by Carina Adams
The man scoffed. “You?” He sauntered over, twirling the gun on his finger, and dropped to a squat in front of me. “You’re gonna tell me that the great Mateo Murphy would come aftah a club whore but not his rich fiancé with the famous daddy?” He laughed bitterly. “You’re nothin’,” he seethed. “No matter what lies he told you, you’re just a stupid cow that he used for his own pleasure, and he’s gonna discard with yesterday’s trash.”
I raised my head, summoning every ounce of courage I had and met his eyes. Surprise had me biting my lip sharply, trying not to react. Before I’d left to meet Jessie, Tank had pulled me aside and shown me a picture, asking me if I recognized him as a friend of Will’s. I hadn’t. This man was not a friend of my ex-husbands. There was no mistaking him now, however. This was Scott. This was the man that Tank had showed me.
He’d gained weight, and his eyes were cold and dead, which I hadn’t noticed from the picture. Charles Manson eyes. But, it was without a doubt Scott. He cocked the gun and moved before I could say a word, the cold metal biting into my flesh. Jessie whimpered.
I laughed. “I’m not the stupid one here, Scott.” I leaned my head against the barrel, trying to prove that I knew him, that I had something none of the other women had.
“Someone remind me why you grabbed this one instead of his sister,” he challenged the group as a whole.
The voice that answered wasn’t near me, and I couldn’t see a face. “Because the sister fell through. We went with plan B and grabbed you the next best thing the whore he spends all his time with. He has her guarded 24/7. Figured she’d be easy to crack.”
Scott pushed the gun into me harder. “Even to us you’re just a backup, something that’ll work in an emergency,” he sneered.
“You heard what the other guy said. I’m always with him. But, that’s ok. Pull the trigger.” My eyes challenged him. He thought for a moment, and I knew he was replaying the reasons they’d grabbed me.
He didn’t lower the weapon, but tipped his head. “Oh, yeah? And why are you so valuable to him?”
I wanted to lap my lips, they were so dry I was afraid the next words I spoke would crack them. Instead, I ignored the urge and watched Taylor over his shoulder. “Because, she may be engaged to him, but I’m the mother of his child. He would move Heaven and Earth to keep me safe.”
The gun moved so fast, I didn’t see it before it was slicing across my face. “Lying bitch!” Scott spit, wetting my face with saliva before grabbing a handful of hair and forcing my head back up. “I’ve done my research. You are not her!” Jessie started sobbing and Taylor was yelling at me to shut up, but I couldn’t stop now.
I laughed. “You’re an idiot.” The fist in my hair tightened, and I knew my hair was about to be ripped out. “I’m not Sam’s mom, no. But, I’m not the decoy that crazy bitch is, either.” I didn’t take my eyes of Taylor, even though the gun was back at my temple.
Matty told me once that I was the worst liar on the planet and my face gave me away every time. But, this prick didn’t know me. I only had one chance to sell this lie, but I could make him believe it. Once it was out, there was no going back. If one of the girls lived to tell Matty, and I wasn’t here to explain, he wouldn’t understand. That was a chance I was willing to take.
Turning back to the mad man in front of me, I said the words I’d wished were true a thousand times over the last nine years. “We have a daughter.”
Taylor gasped, her obscenities quieted for a minute. Jessie was shaking her head and rocking again. But, the man in front of me narrowed his eyes and inspected my face. “Get me the pictures,” he demanded of no one in particular.
Thing two moved quickly, grabbing a folder from the desk. Scott shuffled through it before grabbing one out, holding it up to his face. Then he grabbed another and held them side by side. As he lowered them, I realized one was a school photo of Sammy and the other was Lily and Matty at the Museum. He had his arm around her and was beaming at something she’d said.
I knew what he was seeing. I’d held their pictures next to each other numerous times over the years. Sammy was the spitting image of Matt, a mini Greek God, but with brown eyes and dimples. Lily, though, was a Greek Goddess in her own right, with dark skin, bright blue eyes, and wavy blonde hair that had already started to darken.
It was like two people that had been married a long time; when you watched them, you could see similarities. When you looked, really looked, at the three of our children, they looked like they were related. Sam and Ben easily passed as cousins, and Sam and Lily had been mistaken for siblings more than once. They had similar heart shaped lips, thick black lashes, dark eyebrows that covered bright eyes and the soft features that most children had. Give them five years and the similarities would be gone. But right now? They both could have been Matty’s children.
Scott stared at me with such glee, like he’d just won the lottery, and it made me want to hide. “Where is she?” It was quiet, too quiet, and I realized someone had turned the blowtorch out.
He really thought I was just going to hand over my daughter? I shook my head. “Do you want Matty or my kid?”
