As for drugs, well, we had two main players- Richard Lyon had his highbrow cocaine which he supplied, mostly, to businessmen who needed a jump. Then there was Third Street who had their heroin and other lower-end street drugs.
No one else stepped into Navesink Bank with drugs. It simply wasn't done. Maybe someone would peddle shit like pot, but neither Lyon nor Third Street gave a shit about that.
It all worked out. There were no turf wars. Everyone had their clients. No one had to worry about fighting over shit.
So when new threats started sniffing around, one or both of them were quick to get rid of it before it put down roots and became a problem for business.
They wouldn't be happy to know someone else had been operating under their noses for fucking years. First, because it might have been affecting their businesses without them knowing. Second, because it looked bad. When it came to criminals, it was best to appeal to their ego, their reputations.
"Lyon especially will be pissed that some jackass in fucking Camden is sitting around laughing about operating right underneath his nose," Mark said.
"And Third Street is fucking struggling," Shane added. "Enzo is holding it together, but the arrest rate is high, the demand is higher, and the supply is getting harder to get," Mark agreed. "He is quick to react when he thinks something is going on."
"I mean, not that we're on good terms or anything," Eli said, sounding reasonable, "but I don't think it'd be smart to put a Doberman Pincher against a Pitbull. This Dom guy has fifty dealers at least. It goes to follow that he's got security. Sending Enzo could be a suicide mission."
That was a fair point and we all knew it, sitting there for a moment to think it over.
It was my mother, who I hadn't even realized was there because she had been lingering around in the office, who came out and offered a third choice.
"We can outsource," she supplied, coming in with a goddamn plate of mini sandwiches because, while we were sitting there discussing plans to bring down a fucking drug dealer, she was still our mother.
"Outsource," my father repeated, reaching out and grabbing her, pulling her down on his lap. Thirty some-odd years together and they still acted like fucking teenagers. I had long-since gotten over the 'that's disgusting' mindset and settled firmly in the 'that must be nice' one. And, lately, 'maybe that will be me and Dusty in thirty years' one. "I'm assuming you have someone in mind."
My mom shrugged as she reached for a sandwich herself. "This is a big job. There's really only one organization in town I would trust with it."
Right.
"You want us to set up a meeting with Hailstorm." I clarified.
When it came to operations, they were pretty hard to understand. They had a big survivalist-type camp up on the hill with electrified and razor wire fences, dogs, and snipers. The walls of their buildings were made of storage containers. They had their own wells, gardens, solar power- the works. From what anyone could tell, their ranks were full of ex-military and various former criminals. What they did was, well, a little bit of everything. They chased skips. They did security and hits and fuck-knew what else.
Lo was the supposed leader, someone that up until shit went down with The Henchmen compound and V, everyone had assumed was a batshit crazy man. That wasn't how it was after all.
"Take that ten grand you were going to waste on the Dom guy and give it to them to fix the issue once and for all. They'll do it," she said, shrugging.
Maybe they would.
"How the hell would we even go about setting up a meeting with Lo?" Mark asked, raising his brows, seeming the least convinced of the plan.
It was right about then that my phone rang, a number I didn't recognize. "Ryan Mallick," I answered, getting up and moving away from the table.
"Ryan, Ross Ward," the smooth voice came from the other end, making me stiffen slightly.
First, I never gave the man my number.
Second, I couldn't see his call being a good one.
"Ross, what's going on?"
"Not really my place to notice this shit, but I know you have a woman staying with you. The blonde with the busted face. Figure you're not the one who busted it..."
"Of fucking course I wasn't the one..."
"So," he went on, cutting me off. "When I saw her leaving in a fucking panic, I figured I would just take a look out the window. Saw her hit the parking lot and get dragged into a waiting car."
Everything in me fucking froze.
I turned back to my family, my voice like a whip, "Call fucking Hailstorm right fucking now," I snapped, making them all look at me and freeze. They knew me well enough to know I never overreacted. They knew shit just hit the fan.
"Good plan," I was half-aware of Ross saying in my ear.
"They have Dusty," I added to my family as Shane moved through his contacts, being a friend of Reign who could get us in contact with Lo. "Ross, I need the video..."
"I'm already in the office," he cut me off again. "I'll have them text you the information."
"Th..." I started, but he had already ended the call.
"Reign," Shane's voice was firm. "No, it can't fucking wait. Put me in touch with Lo... now. Yeah, it's serious."
"Who called you?" Mark asked, standing, just like everyone else was suddenly.
"Ross Ward. Said he saw something off. Dusty was running out of the apartment so he looked out and she was pushed into a car."
My phone rang again and I swiped, "Ross, what now..."
"He has fucking Dusty," Bry's desperate voice met my ear.
"I know. We're working on it. How do you know?"
"I got a mother fucking picture texted to my phone telling me to meet Dom in Camden or she would pay."
"Bry, listen..."
"I'm on my fucking way. They can't be more than five minutes ahead of me and I'm breaking every mother fucking speed limit in the..."
