Fortune and Fate (Baum's Boxing Book 2)

by E M Lindsey

  René laughed again. “How about this for motivation? I’ve already sent a text from your boyfriend’s phone here. To a good friend of yours—the one with the pregnant wife and daughter? I told him I needed help, and he’s on his way. He’ll be here in twenty minutes. If you’re not done by then, I’ll kill him first. Then your boyfriend, then I might take your little girl with me and show her all the wonders of the world. How does that sound?” Before René let him get a word in, he finished with, “If you’re a good boy and do as I ask, then your two precious things can go off with your little friend and we can be done. For good.”

  “Do it,” McCaig said quietly.

  René chuckled low into the phone. “Listen to your friend. The files are in Williams’ office, I think you know where it is. I’ll keep the phone here waiting.”

  He heard it when the call was disconnected, and before he could stand up and fly into a rage, McCaig put a hand on either shoulder, squeezing. It sent strange waves of sensation, having his burned arm squeezed like that, but the feeling of it brought him right back to the moment and oddly, he was grateful.

  “If you think we havnae put a tail on your friend after he showed up here, you’re more foolish than I thought,” he told Cole softly.

  In ordinary circumstances, Cole would have realized that, but the knowledge of it now calmed him almost instantly. “What do you need from me?”

  McCaig removed his hands, and Cole heard a faint tapping sound, like the man was sending a message. “I need time. He’s likely aware of the tail on Mr. Baum, which means we need one to act as a decoy. Trust me on this, I can save your daughter and your boyfriend.”

  Briefly, it occurred to Cole that he hadn’t once corrected the boyfriend assumption. And he said a silent prayer to a god he wasn’t sure ever listened, that if they got through this in one piece, he’d spend the rest of his days making it all up to everyone—to Claire, to Isabel, to Ryan. Everything he thought was real had to be reexamined and reevaluated, but for now, he just wanted this.

  And he could do this.

  “I can buy you time, but I will need help. If he destroyed all of my equipment, there’s not a lot I can do without you reading me exactly what’s on the screen.”

  “Lead the way, then, because I can do exactly that,” McCaig said, and together they headed into Williams’ office in an attempt to buy the team the time they needed to save his daughter and the man he loved.

  ***

  Ryan knew there was more to this situation than René was letting on, but at the moment, his brain was reeling. René had put the call on speaker so Ryan could hear every word, and he’d immediately recognized the voice in the background.

  McCaig. McCaig was with Cole, and he wasn’t sure what the fuck it meant. He hated feeling like this—trapped, unable to do anything except offer bare comfort to the terrified little girl. He dipped his head and kissed her curls.

  “It’s going to be okay. I promise,” he murmured.

  “I want my mum,” she replied.

  “I know, and you’ll see her really soon, okay?” Ryan looked up at René and knew pleading with him on an emotional level was futile. But he might offer some answers. “Is she really alive?”

  René lifted a brow, then snorted and shrugged. “She is. I wasn’t lying about that to Price. I don’t give a shit if she takes my story to every news outlet in the known world. No one is going to find me. I’ve been doing this a long time.”

  He certainly didn’t look like he was old enough for that declaration, but Ryan had been fooled before. He looked at René carefully, trying to assess who this man really was, and it brought him back to Cole’s words from the weeks before. His wonder at how differently he could assess a person without the sense of sight. Ryan realized how easily he’d been charmed by René at the house, how much he’d let his guard down because René simply looked like a good guy.

  Cole had been suspicious, and Ryan had dismissed him. It probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference even if Ryan had been on Cole’s side, but at least he would have known Ryan understood. He felt angry, and he felt foolish. And he felt absolutely and utterly terrified. The one thing he couldn’t do was let the girl get hurt, and the only way to keep her from being hurt was to stay alive.

  He let out a puff of air and wished he could fight, wished he could take this guy down, but he didn’t trust himself. Wes would be on his way, and if Ryan knew the guy at all, Adrian would be with him ready to figure out what was happening.

  “I don’t understand why you’re going after a blind man,” Ryan said.

