“Yes, again not Spears or Mandelson’s, but the other two yes.” Argos starts tapping away as he speaks causing Cash to grind his teeth, “Okay, I’m into Dimitrov’s laptop and by the looks of things, he’s at…” He stops talking when his cell starts ringing. His eyes narrow as he looks at the screen and when he answers, worry builds in the pit of my stomach. “Ruby, what’s wrong?... Okay, don’t touch it. I’m on my way. Get the gun and hide in the closet.” He ends the call and looks to Cash, worry so evident on his face.
“What’s happened?” Cash is on edge now.
“Someone broke into Ruby’s safe house while she was in the shower. She came out and found flowers, with a note to that reads ‘my queen’s friend’.” Argos’ breathing is heavy and his chest is rising and falling at a rapid speed. He’s pissed, probably the angriest I have ever seen him.
“It’s time to move her. Do you need me to come with you?” Cash seems hesitant to go and I wonder why? Does he not like Ruby?
“No, you stay here. I’ll move her closer to Capitol Hill, there will be more cameras and we have a few houses around the area. How the hell did he know where two of our safe houses are and manage to infiltrate them without alerting our security?” Argos packs some guns and his laptop into a bag. “Raphael has pushed me too fucking far this time.” He storms out of the house. Wow, Argos really likes Ruby!
“Cash, please tell me that you’re not going to kill the president.” I walk over to him, “I can’t lose you Cash.” I reach up and touch his face, his stubble tickles the palm of my hand, “I love you. Please find another way.” I plead with him.
His hand winds into my hair, “Fuck! Lucy, I’m doing this for you. Everything I do is for you. If killing them is the only way to make sure that you’re safe then that’s what I’m going to do.” He pulls me close to him, his lips on my forehead.
“Cash, where’s that going to get us? You locked up or worse.” I try and get him to see reason but it’s like I’m talking to a brick wall.
“I love you Lucy and I’m going to protect you. I’ve already lost you once, when you died I almost lost my fucking mind. It’s not going to happen again, I’ll kill any man, woman, or child who stands between us.”
***
I watch Cash look at Argos’ laptop trying to see where Argos left off; he had got into Dimitrov’s laptop. Cash looks lost, this isn’t his area of expertise. “We will have to wait for Argos to get back before we can move closer to him.” I tap Cash’s shoulder and he looks back at me, I nod my head for him to move out of the way and let me try. He looks at me like I’m crazy.
“I’m no Argos, but I watched a few things that he did when he came to visit me. I can do the simple base things, like find out where he is now.” I explain and I watch as his starts to grind his jaw at the mention of Argos visiting me. “What do you want to do?” I ask him, and click on a few things, then look at Cash watching me.
“Well can you find him?” Cash leans down to look at the screen. His breath hot on my neck, it’s distracting but at the same time it feels so good.
I look through the thing I remember Argos working on. After a lot longer than it would have taken him, I finally found him, “Got him.” I smile looking over at him, and he gives me a look of ‘where is he then’, “He’s on the other side of town, he’s currently sitting in a restaurant.” I tell him.
“I take it you don’t know how to hack into cameras?” There’s a hopeful tone to his voice and I can’t help but smile. He winks at me and gives me a nudge as I stare aimlessly at him.
I shake my head, “No, it took me about thirty minutes to do this.” I mean this was hard enough; God knows how Argos does this with four computers in front of him.
“Get your stuff together.” Cash walks away from me, and I look back at him, and the screen. Where the hell are we going? “Lucy get moving!” he shouts, and I get up and stand by the door, I mean I have no idea what he wants me to get, I don’t have anything here. “Let’s go.”
I follow him to the car. Getting in, I sit down and look towards Cash hoping that he will tell me something, “Cash…”
“We are going to his house, see if we can find anything.” and with that said we leave, and I sit in silence. This is not me, I mean I have no idea what the hell to do and the chance of him leaving me in the car while he goes in is a big fat zero.
As we drive through town, I look out the window and remember that I used to be just like these people. Going about my day not worrying about anything. I mean the most I stressed out about was what the lesson plan was going to be for the next day. Now I look over my shoulder every minute scared that someone is behind me holding a gun to me.
The car stops pulling me out of my thoughts, “What’s wrong?” Cash looks over at me.
“Nothing, just not sure what I’m doing here.” I tell him.
“I’m not risking leaving you alone, so where I go you go.” Cash gets out of the car. I take a deep breath and follow him. Walking around the car, I stand behind him taking a handful of his shirt as he starts to walk up the stairs. My heart it beating so fast right now.
“Lucy, you have to loosen your grip just a little on my shirt.” I feel his hand on mine, I didn’t think I was holding it so tight.
“Sorry.” I whisper to him, letting go of his shirt. I watch him playing around with the window, “Do you think this man doesn’t have an alarm?” I ask Cash, thinking there is no way this man would leave the house without having one.
“This isn’t my first time.” giving me a wink, “Stay here, back to the wall, and don’t move.” Cash tells me, and with that I push my back against the wall as he walks around the house. Do I want to know how he’s going to get in the house? No. The less I know the better.