"Bry, fucking listen to me. You can't just show up there. They won't let her go. They'll torture her and make you fucking watch," I said, my voice a low rumble because my jaw was clenched too fucking tight to speak properly.
"I can't just fucking not go, Mallick. I need to..."
"You're going," I cut him off. "Just give me five fucking minutes to figure out a smarter way."
"Yeah, this is Charlie Mallick. I need to talk to Lo right now," my father's voice carried to me, firmer than I had heard it in a long time.
I stood there as he got her on the line and relayed the situation as quickly as possible then paused to listen to whatever Lo had to say, the entire time, my heart had situated itself in my throat, slamming so hard I felt like I was choking on it. It was the first time I had ever even felt a taste of what panic felt like. And I pretty much concluded that if that feeling was how Dusty felt anytime she got out of her comfort zone, then I would take back every single thing I said about progress and tell her she could stay in my apartment for the rest of her life if that was the only way she didn't feel like this.
You know... when I got her back.
"Right. Sure. I'll tell him. Appreciate you making it a priority, Lo."
"What'd she say?" Shane asked, taking his phone back and slipping it in his pocket.
"She said it was an hour and a half drive and she and her people would come up with a plan on the way. She wants you," he said, jerking his head at me, "outside in ten and she will have you drive with her. The rest of us will follow..."
"Pops, no. Hailstorm has this. I don't need you guys putting yourself..." His brow raise was all I needed to know it was pointless to try and argue. "Fine," I said, moving out toward the front door of the bar and moving toward the street.
"Stop freaking out and think clearly," Hunter warned as he stepped outside with me. "You're not going to help her if all you do is worry about what is happening. If there is anyone who can logistically figure this situation out, it's Lo and her team of experts. Dom might be a big deal in Camden, but Hailstorm is a just plain big fucking deal to anyone. They ha
ve their reputation for a reason and they don't go into anything without thinking and planning it out. They will get her back."
As if proving his point, I could see a convoy of black SUVs coming down the hill, just a couple of minutes off.
When they pulled up, the backseat door to the first one opened and I climbed up to find myself sitting next to not Lo, but a very young, slight, black-haired, tattoo-covered slip of a girl with a laptop on her lap and an energy drink in her hand, typing impossibly fast with one hand.
"Ryan," a female voice came from the passenger seat as she turned back to face me. And there she was in all of her gorgeous blonde-haired, brown-eyed, badassness. Lo. "So, here's the sitch, Jstorm got in touch with Ross and he gave her the plates off the car and she ran them. They came back to some lowlife named Ray Cleaver who has a rap sheet as long as my right arm. Aggravated assault, assault with a deadly weapon, three possession charges, one charge with intent to distribute. Oh, and he likes to get locked up for fucking prostitutes too. From the looks of the mugshots of the prostitutes he got hauled in with, though, he gets off on making it even more unpleasant for them as an already unpleasant job is bound to be."
"Fuck," I growled, finding myself almost unnecessarily annoyed by the sound of the girl next to me tapping furiously, even if it was on the case.
"The good news here would be, from what Jstorm can tell in the video, Ray was the one driving, not the one in the back with her."
"Who was the one in back with her then?"
"The picture is grainy," Jstorm supplied, not bothering to look up from what she was doing. "But my best bet would be Dom's secondhand man who is actually his brother, Albert." With that, she swiveled the laptop in my direction to show me a quick picture of the man in question then a rewind of the clip from hotel security.
My stomach clenched hard, watching Dusty explode out of the building, frantic. Something had her freaked. Something happened to make her leave the apartment. And for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what that might be. She couldn't leave her own apartment with alarms warning her she would die if she stayed.
It made no sense.
But when she passed the car, the door swung open, and a man who did in fact look like the Albert guy pulled her in and they sped off.
"This is a good thing why?"
Jstorm turned the screen away and resumed her tap tap tapping as Lo gave me an understanding look. "Albert seems to have a cooler head in situations. He has no rap sheet. His only arrest was for driving without a license... when he was seventeen. Nothing since. But he works in the organization. So I'm thinking he's the one to keep things calm and rational. He's not going to pull over the car to let shit happen to your girl when they know he knows they're working on a clock because Dom already told Bry about the abduction. So, for the next hour and a half, she is probably okay. And you need your head in the game."
I took a deep breath, nodding. "Okay. What do you need from me?"
"Your phone," Jstorm said, doing gimme fingers at me without looking up, so I dropped it in her palm. "I need to talk to this friggen Bry guy before he does something stupid."
"Good luck with that," I said, looking out the side window. "He's in love with her. He's not likely to listen to reason right now."
Lo gave me a look I didn't exactly understand until about three seconds later, Jstorm's rapid-fire, no-nonsense, profanity-filled voice blasted into the quiet cab of the car.
"Shut up and listen to me. I'm Janie from Hailstorm and I need you to get your head out of your fucking ass for two minutes and listen to the plan..."
So then she told him and me and, apparently, Lo because I was pretty sure no one in that car knew what the plan was until Jstorm laid it out for us.
But even I had to admit that it just might work.
SIXTEEN
Dusty
Of course I wasn't on Bry's emergency contact list in his phone.