  René gave him a long look, then shook his head. “Just like the rest of your friends, you’ve underestimated his abilities. He was the only person who was able to intercept and understand my messages. I’m a ghost for a fucking reason, but I wasn’t to him. He might not have eyes, but he’s going to get me what I need, and for that alone, I might let him live.”

  Claire whimpered and Ryan stroked her hair. “It’s okay,” he murmured.

  When she let out a sob, René rose to his feet, growling. “Shut her the fuck up. I cannot stand the sound of children crying.” He strolled to the far end of the room, and Ryan began to rock her gently.

  “Be brave for your mom and dad, okay?” he told her.

  She pulled away and looked at him for the first time since she’d flung herself into his arms. Her eyes were puffy, wide, terrified, and he knew she wasn’t going to get over this any time soon. Even if they survived, René would leave a lasting mark on this girl and that alone made Ryan want to put his hands around René’s neck and squeeze until he gasped for his last breath.

  “He didn’t like me,” she said after a while. “René didn’t like me. Mummy said that he did but I could tell. His eyes were mean.”

  Ryan pressed a hand to her cheek. “You’re a very, very smart girl, just like your daddy. I didn’t listen to your daddy when he told me he thought maybe René wasn’t a good guy, and I should have.”

  “Wouldn’t have made a difference,” René called from across the room.

  Ryan fought back a groan but decided the only thing he could do was ignore the man. “You love your daddy, right?”

  Claire gave a solemn nod. “Yeah. Mummy thought he might scare me cos his eyes are gone. But he’s not scary.”

  Ryan shook his head. “He isn’t scary at all. Your daddy is very brave and smart to do all these things even though he can’t see anymore, and I know he’s going to get us through this.”

  René snorted, but didn’t add any more input, and Ryan considered that a win. He shifted his hold on Claire, then tried to get comfortable where he was at. Everything in his body ached as the drugs slowly faded from his system. The spot where he’d been hit was throbbing, and he felt weak. The only thing that kept him upright, awake, and steady was knowing Claire was depending on him. It was a shit-show, but ultimately it forced him to evaluate his life. He could lose it. With a slip of the finger, René could kill him, and it would all be over. His biggest regrets were not forgiving himself for hurting Noah and letting that guilt color his relationship with Cole.

  Maybe Cole wouldn’t have reciprocated, and he would have still had secrets, but at least he would have known that Ryan liked him. Hell, Ryan loved him. And if he got out of this, he planned to tell him exactly how he felt.

  ***

  It felt like an eternity passed—far longer than twenty minutes—when things began to go awry. Ryan assumed it would be like the movies, or maybe it would be opposite. Maybe René’s internal timer would go off, then he turn and shoot Ryan, and that’s all he’d know. Maybe hell would descend from above and Cole would appear brandishing dual guns, take out all the bad guys, and save the day.

  In the end, it was neither of those things. It was a small canister, and a shout of, “Get down and cover your face!”

  Ryan had enough time to curl his body around Claire to protect her from whatever was coming, and then there was a massive boom and a flash so bright, his reti
nas burned, and the sound rocked his entire body. There was something akin to pain he didn’t fully understand, but he couldn’t see and couldn’t hear and if it wasn’t for the small body he’d wrapped around, he would have spiraled into panic.

  In the din of his ringing ears and spinning head, he heard several consecutive pops. Gunshots, he realized belatedly. Then there was silence apart from the fog trying to escape his hearing. He blinked through the bright shadows of his burned retinas, and there were hands on him, trying to pull Claire from him.

  Ryan let out a loud roar, fighting the hands, scrabbling at her, trying to prevent René from getting her until a familiar hand touched his face and though the center of his vision in his one open eye was compromised, he recognized what he could see.

  “Wes,” he croaked.

  His arms went limp and Claire was pulled away as Wes tugged him to his feet. His hearing was gradually returning, though everything still felt off-kilter, and as he blinked, more and more of the room came into focus.

