by Roxie Rivera
Fury raged through Ben like a wildfire. His fists curled at his sides, and he fought the urge to punch the nearest wall. He wanted to destroy the man who had dared to hurt Aston.
“We think it was Gary Metcalfe that grabbed them,” Eric said finally. He tucked his phone into the pocket of his thin jacket. “His wife and baby went missing last night. Before you ask,” he held up a hand, “it wasn’t us or the Feds. I’ve already been to see Nikolai who assured me that none of you had them.”
“We don’t,” Besian confirmed.
“You sure? Because it’s a strange coincidence that a 9-1-1 call came from a tower right near that Target warning that someone wanted to grab Gary’s wife and baby,” Eric said with narrowed eyes. “An hour later, Aston and Marley are grabbed from that same parking lot by Gary? I mean, come on.”
“You calling me a liar?” Besian asked.
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Eric replied.
Besian scoffed and shook his head. “We don’t have them. Period. End of fucking story. If we did, I would be on the phone right now trading them for Aston and Marley.”
“So, who has them?” Eric asked, clearly out of his depth now. “We have nothing. No leads. Unless you know something that can help us, I don’t have a good feeling about the girls making it through the night.”
Hearing the detective assess the situation that way was like a punch to the gut. Ben’s anger disappeared as he felt like puking. Eric was right. If Gary had taken Aston and Marley to try to get his wife and baby back, it wasn’t going to work. The people who had his family would leave no loose ends. They would kill all five of them and be done with it.
As if having the same thought, Besian met his gaze. They shared a look that communicated what they were both thinking. We have to get the fuck out of here and shake any police that follow us.
“There’s something else, Ben.” Reluctantly, he said, “We searched Marley’s car. One of the bags had two pregnancy tests in it and a bottle of prenatal vitamins.”
Staggered by the information, Ben couldn’t hear anything but the pounding of blood against his eardrums. Pregnant?
At any other time, he would have taken the news of a possible baby with Aston as something to smile about and enjoy. Now, though, it added an even worse layer of terror. He didn’t even want to think about what a stun gun could do to a tiny little baby. Would she miscarry? Alone? Tied up in the dark?
“We don’t know which one of them bought them,” Eric continued.
“Marley isn’t seeing anyone right now,” he answered. “It had to be Aston.”
Besian placed a steadying hand on his shoulder. He spoke to him in Albanian, his voice low as he promised, “Stay calm. We’ll find them—and then we’ll kill that motherfucker.”
“I’m not even going to ask you translate that,” Eric said, raising his hands. “Since I can tell you aren’t going to cooperate, I’m out of here. I said what I came to say. We’ll be working the case. If you learn anything that might be helpful and you want to share, you know how to find me.”
“Ne 36 gusht,” Besian muttered.
Ben’s mouth curved with the ghost of a smile at that. On August 36. In other words, fucking never.
Eric hesitated in the doorway. “I hope you find her, Ben.”
After he was gone, Ben wondered if he really did. As if reading his mind, Kostya said, “He lost a girl he loved. He’s been an asshole ever since.”
Ben eyed Besian as he walked to his desk and opened the top drawer. He withdrew a shoulder holster and the two Berettas he preferred. This was the second time someone had kidnapped Marley in less than a year. The first time, Besian had taken a bullet to the chest to protect her. Ben hoped like hell they weren’t about to repeat history.
“Let’s go.” Besian strode by them and out the door.
“Where?” Ben asked, looking to Kostya for guidance. If anyone had an idea where to start their search, he would.
Kostya ignored him and lifted his phone to his ear. Ben trailed the cleaner as he left the office. “It’s me. I need the list of properties you were working on earlier. Call me when you have it.”
Without an invitation, Kostya slid into the front passenger seat of Besian’s waiting car. Ben took a spot in the back. He hated feeling out of control and unable to help. He swallowed the pain threatening to overwhelm him.
