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by S. E. Rose

  Lily visibly shutters.

  “You caused me quite a few problems, my dear,” he says slowly as he leans forward and puts his elbows on his knees. A door opens, and Ben walks in and looks over at us. Lily stills, and I swear I can hear her heart stop for a split second. “So, you both know Ben, right? That saves us some time then.”

  “Hello, Nick. I’m sorry to hear that your father won’t be relinquishing the control of things to you. It appears our business deal is off. Pity,” he says as he takes a seat next to our father.

  “Everyone will be looking for us. You have grossly underestimated our family,” Lily spits with such venom I think her words could possibly poison one or both men.

  “I suppose you are correct, but no worries, my dear, we will not be underestimating them any longer,” our father says.

  “What do you want with us?” I ask him.

  He gives me a wicked grin. “What? You having second thoughts about the family business already?”

  I contemplate my next move carefully. I either pretend that I’m actually interested, or I divest myself of that and show my true colors. I think through both options. If I show who I really am, then I’ll be an enemy just like Lily. My fate will be sealed. However, pretending to be as evil as these men, well, that’s a wild card. I’ve never been a betting sort of man, but right now I’d bet that the lying plan is the better of my two options.

  “No,” I say, looking at him seriously. I smirk and pray to all the acting gods that somewhere in my short stint of drama club in high school I picked up something, anything that will convince these two assholes that I’m sincerely considering a life of crime. “I knew you’d come if I put myself out there,” I continue. “I knew you’d be like me. They told me you were dead, but I knew that wasn’t true.”

  My father raises an eyebrow. “Oh, did you now?”

  I nod.

  “Right,” Ben says with a laugh. “Like you’re really looking to get into the trade? Don’t be thick. I saw through you from a mile away.”

  “I believe you are the one being thick,” I say, letting the last word roll off my tongue more slowly. “I was serious about the offer, Ben. I do apologize for using you to get to my father, but I wasn’t fucking around about the business part. I minored in business. I speak three languages, and I am an engineer that can work all over the world. I can bring a legitimate business façade to the front of the deals. I want this and if you two don’t want me, then I’ll find someone else who does.”

  Ben and my father look at one another, and then back at Lily and me. I can see I’ve played my hand well and that this is not what they were expecting. OK, the element of surprise is always a good thing.

  And so I begin brainstorming in my head. I need to sell this.

  “Do what you want with Lily. But hear me out. I want in and I’m willing to sweeten the deal if you like.”

  They look at me, intrigued now.

  “How so?” Ben asks.

  “I have access to the data you want. Not the shit Hank gave you, but the real deal.”

  I see Ben’s eyes widen, and I know I’m on to something now. Even my father is now giving me his full attention.

  “How?” my father asks.

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ll need access to a computer, but I can get you the files today.”

  “Oh right, like we’re going to give you computer access, mate. We aren’t idiots,” Ben says.

  “Fine, you go on, and I’ll tell you how to get to it,” I encourage.

  “What’s your collateral?” my father asks.

  “Me,” I say. My father actually raises his eyebrow and smirks. “If I get you access to the data, I’ll join your organization. And if not, then, well, you do what you want with me.”

  “You’d risk your life for data?” Ben questions me. He almost looks impressed.

  “I’m not risking my life. If I cared about such things, I wouldn’t be wanting to join this business, now would I?” I say.

  “You must care about something?” my father says. “Everyone has a weakness.”

  I laugh. “I care about beer, so I suppose if you want to torture me then take that away,” I snort.

  My father shakes his head. “What about the pretty redhead?” he asks.

  I laugh. “My fuck of the month. You do what you want with that. She’s only shacking up with me until she gets a new job and apartment.”

  My father stands and walks over to Lily and pulls her up against him. “You smell like your mother,” he whispers in her ear, and she shudders once more.

  “Fuck you,” she snaps.

  “That can be arranged. Maybe Nick would like to join in,” he says with a grin so evil I’m sure fire might spew from his lips.