  He turned his gaze on his friend who was shaking and still holding him, face ashen as some unfamiliar person clutched Claire and headed for the stairs. There was blood on the wall, Ryan noticed, but René was gone.

  “Is he…”

  “He’s alive, and being arrested right now,” Wes said gruffly. His hand spasmed, then he dragged Ryan in to his chest and held him like his life depended on it. “Fuck. Fuck, man. I…”

  “I know,” Ryan said in a wobbly voice. He broke apart from the other man and followed him to a set of stairs. It took them both a minute to climb with Ryan’s sore body and Wes’ legs, but they eventually got to the surface of what looked like an old bulk-shopping market and the moment he stepped out into fresh air, he was nearly bowled over by another body.

  Ryan’s fingers dug into Noah’s curls, holding him tight, feeling something aching in his chest at the familiar body pressed against his. “Hey,” he said.

  Noah pulled back and punched him in the shoulder. Hard. Much harder than he’d ever been able to before. Clearly his lessons with Adrian were paying off, and he had to grin. “Fuck you,” Noah spat. “Fuck you. Do you have any fucking idea what it was like to have these goddamn English espionage mother fuckers pull our car over and tell us someone had you and this might be a body recovery instead of a rescue?”

  Ryan felt his mouth go dry. “I…I didn’t know.”

  “Ryan,” came a soft voice from behind him. Adrian. Noah clenched his trembling jaw and Ryan turned to give the other man a grateful smile. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  Ryan nodded, then glanced around and realized Claire was missing. “Where did they take her?”

  “I heard they have her mother in protective custody right now. I don’t know exactly what’s going on but…” Noah trailed off with a shrug.

  “She was married to the dickhead who took us,” Ryan spat, then shut his mouth because he had a feeling he wasn’t supposed to be saying much. “Has anyone heard from Cole?”

  Noah shook his head and looked over at Wes who was coming up behind them. Wes sighed and shrugged. “I just got your text, and these two idiots decided to tag along. Next thing I knew these fucking British commandos were taking over and telling us we were about to pull your ass out of the fire.”

  Ryan appreciated not having to hear ‘body recovery’ one more time. “Now what?”

  “Now,” said a tall man with stark black hair and almost black irises who came up on Noah’s right, “you come with me and tell me everything you heard.”

  “Then what? You threaten me into silence?”

  The man laughed. “We don’t need to threaten you, Mr. Anderson. You’ve been through enough today, but whatever you can tell us will help.”

  “How can you be sure this guy won’t get away?” Ryan demanded, even as he started following the guy to a sleek black car parked a hundred yards from where they were standing.

  The guy turned and looked at him. “Because we’re good at what we do, and we’ve been trying to get our hands on this guy for a long time. He fucked up, and I’m not going to ask why or how, I’m just going to be grateful that he did.”

  18.

  Cole felt like he was going mad. It had been exactly thirteen days of government-imposed isolation as he was debriefed, as he was fed bits of information on the situation on René as they attempted to assess his true identity, on his daughter. On Ryan. He had been able to confirm McCaig’s words from before, he was not an active duty member, that had all been a lie orchestrated by Williams to get him to decrypt the files he’d stolen just after the accident. It had, in fact, been Williams who pulled him from the fire and saved his life after discovering Cole was permanently blinded and therefore unable to recognize him for who he was and the work he wanted Cole to do.

  The bitterness and anger would come later, he supposed. He was still in some measure of shock and mostly, more than anything in the world, he wanted to confirm himself that his daughter was safe, and that Ryan had lived through that mostly unscathed.

  But he didn’t know when that would be. It was meeting after meeting with hints that they planned to offer him a job. One he was absolutely going to turn down if it ever became something genuine. This had done little more than prove to him he didn’t want this. He had wanted to feel valuable, like he was still capable of being himself and doing his work, but not at the expense of the only people in the world he could say he loved. Too many people he cared about had been in danger, and this was not meant to be his life.

  Cole wanted two things—stability in his daughter’s life, and Ryan. He wasn’t sure how he was going to make it happen, but if they ever let him out of that compound, he’d do everything in his power to get Ryan to trust him.

