Ford Security

by Clara Kendrick

  "No," I say flatly, quite sure that I'm not convincing Dominic when I can't even convince myself. "I've never seen this man before in my life." I nod at Tosha. "Take him to the car."

  "I'm not going anywhere," Dominic protests as Tosha latches onto his arm. "We all leave together."

  "You're not in charge here," I feel the need to inform him. "Now get the hell in the car."

  His eyes shift between me and the driver and then finally the passenger before he acknowledges that he's no longer in control and allows Tosha to take him back to the car.

  When I can hear the car door closing behind me, I take a measured step towards the driver and shake my gun at him. Alice remains standing behind me with her gun aimed at the passenger. If either of the two men should try anything, she won't hesitate to pull the trigger. She's always been overprotective of both me and Tosha.

  The driver wets his lips and swallows nervously. He's about to say something and I can only hope that it's not something stupid. "Are you sure I don't know you?"

  I take a quick glance behind me at my car that Tosha and Dominic are in before looking back to the driver with a severe look. "I guess you'll find out soon enough."

  I nod at Alice to begin the retreat to the car. Both of us pace backwards with our guns still aimed squarely ahead, the men continue standing still with her hands held high above their heads. They give each other a look but that's just about all they can do. To this very moment, I'm still not sure if they are armed but something tells me that for whatever reason, they are not. If they were, I imagine they would have fired at us long before they ran over the homemade spike strip.

  I back all the way up until my back meets the metal of my car. And then with Alice keeping an eye on the situation at hand, I circle around to the driver seat and hop in. Alice follow suit, all the while still making sure that the men don't make a move.

  Alice closes the door behind her and I immediately make a U-turn and prepare to speed away. Almost as soon as my feet hit the gas, gunfire begins to rain upon the back of the car. My calculations weren't correct but I know as soon as I round the upcoming corner, they won't be able to give chase because they no longer have reliable transportation. By the time they can get a lift, we will all be safe and sound back at our apartment and office.

  I glance over to Dominic in the passenger seat. And though I had expected a relieved look on his face, that's not what I see.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  DOMINIC

  I'm stoic in the passenger seat but it's only because I'm trying to think, trying to wrap my head around who Katie claims to be and who she really is. I'm torn between the idea that she's telling me the truth and that she's telling me anything but; telling me half truths with enough secrecy and lies sprinkled in to lure me into some kind of trap.

  Katie and her two friends are more than capable of handling themselves. They showed that when they rescued me from the back of the van. And though I'm grateful for their help, I can't help but feeling I'm not getting the whole story and that's more than aggravating. It makes me not trust her, and I've had issues trusting her since I met her earlier today.

  Her and I are going to have a long talk, but I don't want to have that talk in front of her two friends. It would be a three on one fight and I'm not cut out for that. Assuming their intentions are anything but good, starting an argument or a fight with Katie right now would be the equivalent of starting a fight with all three of them. Hell, if I angered them enough they could just pop a bullet into the back of my head.

  No thanks.

  I cock my head sideways and stare out the window as we drive deeper and deeper into the heart of the city. Drive into the sea of skyscrapers, leaving behind the flatter parts of the city and the Hollywood Hills behind. It's now deep into the night and about to turn into the next day and I still have no answers. All I've gotten is a pounding headache and a tranquilizer dart in my back.

  We pull curbside to an expensive, luxurious apartment complex and then take a sharp right turn into a underground parking garage. I've always been apprehensive about parking garages. I've seen one too many movies and have heard one too many stories. And though I'm not claustrophobic, I often feel as if I am when I'm in the confines of a parking garage. There's just something unsettling about them that can shake a man like me to the very core.

  I tense up a little as we circle the first floor and then drive deeper underground until we find ourselves three floors deep. We park at a space just across from an elevator.

  "Don't you people have valet services?" I question her with a slight smirk. "I guess I should have known you were rich by the car you drive."

  "To answer your first question…" She kills the ignition, throws a hand behind my headrest, and then looks at me. "We do have valet services twenty-four hours a day, but I think it would be a little suspect if I had a valet person drive my bullet-riddled car into the garage. And to answer your second question—"

  "The second part wasn't a question," I interrupt her and clear my throat, turn my head and look out the window at the sea of luxurious import cars beside me. "I guess you make a lot of money being a spy."

  "We are not spies," Alice and Tosha both correct me in unison from the backseat. On the long drive back from the Hollywood Hills, we didn't exactly talk much but Katie did introduce me to her two best friends and coworkers, partners in crime. I wasn't told much information other than their names but I figure that that is for the better.

  I roll my eyes at the suggestion that they're not spies. They may not call themselves that but on some level they fit the description. They're not government spies but rather independent spies, dealing in the arts of sabotage, deception, and outright lies.

  If there's one thing I've learned in this life, it's to never trust spies.

  "Do you want to come inside?" Katie questions me, and I can't help but to narrow my eyes on her at the mere suggestion. She glances into the rearview mirror to steal Alice in Tosha's attention. "Can you girls go inside so Dominic and I can talk alone?"