  “She’s not my type,” I mutter.

  “Oh?” my father asks. “She seems good to me.”

  “Yeah, I’m not into incest. I prefer women not related to me,” I say.

  “Fair enough.” He shrugs and tosses Lily to the ground. “Ben, take him to a computer. I’m curious to see what he can do.”

  I stand and walk toward Ben. Ben opens the door and as we go to leave, my father looks over at us. “A secured one,” he says sharply. “I think I’ll stay here with Lily for a bit.” I can see the fear flicker over Lily’s eyes and in a Hail Mary attempt I decide I need to alter my plan.

  “We may need you,” I say.

  “Why?” he asks.

  “Passwords and what not. You were working directly with Mohammed when this was created. We may need your knowledge,” I say.

  “Fine,” he sighs and adjusts himself as he follows us out of the room. I look back at Lily, and she mouths “thank you.” I nod at her, and she nods back. She’s going to escape, or she’ll die trying.

  The hallway we go down is dark and looks to be in some type of warehouse or industrial building. I have no idea where we are or how long we were out, until…my watch. I glance down and see it’s still on my wrist. I smirk. Dumbasses. For seasoned criminals, these two are really losing their touch. The time flashes as 10:00 a.m. I thank several gods that I fell asleep with my watch on, and I also know I am being tracked.

  I am led to a room with a single metal table, two chairs, and one laptop on the table. Ben sits at the table and my father stands to my right.

  “So?” Ben asks as he looks up at me.

  I know how to get to it. Well, I sort of do. Cody showed me the dead link version that had been uploaded to Lance’s files. If I can send them there, it will buy me some more time.

  I tell him some letters and numbers to type in, and then presto, he’s in Lance’s file. Ben nods to my father who squints and leans forward.

  “You are true to your word, my son,” he says as he pats my shoulder. “I was inclined not to believe you, but I suppose being financially desperate changes people, doesn’t it?”

  “I’m not desperate,” I murmur.

  My father laughs. “Right.”

  “I’m not.”

  “OK, play it your way. Ben, get your team on this data now. I need to know when the next shipments are due. And then get us to Colombia. My son and I have some unfinished business to attend to,” he says. He unties my hands and takes one in his. “Welcome to the family business, Nicholas. If you stick to your word, I do believe we will have a very good partnership.”

  “Good,” I say and stop myself from saying anything else.

  I watch as Ben scans the data. It looks live, but in fact, it is not. The data won’t be changing for real. It’ll take a little time for this to become evident, but when it does if I’m not out of here, Lily and I are as good as dead. I carefully remove my watch and shove it in my pocket as my father looks closely at the computer screen.

  “So, what do you propose we do with your sister?” my father asks. I contemplate that for a long moment. I want to say release her, but then he would suspect me.

  “Let’s keep her as collateral until we’ve gotten to Colombia,” I say.


  “And after that?” my father presses.

  “After that, I don’t give a shit,” I say. “Just make sure it’s handled by someone with more than one brain cell, I don’t want that shit tracked back to me.”

  “Very well,” he says. He snaps his fingers at Ben who looks up at him. “Arrange for transport of my children and myself to the safe house for the evening.”

  “Of course,” Ben snaps at him. I can see that my father clearly holds the power card over Ben and that irks Ben. I put that nugget aside, knowing it’s a card I can play later.

  My father ushers me down another hallway and into a room that is set up as an office. There’s an outside door here, and he opens it. The light from outside blinds me for a moment. I squint and take in my surroundings. I’m at a warehouse. I don’t recognize anything else in the area. Ben comes out a moment later and shoves Lily toward our father. He grips her arm and a car with black-tinted windows pulls up beside us. I want to roll my eyes at the black SUV. It’s so stereotypical that a bad guy would have a dark car with tinted windows.