I look around making sure that I stay hidden and no one can see me, “Lucy,” Hearing my name makes me jump away from the house and fall on my ass.
“You scared me.” I tell Cash as he stands inside the window, putting his hand out for me to grab. Crawling through the window, I can’t see anything it’s so dark in here.
“No one is home.” Cash takes out his flashlight. You’d think that no one being home would help me relax, but it doesn’t. Cash takes my hand in his and I follow him up the stairs. I look at the pictures, everyone looks so happy in them. Dimitrov with his little family, his daughter and son, his beautiful wife, look like they should be in People magazine.
I stop by one of the picture, “What’s wrong?” Cash stands next to me.
“I’ve seen this woman before. But I can’t pinpoint where, or who she is.” I stare at the photo as it’s annoying me. I know this woman, I’ve seen her somewhere.
“Time is short, come on.” I see him walk away from the corner of my eye, but I’m still focusing on the women in the photo. I take out my cell and quickly take a picture, I’ll find out who she is!
Shaking the thought out of my head, I follow Cash into the office and see him looking around at the desk. I walk around the office looking to see if I can find anything that feels wrong. I stop by a large filing cabinet. Which looks out of place, mainly because it’s really big for a cabinet; I’ve not seen one this size before. Peeking around it, to see if I can find what’s behind, “Cash, there’s something behind here.” I look over at him, he looks at the cabinet that I’m pointing too.
He pushes it to the side. I look at the door and my body shivers already knowing that something bad is behind it. Cash opens the door. I watch it opening, and Cash takes my hand again. I can’t move, I’m stuck.
My mouth goes dry. My heart jumps into my throat and my stomach wants to throw up, as my eyes lock with the girl staring back at me. Her eyes lost, scared, haunted, what has he done to her?
Cash runs out the door, and I walk over to the girl, “Everything will be okay, I promise, you will be okay now.” I move some of the hair out of her face, and my eyes move to the desk behind her, “I’m right here.” I tell the girl and move over to the table, moving things aroun
d.
“We have to leave, now.” Cash runs back into the room, grabbing the USB stick that I see, I run over to the girl again, but Cash grabs my arm.
“Not without her, we can take her with us.” I try to fight him as he pulls me out of the room. “Hades, I’m not leaving her.” I shout pulling myself away from him.
“We’ll call Tanner.” he looks at me, but knows I want to take her. “We can’t, I can’t walk into a police station, and explain this. Tanner will know what to do.” Cash tells me, and I turn around to look at the girl, watching us.
“Please Hades, we can help her,” I plead. We could have saved the others and not called Tanner, but there is something about this girl that has hit me hard. She looks so lost, so hurt. She doesn’t even have any life left in her. She’s just lying on the bed, with her ankles cuffed to the post and I don’t want her to suffer anymore.
“We can’t!” he shouts at me. He wraps his arm around my waist and picks me up and carries me out of the room, shutting the door. He puts me down and shoves the cabinet back as I fight with him to take her with us. But he’s not listening to me. He’s zoning my voice out, so he doesn’t have to listen to me.
I stop talking as I hear the front door close. Cash turns to me and puts his finger on his lip telling me not to talk. Giving him a nod, I quietly follow him out of the room.
“Honey, did you turn the alarm on before we left?” I hear him ask who I presume is his wife.
“Yes. Of course, I did!” She scoffs at him.
“Well it was off.” I look over at Cash, and he must be thinking the same as me, “I’m just going to check around the house.” I hear him, which makes Cash move faster; we both know the first place he’s going, his office.
We make our way around the house, trying to get back to the room we came in from. But we stay upstairs. As we hear the family coming up, Cash puts his hand over my mouth. I must be making more noise breathing than I thought. Cash steps closer to me, as we hear footsteps getting closer to the room. Taking a handful of Cash’s shirt again I realize, this is so bad; this is worse than bad. Leaning my head on Cash’s chest, we hear the doors close. He opens the door and looks out, then takes my hand for me to follow him.
I take one last look at the office, wondering what is happening to the girl. I know that they won’t call Tanner because Dimitrov is the Mayor, and he knows something’s happened; he's not stupid. They have been doing this for years, and never got caught.For Cash and Argos to end this, they will eventually kill them or need more than one hundred percent evidence on them. They need to catch them somehow in the act.
Once we are back in the car, Cash gets his cell out, “Tanner get to Dimitrov’s house now.” That’s all he says before ending the call and handing the cell over to me; he puts his foot down and speeds through the city. “Next time I say we are leaving, that means we are leaving!” Cash shouts the last part at me.
“We could have taken her with us; she looked like she had been…”
“And where the fuck were we supposed to take her? We can’t just walk into the police station, or the hospital! For fucks sake Lucy, do you even think? Everyone knows who you are! You’re supposed to be dead, so it wouldn’t have taken long for someone to arrest me.” I can hear Cash’s voice getting louder, but I can also see he’s trying not to lose it all together.
“We could have brought her with us, and Argos could…”
“Stop Lucy!” Cash shouts and it makes me jump, “You think it’s easy for me to leave them there? No, it’s not. It’s fucking hard, but you have to and next time you listen.” I don’t answer him back. I don’t have the strength to fight him about this, I mean I would but his so angry at the moment.