  Alice nods and pops her door open before Tosha does the same. Soon enough they are out of the car and marching towards the elevator, leaving Katie and I alone to talk as requested.

  I don't think she realizes what we are about to talk about.

  She shuffles herself against the driver door and positions herself so she can eye me directly. "You should be thankful that I saved your life."

  "I am thankful," I point out to her and then scratch at my nose. "I'm not saying I wouldn't have found a way out of the situation on my own but thank you for expediting that."

  "Thank yous go a long way." She sighs and sinks into her seat slightly. "And I guess I should thank you in advance for helping me."

  She's getting ahead of herself. "I haven't said I'm going to help you because I don't even know what you need help with."

  "I saved your life so I don't think you're in any position to be asking questions."

  "Right," I nod and bite into my bottom lip. "But you're kind of making me ask questions. You say you want and need my help but from the outside, I don't understand what for."

  "I told you," she sighs heavily, "I want to help you find your sister."

  "I'm sorry." I shake my head. "That isn't going to cut it." Her teeth mash into her lower lip and she cranes her head sideways to look out the window, apparently she's now ignoring me. She drops her head slightly and sighs, mumbles something under her breath that I can't quite make out. She purses her lips in contemplation and then looks me dead in the eye. "I don't know how else to say this but…” Her words trail off as if she's not going to complete her sentence.

  "You're going to have to say something." I shrug with apathy. "You can start by telling me the truth about who you are because I'm telling you right now that I don't believe a word you're saying."

  "I told you who I am."

  "You have to see this from my point of view." I shake my head and wet my lips, swallow with frustration. "None of this makes sense
because I can't find a motive for why you are so hell bent on helping me help you."

  "We have so much more in common than you possibly know." She pushes her tongue against her cheek. "I have a brother. His name is Victor strong and I haven't seen him for eight years."

  I shift slightly in my seat as the picture becomes a little clearer. "Did Seth Grimm take him from you?"

  "Yeah…" She nods and chuckles uncomfortably. "I used to work for Seth Grimm. I wasn't on his payroll or anything, but occasionally he'd ask me to do something for him, to gather information on some of his enemies. And for a while, he paid quite handsomely for the task."

  "But eventually he decided he could get what he needed from you for free, right?" Everything is suddenly becoming clear. "So, he took your brother as leverage to use against you?"

  "That's just about the whole story." She sighs and collects the keys from the ignition and drops them into her lap. "I spent so much of my time over the last eight years trying to find Victor, but every trail always ended up as a dead-end. After I heard that Seth had died in that warehouse explosion, I nearly lost all hope until I realized that Seth himself didn't take my brother. Like everything else he ever did, he outsourced the kidnapping of my brother." Maybe it's because she's uncomfortable opening up to me or maybe because she's still telling me only half-truths, but she looks away from me and stares blankly ahead at the elevator in front of us. "I began to track down all of his living associates and one by one I gathered intel on each and every one of them. I knew that if I could find the person with the knowledge of my brother's whereabouts than I could maybe find him. The trail eventually led me to Christopher Lawson and I confronted him."

  "So, he knows who you are?"

  She answers my inquiry with a gentle nod. "Our first meeting didn't exactly go as planned. I had shown up to an arranged dinner under the pretense that we were about to have a business conversation. Somehow things took a turn and when I brought up the fact that I figured he knew where I could find my long-lost sibling, he said that I was barking up the wrong tree. He quickly ended the dinner and went on his way to the Grimm industries event." She chuckled slowly but nothing about this is funny. "I actually followed him there and waited in the parking lot for him to return. But you of all people know how that night ended and for all I knew, he died in the explosion. As luck or fate would have it, in the aftermath of the explosion I came across a piece of paper floating in the wind. Something told me to grab it before I left the scene and as I sat in my car just a few blocks down from the office building, I realized that what was written on a piece of paper was the key to finding my brother."

  She has my full attention now. "What was written on it?"

  She passes me a knowing look. "It was the first page of a multipage document. My best guess is that it was a partial file that Seth had kept on all of his associates. Something like a failsafe in case something should happen to him so that he could release incriminating evidence on every one of his associates."

  I feel as if she's beating around the bush, as if she doesn't want to share what was written on that piece of paper. I angle myself so that I'm able to look at her more fully and I stare her down. "You're still not answering my question."

  "It would seem that I have a problem doing that, huh?" She forces a smile and under the pale yellow lights of the parking garage, I think I take notice for the first time how truly beautiful she is. But I have to force myself to push those thoughts away because it's the last thing I need to be distracted with right now. "Basically on the paper it had mentioned that Christopher Lawson himself was responsible for overseeing the kidnapping of thirteen individuals, each and every one of them to be used as leverage against others." Her lips rollover each other, trembling underneath the weight of the revelation. "Your sister's name, Shelby Ford, was one of the thirteen names."