He sneered, holding up the gun. “Where. Is. She?”
I had him, so I didn’t have to worry. He’d bought it. I didn’t even think, just let more lies fall off my tongue. “At the safe house. If she isn’t there yet, she’ll be there soon. You let them go,” I nodded to the other girls, “to prove I can trust you, and then promise me that you’ll let my daughter and me go, and I’ll take you right to it. It’s an old family camp, and I can promise you, you’ll never find it on your own.”
Taylor was hollering again, screaming at me to shut up. Swearing and throwing whatever insults she could. I ignored her.
Scott’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not lettin’ em go.”
Make it or break it time. “Then, you might as well kill me, because I’m not taking you anywhere. It won’t be long before Mateo and the Bastards track you down. But, for whatever reason you seem to want just Matty, I can deliver him to you wrapped with a giant red bow. Or, you can wait for all of them to come get me.”
“I tell ya what,” he dropped in front of me once more, “I’ll put ‘em in the back room, leave ‘em here safe and sound with a few of my guys. And after I get Mateo, you can come back here and get ‘em.”
I nodded. I knew that he’d never let them live, but this was my only shot. “But, I want to see where you put them before we leave. You’re not killing them.”
He smiled snidely. “Oh, little girl. I’m saving all my bullets for your baby daddy.”
Thing two cut Jessie’s binds and yanked her into his arms. I saw her wince in pain and try to avoid his touch, and then I saw the tears that were running down her cheeks. Taylor, on the other hand, fought like a cat being forced into a bathtub, spitting, crawling, and biting Thing one. Scott sliced my ropes and let me walk, keeping a firm grip on my arm, and led us to the room where I’d been held. He grabbed my jeans and shoved them at me. I tugged them on, thankful to have something between me and Thing two’s roving eyes.
They tied Taylor to the hooks that hung down from the ceiling and laid Jessie on the bed in the corner, securing her wrists to the bedposts. She turned her head away, and I prayed she wasn’t reliving the horror of her first time on that bed. Stretched out on the bed like she was, I could see all the damage that had been done to her, and bile rose. I knew I was going to throw up, so I turned away and wished I had a way to convey to them that all they had to do was hold on a little longer.
The door was closed and locked, but even as we walked down the hall, I could hear Taylor’s screams, telling me I was stupid, before they turned to wordless shouts. I wished I could tell her that there was no safe house, that Matty wouldn’t let my kids go to the woods in the middle of nowhere when the club must be searching everywhere for us and was probably on a lockdown. That I would never risk my child, and that I was only doing this to give the club time to find her and Jessie.
Maybe if they made it out of this alive they would be able to tell Matty where I’d taken Scott.
I wanted to believe that neither would tell him what I said about Lily, that they’d be so grateful to be rescued that it wouldn’t even cross their minds. I wanted to not worry about something so simple right now, because chances were that I wasn’t going to make it out of this alive. I tried to tell myself that in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t that important. But, it was. If he believed the lie, it would life altering for the man I loved.
Scott’s fingers dug into the bruise, bringing me back to the present. “Where are we going, Baby Momma?”
I hated everything about this man, and the way his mouth was close to my neck, his breath blowing on my skin when he talked, made me want cry. I didn’t know where we were, so how was I supposed to give him directions? I didn’t dare ask him, though, because I knew he’d only hurt me.
“Take the turnpike to Gray, Maine, and then get on 26 north. I’ll give you better directions once you get there.”
Scott opened the back of a big blue box van with tinted windows and I stepped in willingly. Thing one got in behind me as I sank to the floor and leaned my head back against the cold metal side. All I could do was pray that the Bastards found Jessie and Taylor soon.
Chapter 35
Matty
They tell you that after twenty-four hours the chances of getting a kidnapped victim back alive are slim to none. But, if that’s the case, why can’t you report someone missing until after that much time has passed? A lot could happen in a single day.
I paced around the great room once again. I should be in court with my brothers, or home holding my kids, but I couldn’t sit still. So I walked in circles.
Jo had been gone almost twenty-two hours. We’d gotten the exact time of the fire alarm from the prospect. He was still sitting on some fucking bench Jo left him on, waiting for her to finish her test, when we’d called. He was destroyed. And, apparently afraid I was going to murder him with my bare hands. He didn’t have to worry, though, ‘cause I didn’t have the time or energy to punish him.
Billy came out of court and stopped short when he saw me. I would never get used to seeing that fucktard in my home, but I knew he was trying to help and that we needed him. That didn’t make me stop hating him, though. This whole fucking mess was his fault, and one day I would make him pay.
After my brothers had dragged me off the floor yesterday and forced a few drinks down my throat, I’d called the twat. I used the club phone instead of my cell and he actually answered on the second ring.