  Lily is shoved in first before my father and I take our seats. We are all quiet as the driver takes us off the property and onto a main road. I soon recognize that we are just off the D.C. beltway in a part of town that still houses industrial buildings and hasn’t been cleaned up like the area surrounding the new baseball stadium. We are driven across town to Georgetown and arrive at a nondescript, three-story row house on a side street. It’s an end unit and looks to be newly refurbished. We pull around back and straight into a garage connected to the ground level of the house.

  Our father leads us inside and then upstairs.

  “This will be your room tonight, Liliana,” he says as we step into a beautiful bedroom with a four-poster bed and matching armoire and side tables. He undoes Lily’s arms, and she rubs her wrists and looks at the room in shock, I think. “Now behave. I’ll be watching,” he adds and motions to the video camera in the corner of the ceiling.

  He shoves her forward a bit more and shuts a door that looks to be made of wood but is actually made of steel. A giant bolt slides it closed. I hear Lily pound on the door and then slink to the ground against it. I feel a momentary sense of fear now that we are separated. There has to be a way into the room, but how, I don’t know. The door has a keypad on it and my father punches in some numbers—zero, two, nine, three.

  “This way,” he says, and I follow him down the hall to another bedroom. “You’ll be staying here until I can arrange our transport to Colombia. You’re still working to earn my trust, Son, so don’t forget that.”

  I nod and enter the room. He closes the door behind me. This door is actually wood, and there is also a camera in here. The room is nice, a sleigh bed and matching dressers. I realize Lily and I share a wall, and I walk over to it and find a grate for the air-conditioning.

  “Lily?” I whisper into it.

  “Nick?!” she answers.

  “You OK?”

  “I think so,” she says. “My head hurts.”

  “So does mine.”

  I know we can’t talk now because the rooms are probably bugged for audio too. I pause for a long moment before I laugh. Our secret language, we had a twin language until we were about seven or eight. Then we only used it when we didn’t want people to know what we were talking about, and to this day, we still use it on occasion. I force myself to remember our language. I tell her that we need to get out of here, and she laughs.

  “You remember,” she says before we start plotting. There are bars over the windows in both our rooms. I look out of my window and so does she. Her windows face the back alley and mine face the side street. While looking out the window, I have my first opportunity to send a text from my watch.

  Nick: Jack—if you are there, we have been taken by our father—who is very much alive. We are at the cross streets Avon and Dent in Gtown—second-floor bedrooms facing alley and side street.

  I wait and wait and hope everyone is OK and that Jack sees my message. I see the screen come to life, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

  Jack: 10-4—we got you.

  I sigh and tell this to Lily. We’ve wasted much of the day now, and it’s early afternoon. I know Jack is waiting for dark before he comes for us and that makes me nervous because I don’t know how long we’ll be here.

  At five o’clock the door opens, and a woman sets a tray of food on the dresser. She nods and exits.

  I look at the food. I don’t touch, and I tell Lily to do the same. I have a sneaking suspicion it has been laced with something that will make us sleep. I know we need to stay wide awake. The moments tick by as I formulate a plan for every possible scenario and at nine the door opens again and my father enters the room.

  “We’ll be leaving first thing tomorrow,” he says.

  I nod. “Good,” I answer.

  “I’ll have the staff wake you for our flight,” he says and goes to close the door. “That is if you can get any sleep,” he adds and the look on his face makes the blood drain from mine. I know what he plans on doing before I even hear the beep of Lily’s door.

  I run to the wall, suddenly feeling like the most helpless person on the planet.

  “Liliana, I thought you’d be happy to see me,” he says, his voice muffled through the wall.

  “Go away,” she says.

  “Oh, but you must be bored, and we have some catching up to do, now don’t we, mi amore,” he adds, and I hear him move in the room, and then she screams.

  “Shut up or I’ll shut you up,” he yells. I hear his hand slapping her, and she whimpers.

  I hear clothes tearing and my eyes prick. I look around for anything, something. There’s nothing in the room I can use. The bastard has done this on purpose.