Kostya was on the phone again. He spoke hurriedly in Russian, and Ben only managed to understand a handful of the words. He seemed to be telling Nikolai about the kidnapping of Aston and Marley. When he hung up, he said, “Anything you need, he’ll give.”
The cleaner’s phone chimed, and he swiped his finger across the screen. He rattled off an address. “Let’s try there first.”
Ben closed his eyes and cursed silently. This was going to take forever.
What if Aston doesn’t have that much time?
Chapter Fourteen
“I am getting really fucking tired of this,” Marley grumbled from somewhere behind me. “Psycho criminal assholes kidnapping me and tying me up,” she muttered. “I hate this damn town.”
As I came to on the hard, cheaply carpeted floor, I blinked rapidly. My stomach lurched, and I barely had enough time to turn my head before a rush of vomit escaped.
“Aston! Shit. Hang on.” After a bit of huffing and scooting, Marley got close enough to help me. She used her bound wrists to hold my head as I wretched. “Hey! Asshole! We need help!”
None other than Gary Metcalfe appeared in the doorway of what appeared to be an empty office. His panicked gaze dropped to the pile of mess I had made.
“Don’t just stand there!” Marley snapped angrily. “She’s pregnant. She needs some water and a towel or something.”
“Pregnant?” he repeated, horrified.
“Did I stutter?” Marley yelled. “Get us some water!”
He snapped to and ran from the room, hopefully to find the water Marley had ordered. My throat was on fire, and a terrible taste clung to my mouth. With Marley’s help, I managed to sit up despite the plastic ties on my wrists and ankles. My gaze finally traveled to her face, and I gasped. “Marley! Your face!”
“It looks worse than it is,” she assured me. “I don’t think anything is broken.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I touched all the sore spots. My bones feel normal.”
Glaring at the empty doorway, I swore, “I’m going to kill him.”
“Not if I get to him first,” she said under her breath.
Noticing the sheen of sweat and the strange pallor to her skin, I asked, “Are you feeling okay?”
“Just kind of anxious feeling,” she said, waving me off. “It’s nothing.”
“It doesn’t look like nothing.”
“It’s fine. It’s probably just low blood sugar or something. We got electrocuted by that psycho. I’m sure that burned through our energy reserves.”
She was trying to keep me calm by downplaying her situation, but I sensed there was more to it than just low blood sugar.
“I’m sorry, Marley.” Unable to control my emotions, I started crying. Not quietly either. Big, ugly, loud sobs. “I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”
“Hey, no,” she soothed. “This isn’t your fault. It’s not my fault. It’s not even Ben’s fault. This is the fault of greedy, stupid men.”
“She’s right,” Gary said as he cautiously entered the room where he had stowed us. He had a paper cup with water in one hand and some wet paper towels in the other. “We were greedy and stupid.” He gently tipped the cup to my mouth. “Here. Drink.”
Grateful for the water, I gulped it down. He carefully wiped my face and then dragged me into a more comfortable position leaning against a wall. For a moment, I considered hitting him with my fists, but I couldn’t possibly get up fast enough to run. I had no idea where we were or if we could even get help. For now, it was safer to sit here.
Marley wasn’t nearly as cooperative as he tried t
o help her sit next to me. She insulted and kicked at him, but he didn’t stop trying and eventually got her leaned against the wall.
“I know you two won’t believe me,” he said, stepping back from us, “but I don’t want to hurt you. That’s not the plan.”
“What is the plan?” I asked, wondering what the hell he was trying to accomplish by kidnapping us. “You have to know that there are people looking for us. I’m sure someone called 9-1-1 at Target, and I know that Ben is going to lose it when he realizes I’m missing.”
“Spider will have the entire club searching the city for me,” Marley added. “You’re so screwed, man.”
“I was screwed before I grabbed you two.” Gary snatched the only chair in the room and sank down on it. Head hung low, he sighed and scrubbed his fingers through his hair. “They took Margie and Elliot.”
Marley and I exchanged glances before I asked, “Who took them?”