  More than ever before, I'm determined to track down Christopher Lawson and end his life. Some people would say that's an easy way out for someone like him, but I digress. For people like him, it's the only way. "Was Victor one of the names?"

  She shakes her head furiously as wetness pools at the corner of her eyes. She's fighting back tears and I can tell she's not used to being vulnerable or being truthful for that matter. "No, but like I said there were pages missing. And whether or not Christopher Lawson himself knows where my brother is, I honestly feel like if we find Shelby then it will lead directly to my brother."

  I run my thumb over my lip in contemplation. There’s still something I can't quite figure out. "Why weren’t you honest with me from the beginning? It would have been easier that way and maybe I would have been more inclined to work with you."

  "I honestly feel as if I was in a lose-lose situation. If I told you the truth, I thought you would think it was a little too on the nose and suspicious."

  "But what you have to understand is that by being deceptive, it makes me not want to trust you."

  "We share the same common goal." She dries the wetness in her eyes with her fingers. "To find our long-lost siblings."

  "Is that the only reason?"

  Her shoulders rise with an effortless shrug. "It's all that I'm willing to share."

  That's all I need to hear right now. She still holding back parts of the truth from me and I can't decide if I'm willing to trust her at all. I reach for the door handle and pop the door open. "I'll be in contact."

  "Where are you going?" She cries out to me, almost in defeat. "Are you really leaving right now?"

  "Yes, I'm leaving." I climb out of the car and then turn around, brace one hand on the roof and then duck down so that my eyes are level with hers. "And to answer your other question, I need to think about some things."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  DOMINIC

  I left Katie in the garage without promising her I would return. Deep down, I know that the two of us can help each other, but I'm just not sure at this point if I'm willing to go down into the rabbit hole with her. A part of me is saying that I can find Shelby on my own while the other part of me is screaming at me, calling me an idiot for not accepting her help.

  After all, what's the worst that could happen? Everything she has said could be a lie, everything could be an intricate trap that she set for me. Hell, for all I know she could be working with Christopher Lawson himself.

  But if there's anything in this world worth risking my life for, it's for the possibility that I could find my sister. I've spent the last ten years looking for her. Sometimes I wouldn't actively be looking for her but I would look over my shoulder and just hope against all odds that she would be standing behind me. Every time someone ever knocked on my door, I prayed that it was her. It wasn't long before I stopped believing in prayer because all that ever gave me was broken hopes. Maybe that's why I'm afraid to get involved with Katie now, because I've been disappointed so many times before.

  I'm lying in my bed on the verge of falling asleep. After a day like today, I could use a long night sleep but something tells me I won't be able to sleep for long. My eyelids hang heavy over my eyes and soon enough I'll be fast asleep. And like most nights, I imagine that I'll dream about her. I’ll dream about the sister that was stolen from me. Sometimes the dreams are nice and we are reacquainted. Other times, they are nightmares. Sometimes in my dreams, I find her but it's too late to save her. Sometimes she's already dead and other times, in the worst of the dreams, she finds me and she's not who she used to be. In those nightmares, she's come to kill me.

  ###

  I fell asleep with my phone held tight in my hand, waiting for the same phone call I've been waiting for all of these years. So when it vibrates in my hands, stealing my attention from a deep sleep with no dreams, I’m jolted wide-awake and throw myself up in bed.

  My heart pounds against my chest as I glance down at my phone to see a message from Chase telling me that I need to meet him at the Ford compound immediately because there's been an emergency. I shoot a quick text back saying that I'm on my way.

>   I don't ask any questions. I just jump immediately into my clothes, run out the front door of my house, and jump into my car.

  ###

  I’m not the happiest man in the world right now, but it’s not like I was going to sleep much longer anyways. Whatever the emergency is right now with Chase, I’m hoping it’s not too serious but I’m also hoping it will help me clear my head. The elevator gears grind against each other as the elevator shaft descends underground, the brick walls behind me giving way to slate stone walls.

  Once I reach my destination, the elevator doors peel open and I exit out into the compound. The computer station right outside the elevator is dark and all the monitors are off. I’ve never quite seen the place this quiet or dark and it gives off a foreboding sense. Almost all of the lights are off except for the emergency red lights that paint the underground compound in eerie shades of blood-red.

  I drop a hand steady against the gun in my holster as I cautiously make my way deeper into the compound. Something isn’t right here and though I can’t quite put my finger on what, I’m starting to believe that Chase’s phone has been compromised by an enemy of mine.

  I step past the monitors and then step into the training arena before lights flash on, blinding me. I throw my hands over my eyes to try and block out the sudden light but it’s not much use. My eyes squint as I slowly adjust to the light and when I do, I notice that Chase is standing behind a sequence of five chairs; four of them all in a row and the fifth chair facing opposite the others. Two of the chairs on one side are occupied by Zach and Zane—the wonder twins—while Chase stands behind another.

  Lights are cast down onto the chairs like spotlights, leaving the rest of the compound in shadowy darkness.

  “What the hell is this?”