The rest of the car ride is quite; nothing is said between us. As the car pulls into the lair I get out and make my way into the kitchen. I’m so hungry I need food. I see Argos on his laptop, and I turn to Cash, “Will you ask him how Ruby is?” I ask him, I wanted to go to bed and sleep.
“Is Ruby okay?” Cash asks him.
Argos turns to me, “Yeah I moved her closer to us, and it’s a new place so no one should really know where she is. Only I know and I haven’t put the new hide out in the computer. So, if someone somehow hacks into my system they still won’t know.” He turns to face Cash whose eyes are staring into mine, and I break the contact and dive into the bag of takeout that Argos brought.
“What about the flowers?” Cash asks his eyes still on me.
“The person paid by cash, so I can’t trace anything.” Argos gets back to his screen, not really sure what he’s looking up at the moment.
“And where the fuck is her dad?” Cash shouts at Argos. I’m confused; does Cash think my dad has something to do with this?
“What the fuck is wrong with you? I’m tracking him; he’s fine at the moment!” Argos looks over to me, “He’s moving around. I’m trying to see if I can see if he’s got a cell on him, so I can call him for you.” I give him a smile, as I turn to the screen and watch what he’s doing. “So, what the fuck is up your ass? Going through withdrawals? Need a fix by killing someone?” Argos says to Cash before he starts laughing to himself, and I bite my inner cheek to stop myself from smiling.
“Fuck you. Has Tanner called yet?”
“Not yet, but he got to Dimitrov’s house. So I’m just waiting.” Argos tells him. Which makes me wonder: how the hell does he know that Cash called Tanner? Have these two just been working together for so long that they know what the other is going to do before they even tell each other?
Rubbing my head, I walk over to the kitchen to get some pain killers. My head is getting worse and worse. Being around all this is really starting to take its toll on me, and sooner or later I’m going to crack. Leaning on the counter, I close my eyes for a moment. Just to take myself to a place away from here even if it’s only for a few seconds. I just need to go somewhere with people smiling, and laughing; and in my head, that is mine and Ruby’s first night out in college. I still remember how much fun the night was, and how we laughed so hard that our stomachs were hurting us.
I open my eyes when I hear the sound of a cell ringing, I stay where I am for a moment as I listen to Argos talking. He must have it on speaker as I can hear Tanner.
“Is Hades there?” I hear Tanner ask, and I walk over to them.
“He’s here.” Argos tells him, I’m hoping this is good news; I could do with some good news.
“I’ve sent Argos a video. Good news is we have arrested Dimitrov and with the video he won’t be going anywhere.” Looking at the screen as Argos starts the video.
“Starting the video now.” Argos tells him.
I watch as the video is starts at Dimitrov’s house. I hear Tanner talking in the background telling the person to make sure that they record everything, and they will move in two minutes.
“Tanner, look.” I hear someone call him. My eyes move the man walking out of the house with a black bag. Dimitrov walks out behind him. Then the other man throws the bag in the back of the car. I have the worst feeling about this; this is the worst thing that can happen.
“Follow them.” Tanner tells the driver, and we watch them driving behind the car.
Why did no one go in the house? They would have found something in the house, they would have found information in the house. I can’t take my eyes away from the screen, I’ve been watching for a while now.
“Lucy sit down,” I hear Argos, and I walk away from him and Cash. There can be only one reason that they are driving for so long. Even though I thought the worst when I saw the black bag, I still had some hope. But the longer they are driving the more I know.
Leaning on the table, I watch the screen waiting for something to happen. They stop by a bridge, in the middle of nowhere. I mean there are no cars to be seen on the camera. Of course, they weren’t about to throw a body in a busy area. I watch the man pull the body out of the back. But just as he goes to throw her in the water, I hear car doors slamming shut
and I see the man with the camera running towards them.
I hear a lot of shouting, not able to make out what they are saying, but I see one of the officers throw the man and another throw Dimitrov on the floor. The officers then put cuffs on them. The camera moves towards the black bag. My eyes are already full of water as the zipper is pulled down and I see the dead eyes of the girl I promised that she would be okay. I lied to her, I made a promise that I couldn’t keep.
As my eyes stare at the girl, I hear Cash and Argos talking to Tanner. They are not paying attention to me as I look at the girl and think of what she must have gone through during the time she was locked in the room.
I close my eyes as I see Cash walking over to me. I feel his hand on my cheek, and I open my eyes to look at him.
“Lucy…”
“Got nothing to say,” I say and walk away from him. I know this is not his fault, but at the moment I still believe that we could have took her, and brought her with us. And for me to stay calm I think I need to take a step back from him for a moment.
Chapter 16
Cash
“This is my queue to leave. You did the right thing and she’ll see that too. I’m going to take Ruby something to eat; she’s a bit shaken after finding the flowers and note. She still doesn’t know Lucy’s alive and I don’t know whether or not to tell her.” He seems to be serious about her, that’s new for him. He’s never had a serious relationship, he doesn’t want to be lying to her.
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