“Triad,” he said and roughly wiped his face. “It was never supposed to go like this. It was just a chance to make some extra money. Margie was climbing higher and higher, bringing in more money and bagging more promotions, and I was stagnant. She said she didn’t care, but I was too dumb to believe her. She didn’t care. At all. It was never about money for her.”
His ramblings weren’t meant for us. He seemed to be confessing all his transgressions as if desperate to clean himself of the mistakes he had made.
“Were you laundering money?” I asked, deciding I wanted to know the truth—whatever it was. “Did Calvin rope you into it?”
“Yeah.” Gary sat back in his chair. “He had used my company to hold some money when he liquidated the assets he inherited from his mother. He seemed a bit off, but I chalked it up to being raised with money and let it go. When he approached me three years ago with this money laundering scheme, I said no. I didn’t want any part of it. I was proud of the business I had built.”
“But?” Marley asked.
“But I couldn’t stop thinking about the potential for profit,” he admitted. “I saw dollar signs and ignored the risk. I accepted his offer, and he introduced me to Paul Chen. Paul was the connection between the Triad and Calvin. There were a couple of real estate agents we used for the transactions. They’re all connected to the Triad through family back in China. We sat down and figured out how the scheme would function and got to work for the Chinese mafia.”
“Selling and buying commercial real estate through LLC’s and cutouts,” I clarified.
“Yeah. It was simple. Nothing tricky or fancy. It was easy, under the radar shit. We had layers of shell companies between the money coming from China, my company and the clean money flowing into US banks. It was perfect.”
“Until?” Marley wondered.
“Until that crazy fucker decided he was going to be some big-time drug kingpin,” Greg snarled. “He kept talking about moving in on cartel territory and cutting them out of the Houston drug business. He wanted to be the funnel for Asian narcotics. Crazy bastard,” he muttered. “He had so many grand ideas, but he was shit at the follow through. After he disappeared, Paul and I were fucked,” Gary continued. “We looked everywhere for him. We think he was probably offed by the cartel for trying to shove into their territory.”
“Probably,” I agreed, assiduously ignoring Marley’s glances.
“Once he was gone, we realized the paranoid asshole had moved money owed to the Chinese into accounts only he could access. The Triad didn’t give a shit. They wanted their payouts.”
Suddenly, it made sense to me. “So, you started siphoning legit client funds to pay the mafia?”
“Exactly,” Gary said. “I didn’t have a choice. These guys are brutal. I thought I could just float the funds until we could get access to those accounts.”
“But you got caught,” Marley guessed.
Gary nodded. “Some of my legitimate clients needed funds to buy properties, and I didn’t have it. I tried to dodge them, but that only lasts so long. By the time Margie told me that the Feds were questioning her at work, I knew it was over. At that point, I had to make a decision. The only thing that mattered to me was keeping Margie and Elliot safe.”
“By robbing the Albanians? And that other gang?”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand. I needed the money. I had to make my payments or else they were going to kill us. I had to keep my family safe.”
“They would have been safer with the FBI,” Marley interjected as if he were the stupidest man she had ever met. “Why didn’t you just drive straight to the police department and turn yourself in and ask for help protecting your family?”
“Obviously, I’m a fucking idiot who doesn’t think clearly when I’m stressed,” Gary shouted angrily. “I’m a fuck up, okay? I panicked.”
“No,” Marley countered, “you didn’t panic. You’re a coward. You decided to risk your wife and your baby rather than man up and admit your crimes to the police. You’re afraid of prison. You ran like a little bitch, playing all these convoluted games, and now your wife and baby are probably going to die.”
Shocked into silence by her outburst, Gary looked ashen and shaken. It must have been hard to hear the truth. It must have been difficult to swallow that he had failed to protect his family.
Worried that Marley may have pushed him too far, I gently asked, “How much money do you need to get square with the Triad?”
His gaze whipped to my face. “What?”
“How much do you need?”