  Chapter 18

  Nick’s Playlist: “Livin’ On The Edge” by Aerosmith

  I sink to the ground as I hear more whimpers and more clothes ripping. I feel more helpless than I ever have. A moment later, a very bright light shines in from my window and before I can fully comprehend anything, three men dressed all in black have rammed through the glass and are standing in my room. Everything goes completely quiet for a second. Then I hear a scream from next door followed by a scuffle. There are many voices now, but it’s Lily’s wailing that scares me to my core.

  I look at the men. One sprays black foam over the camera before they remove their hoods. It’s Jack, Baxter, and Dean.

  The door flies off its hinges, and I’m greeted by Lily, Bryce, Pierce, and Lance. Jesse bounds up the stairs behind them. Lily is in Lance’s arms. When she sees me, she squirms, and Lance sets her down.

  “Nick,” Lily says in barely a whisper. She runs to me and wraps her arms around my waist. She’s covered in blood, her clothes torn, and she’s trembling. I look up at Lance. No one else is covered in blood except Lance where he has held her. There’s so much blood. We cling together for a moment. I whisper “I love you” in our twin language, and she starts to sob. Lance comes over and picks her up, and she buries her face in his neck.

  “Let’s go,” Jack says to us. As I walk past Lily’s room, I look inside and see my father on the floor, blood pooling around his body. He’s been stabbed, many times. I look over at Lance, and he shakes his head at me and motions to Lily. I frown.

  Bryce grabs my shoulder and holds me back as they walk downstairs and out back to a parked car.

  “She killed him, Nick, grabbed the knife right out of my holster. She said something to him in Spanish. Something like, you can’t hurt us anymore because you are weak, but I am strong just like my mother,” he says. “And then she launched herself at him. It all happened so fast.” He shakes his head.

  “Shit,” I mutter. But I know Lily should be the one to kill him, it seems fitting, like the universe designed itself so she could have that moment.

  “If ever asked, I did it,” he says. “The others know, and Lance will tell her.”

  I nod, and we go out to the waiting car.
<
br />   “The kids?” Lily asks as we get inside.

  “They are fine. Leidy needed oxygen. She passed out, but we got her some. She’s much better now. We’ll need to keep a close eye on her. Fortunately, Joanie was a nurse in a previous life, and she’s taking good care of her.” Lance takes off his jacket and wraps it around her.

  “Thank God,” Lily breathes as Lance kisses her forehead. We ride in silence toward Virginia, away from Maryland. We drive for a good hour and a half before we pull off onto a farm. A dirt road takes us straight through rows of trees which open to a house that looks to be about two hundred years old. It’s three stories, and it has been masterfully restored.

  “Safe house,” Bryce grunts. “We’ll debrief you once you get showered and settled.”

  We are led inside where we find our family anxiously waiting for us. We are smothered in kisses and hugs. Lance takes Lily to shower and change before they go to see Leidy and check on the twins. I am left with my family, except…I look around for Melissa, Zoe, and Cody.

  “Melissa? Zoe? Cody?” I ask my mother. She nods toward a room in the back. I walk back and find Zoe lying on a sofa, asleep. Her head is in Cody’s lap as he gently strokes her hair. Melissa sits on the other side of the sofa, rubbing Zoe’s feet.

  “Hey,” I say to them.

  Zoe stirs and looks up at me. “Nick?! Oh, thank God!” she cries and jumps up into my arms coughing as she does.

  “Easy,” Cody says. I think he’s talking about me, but then I see him pull Zoe back protectively. I give them a curious look.

  Zoe flushes red. She looks up at me. “Well, I guess since everyone else found out, that I should let you know too.” She looks back at Cody and he gives her an encouraging smile. “I’m pregnant,” she says softly and then coughs. Cody clutches her until the coughing subsides.

  “Let’s get you back down,” he says and forces her to sit.

  “I knew it,” I say with a grin.