It was easy when faced with what you thought was a life or death situation to not really think things through clearly.
Maybe, three years before, that would have made sense. We used to be that tight. Along with my uncle, he was in my emergency contacts in my phone as well as my work forms. But Bry had gone through at least three phones since then and had to reprogram those numbers. He wouldn't have put me in because he would think it was an unnecessary pressure to put on me.
His loser brother was probably his emergency contact.
I realized my mistake all of ten seconds after bursting out of the building and onto the street.
Let's just say when a door from a car swings open and a big, scary dude lunges out of it, you know exactly what was going on.
I had been tricked.
And I was going to be used as some kind of bargaining chip.
"Stop fighting," the guy growled after throwing me inside, making my head crash against the other closed door, the crack making my teeth slam together painfully.
I hadn't even realized I was fighting. It was all pure, undiluted, animalistic instinct. I was flailing- kicking out with everything in me at the man who grabbed me as he got in the back with me and slammed the door.
"Could throw her in the trunk," came a suggestion from the front in a voice that sent a chill down my spine because I recognized it. It had once screamed at me, cursed at me, demanded to know where my supply was.
My head twisted to look into the front seat, seeing eyes in the rearview that made my stomach clench hard. The driver was the one who had beaten me. I would know those eyes anywhere. That, and the fact that his face was beat to hell still... thanks to Ryan. The passenger was looking over his shoulder at me and he was familiar too- the one who had searched my apartment, destroyed it, took away every bit of comfort I found there.
"Shut the fuck up and drive," came the almost alarmingly calm voice in the back with me, despite the comment from the guy driving, my leg had kicked out and collided with something hard- ribs maybe.
He looked somewhat similar to the guys in the front. There was a certain roughness to everything about him. His eyes were a dark brown, but unreadable. His face was one I might have found handsome under different circumstances with his strong, wide jaw, dark hair, and altogether hyper-masculine characteristics. He was big too- wide, strong. He seemed to take up all the space (and air) in the backseat.
My leg kicked out again, fear a collar on way too tight, choking me, making me react without thinking.
Strong hands moved out and grabbed my ankles, pinning them to his hard thighs. "Stop fighting," he repeated, but his words weren't loud or scary or even all that threatening. In fact, he said them quietly so that only the two of us could hear it, his eyes looking down at me.
If I wasn't strangling on my own terror, I might have said he looked like he was begging me to understand.
But understand what? Kidnapping me?
There was no way to understand that.
"Let me go," I whispered back, my eyes so big that I knew they were pleading and, quite frankly, my pride could take a freaking hike because there was no room for it in this situation. If begging, pleading, crying, screaming for my freaking mommy, anything could get me out of it, I was willing to try.
"Can't do that," he said back, just as lowly, his mouth barely opening to enunciate, but I understood perfectly well.
"What the fuck you doing back there, Albert, playing footsie with the bitch?" the driver asked, making my stomach turn sour again and I worried for an almost excruciating moment if I was going to be sick all over myself.
"If you don't shut your mother fucking trap and mind your own goddamn business, I am going to have you pull this car over. But the one going in the fucking trunk will be your stupid ass."
Those words shut the driver up with a small grumble as he reached for the radio and turned it up. The speaker behind my head on the door must have been blown out because nothing was coming out from there which was a blessing because I needed to think straight.
First thing was first,
the guy in the back with me, Albert, seemed to be the one who was sort of in charge. Secondly, his name was Albert. I had heard Bry slip on and off about his boss and he had called him Dom, not Albert. So who was the giant in the back with me? Just someone higher up than the muscle-bound jerks who beat and robbed me?
"I won't tell anyone," I tried, taking deep breaths, trying to keep the growing panic at bay. I wouldn't be able to think anything through if my brain was completely paralyzed by those anxiety-fueled thoughts.
"Not my call, sweetheart," he said, an apology in his voice.
I didn't need his freaking apology. I needed his empathy, his moral compass, his realization that what he was doing was beyond messed up.
I felt the tears well up- useless but unstoppable nonetheless. I blinked them away rapidly, trying to not show so much weakness. But he was watching me and his own eyes closed for a long second, like he didn't like seeing them. But when they opened, he didn't give me any kind of comforts.
"They beat me," I supplied, motioning to the front seat. "They'll do it again. And this time, no one will be there to stop them from hurting me worse, raping me. Killing me."
His face visibly hardened at 'rape', but again... no action to change what was happening.
Desperate, I twisted on the seat, turning half on my stomach with my legs still pinned and grabbed at the door, finding it locked, but not able to find any visible lock to push up. Stupid, stupid new cars. On what could only be called a sob, I reached up toward the window, slamming on it with every bit of strength I could given the awkward position. I knew I wouldn't break it, but figured maybe someone driving past or something might see it and think it was weird and call it in. You know, like how you're supposed to kick out the taillight and wave your hand out of it if you were ever in the trunk. Suddenly, I wished the driver got his wish and I was back there. Trunks had latches and at least a hope for escape in a kidnapping situation.
Ryan (The Mallick Brothers #2) Page 17