“Millions.”
“Like five or fifty?” I asked, exasperated. “It matters.”
“Thirteen point six.”
“Okay.” I searched my brain for the easiest way to get my hands on that kind of money even though I had absolutely no intention to follow through with it. “It’s Sunday, and I won’t be able to access to funds until tomorrow. I would have to structure it in a way that we don’t run afoul of the IRS. I don’t need trouble like that.”
“You cannot be serious,” Marley interrupted. “You are not giving this asshole money.”
“No, I’m not giving him money,” I agreed, hoping she would continue arguing with me to make my offer seem real. “I’m going to give it to the Triad, but only after they release Margie and the baby.”
“They’ll just come back for more,” Marley argued. “You cannot deal with these people. They’re criminals. Once you start feeding them cash, they will never stop asking for more.”
“So, I’m just supposed to let Margie and the baby die?” I hissed angrily. “What do you expect me to do, Marley?”
“Not this,” she ground out. “You can’t do this.”
“I can do whatever the hell I want with my money.”
“You’re making a mistake,” she insisted. “You’ll regret this, Aston.”
“Probably,” I agreed.
Pursing her lips, Marley blew out a noisy breath and refused to look at me. I turned my attention back to Gary who seemed stunned by my offer. “Do you have a way to contact them?”
He nodded. “They aren’t very open to negotiation.”
“You haven’t ever heard me negotiate.”
He hesitated and then stood up, reaching into his pocket and retrieving a pocket knife. I held my breath as he knelt in front of me and cut the ties binding my wrists and ankles. Finally able to move, I stretched my cramping neck and shoulders. When he knelt in front of Marley, Gary seemed reluctant to release her. I didn’t blame him. She was probably going to wallop him for what he had done to her face.
“You kick me or hit me, and I’m going to stab you,” he warned.
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever, tough guy.”
He scowled at her as he cut the ties and hurried to get out range. Pocket knife still in hand, he waited to see if Marley was going to make a go of it. When she stayed next to me, he relaxed a bit. “I’m going to get one of the burners I brought. I’ll be right back.”
Clearly not trusting us to stay put, he locked the do
or from the outside, caging us inside. Marley pushed off the floor and stood. Reaching down, she helped me to my feet. I felt woozy, and she stepped into me, bracing my body with her own. “You okay?”
“Just dizzy,” I said with a nonchalant wave of my hand. “I’ll be fine.”
“You need to see a doctor.”
“So do you,” I replied, noting her terribly battered face and her shaking hands.
“I’m not the one who is knocked up.”
“I may not be either.”
She shot me a really look. “So,” she sighed, “what’s the plan? Because I know you aren’t crazy enough to give money to the Triad.”
“I couldn’t think of a better way to get him to believe we’re on his side.”
“It worked.”
“Do you know where we are? Did you see how we got in here or how to get out?”
“We’re on the third floor,” she said with certainty. “You were passed out when we got here so he perp-walked me up here. We used the elevators. He locked me in here. He went back out to get you. I think we could find our way out. We should probably stick to the stairs.”
“And then what?”
“If we can knock him down or out, we can steal his keys and phone and make a run for it.”
“And if we can’t? If he really does stab one of us?”
“He won’t stab you,” she said, sounding a bit breathless. She seemed to be sweating again, and my concern skyrocketed. “You have access to the money he needs.”
“I don’t want him to stab you!”
“Then we better not let him get away from us if we decide to attack him,” she said decisively. “Go watch the window. Let me know when he’s coming.”
“Okay.”
She glanced around the room as if searching for makeshift weapons. “The chair is too bulky to throw or swing.” She hurried to the desk and started rifling through the drawers. “Jackpot!” She produced a letter opener and a pair of scissors and slashed them through the air. “Now whose about to get stabbed?”
“You are really scary sometimes.” I stared at her in a new light. “Like really scary.” Movement outside caught my attention. Lowering my voice, I hissed, “He’s coming!”