And Antonio always reacted.
I peered at the younger man as I gestured for them all to take a seat. He had the same dark brown hair that all the Diorno men shared, and the dark brown eyes to go with it. I was the only one that had the icy blue, from my mother’s side.
I’d barely known my mother, she’d died when I was just an infant from complications after my birth. I still felt a pang when I thought about it, the woman she might have been, the mother. But it was hard to truly miss something you never had.
“You all know the plan for tonight.” I said with no preamble. My uncle Phillipe and Luca had helped coordinate the shipment and Phillipe was trying to include Antonio in the daily dealings of the business, wanted him to get more involved. But he just gave a bored looked as the other two nodded.
I ignored it, focusing instead on the numbers on the sheet of paper I pulled out and placed in front of me.
“Two shipments, correct?”
“Yes, we will receive the first drop off at midnight. The second at two.” Luca was the one who answered, his expression for one serious. He was always serious when it came to business.
“Ok
ay. And the location is all set?”
“I have to protest again, Aiden,” Phillipe broke in, the first words he’d spoken since walking inside the room.
“I’ve heard your concerns, uncle. But the location of the drops are already set. We’re meeting them at Fair Oaks. It’s close enough for back up if we need and far enough out of the city not to raise any eyebrows.”
“But, Aiden–.”
“There isn’t anything else to discuss,” I told him, interrupting him. It was the simple truth. It was far too late to change the details now. “About that anyway. There is something we need to talk about.”
I hesitated for a moment, flicking my eyes towards my cousin, who stared back with a bored, slightly sneering expression on his face, before glancing at my uncle again.
“He knows about Redman.” Phillipe wearily answered the question in my icy blue gaze and I nodded. My uncle was right. Antonio was part of the family and deserved to know the truth as much as anyone else.
“Tensions are running high,” I said, looking at each of them in turn, “Everyone knows that Redman is back in the city and that means all the men are going to be jumpy. We need to be extra careful that no one does anything stupid.
“That might be harder for some of us more than others,” Luca said through a shit eating grin as he rolled his eyes at Antonio.
I let out a sigh. Jesus, the job hadn’t even started yet and I was already starting to get a headache. It was going to be one hell of a long night.
Chapter 14
Aiden
“Aiden, everything is quiet on our end. You?”
“Quiet here too.” I glanced at my gold plated watch, “Still twenty five minutes till the second drop. The first one was smooth as cherry pie.”
“Ugh. Gross analogy there, Aiden. Just letting you know.”
“Just get your ass back here as soon as you see the second shipment. Got it?”
“Roger that.”
I shook my head, not dignifying Luca with a response. He was waiting at the entrance to the Fair Oaks park where we had arranged the two shipments of weapons to be delivered.