  A knock at his door startled him, and his hand which had been buried in Kevin’s fur stilled. “Yes?”

  “Moment of your time?” It was Christopher—the man Ryan had been so suspicious of, who had come to be something of a friend to Cole during the week and a half. “We’ve just finished processing René into the system.”

  “I’m guessing that means you still don’t have a name?” Cole asked, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and sitting forward.

  He heard McCaig take a seat and sigh. “Not yet, but we have it narrowed down, and he can’t stay silent forever.”

  “I’m guessing it’s in my best interest not to ask how he’s being motivated,” Cole offered.

  McCaig chuckled. “I’m sure your imagination is clever enough to supply some ideas, but we want him alive and cognizant. We want him talking.”

  Cole licked his lips, then resumed petting Kevin. “And Claire? Isabel?”

  “They’re here,” McCaig said, startling Cole with the first real information he’d been given on anyone. “Claire’s been through our counseling program and she’s making great progress. She’s been asking after you daily, and I think now’s a good time.”

  Cole felt his heart leap, then sink into his chest. “And then? I still don’t know what happens to me after all this.”

  McCaig laughed softly and reached over to pat Cole on the knee. “I know you’re going to turn down an offer to sign with us, and I dinnae blame you. This isnae a job for a person with a family—not one he wants to keep around. But we have connections and you’ve proven yourself very capable in whatever field you’d like to get into.”

  Cole licked his lips, then said, “I don’t think I’m ready to go back there yet. Not when this is the only place I’ve really felt safe.”

  “You know,” McCaig said before standing, “you’re the second person that’s said that to me today.”

  ***

  Without having been allowed beyond his room and the meeting rooms, Cole felt a bit out to sea as he followed McCaig outside and into a courtyard. Having fresh air was like breathing for the first time, and as his feet sank into soft grass, he heard a cry in the distance which made his heart soar.

  “Daddy!”

  Cole couldn’t do an
ything other than drop to his knees and take the full weight of his daughter and confirm for the first time himself that she was safe, and alive, and with him. His hands drifted over her hair, down her round cheeks, over her shoulders and he had to stop himself from letting out a small sob when she clung to the front of him.

  “Oh, my sweet,” he said quietly, burying his nose in the top of her curls. “It’s so good to hug you like this.”

  She clung harder. “Mummy said you were fine, but I didn’t know, and they said I couldn’t see you until you felt better. Are you poorly, daddy?”

  Cole pulled back, shaking his head as he cupped her cheek and felt her skin, warmed by the sun, alive and well under his hand. “Not poorly, my love, just very busy for the last few days. How are you?”

  “I was scared,” she said in a small voice.

  Cole swallowed past a lump in his throat as he settled on the grass. Kevin sat close up against him, and Claire situated herself on his thigh, refusing to let go. “You were very brave, I heard.”

  “Well, but,” she said on a slight protest, “Ryan was there and when he woke up, he kept me safe.”

  Cole felt his fingers start to tremble a little and he closed them into tight fists to control the shaking. “Is that right?”

  “René brought him in. He was asleep, but I don’t think he was sleeping. I think René hurt him. He had bruises and his eye was all red and blue and he couldn’t open it. But he still held me until all those people came to take us away. He cried, daddy.”

  Cole’s voice was ragged and hoarse. “Did he?”

  “He didn’t want them to take me. He kept yelling and wouldn’t let them touch me, but then it was his friend, so it was okay,” Claire said. “Can we see him?”

  “I hope so,” Cole confessed. “I haven’t been able to speak with him since I got here, but I’m hoping I will soon.”

  “They told me he’s back to work and doing alright,” came Isabel’s voice from the distance. Cole couldn’t help but stiffen at the sound of it. Though he knew she’d been just as manipulated as everyone else by René, he couldn’t help an irrational anger toward her. For everything she’d put him through, for bringing René here, for putting Claire in that sort of danger. She clearly sensed his mood because she sank down next to him and said, “I don’t know how to explain how sorry I am.”