“This is Will.”
“Billy.”
The phone got muffled as I heard him ask whoever he was with to give him a moment and then a door close before he uncovered the mouth piece. “Matt, I’m at work. This better be important or so help me Christ, I’ll file a restraining order on you.”
“Shut up, Billy. Just stop fuckin’ talking. Jo’s gone.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I know she’s gone. She moved to get away from you. How’s that feel?”
“No, Billy, she didn’t. She moved to Boston to be with me.” I swallowed. “I need to know who you hired to spy on me last year.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“No!” I’d screamed into the phone. “You don’t understand. Jo is really gone. Someone has her. He took her. We think it’s related to information you dug up.” I’d lost it then, the words sinking into my thick skull as I’d spoken them. This wasn’t Billy’s fault. It was mine. My past put her in danger. Rocker had taken the phone from my hands and finished the conversation.
To give him credit, he had left work and driven straight here. And he’d helped as much as he could. The investigator he’d hired was also missing, but Billy had all the emails they had exchanged as well as all the digital files of the shit he’d dug up. Wiz had been busy, running prints off the men Cris and Neo had murdered behind the gym, searching video footage to see if Tink also had been followed, and searching through my history to see why I was the target.
Hawk’s dad had some of his buddies working on it, talking to their CI’s on the street, and Greenwood and his team were talking to every sleazy client they had. Rob was sure we’d find something.
That was before they’d kicked me out of court though. It had been late last night or early this morning—I wasn’t sure because time had run together—when Doc came in to give us the final word on Cris. She was stable and sleeping. He’d had to relocate her shoulder and set a broken wrist, so he’d given her pain meds and knocked her ass out. She had a few broken ribs, a few sprained fingers, and lots of bumps and bruises. But, she was alive and would heal.
I was ecstatic that my baby sister was going to be ok, don’t get me wrong. But, Rob and the boys didn’t seem to be as worried as I was. They were taking their time finding Jo, as if she was an afterthought. When Rob told me I needed to calm down, I lost it.
“Are you fuckin’ shittin’ me right now?” I screamed. “You have no fuckin’ idea what I’m going’ through. She might not come back, don’t you get that? I don’t know what they’re doin’ to her, how badly they’re hurtin’ her! I’m about to lose my fuckin’ mind! I don’t wanna calm down! I wanna get on our bikes and track this fucker down!”
Rob had slammed his fist into the table and stood up. “You’re not the only one worried! I understand what you’re going through. I love L.K., too!”
I sneered at that. “Don’t you fuckin’ tell me you understand! The love of your life is safe and sound fifty fuckin’ feet away. It’s not Cris out there, its Jo! So, the priority isn’t as great as it would have been, is it? You don’t have one fuckin’ iota of a clue about what I’m goin’ through!”
He’d grabbed me and shoved me against the wall, getting in my face. “Shut the fuck up, Matty! Jessie is out theah, too! I thank Christ that Cris is heah, that she’ll heal quickly, yeah. But, I have a prospect that’s MIA. Tank’s ol’ lady is still missin’. And, I don’t know if Jessie is dead or alive and bein’ hurt. I love her!” he hissed. “So I fuckin’ get it!” He let go of me and backed up. “Get the fuck out! Don’t come in heah again until this shit is ovah!”
So, now I had nothing to do but pace around the room and apparently stare at the dickhead that Jo used to be married to. Fucking fantastic! I grabbed a bottle of water and threw myself onto one of the couches.
Bear woke me up later. I don’t know how long I was out, but I sat up in a panic. “What’s wrong?”
“Wake your ass up, Mateo, we got something!”
I was up and off the couch in seconds flat, following him into court. It had been turned into a command center of sorts. Papers and pictures lined the walls, laptops and tablets covered the tables, and someone had set up a projector so everyone could see what Wiz was looking at.
Rob stepped up to my side. “Scott Dyer died three yeahs ago.” I snapped my head toward him, shocked. We’d have known, wouldn’t we? “After Providence, he never came home because he was convinced someone was looking for him. His little brother Seth inherited everything when he died.”
“There’s no record of a little brother.”
Rob looked at the wall where Wiz was using his finger to draw a circle around a building. “His parents sent him away when he was young ‘cause he had the same issues as his brothah. A sadistic fuck from the word go. They even went as far as changin’ his last name to his mother’s maiden name so that he wasn’t associated with them.” That way no one in their high society social circle would know.
“A few years ago, the Dyers were killed in a cah crash. The police ruled it as a homicide, but theah were no suspects. Seth never came forward to collect his inheritance and no one could find him, so they ruled him out. It’s still an unsolved case.”
“We only found him ‘cause he flies back and forth between heah and Moscow couplea times a month. Flies coach, never draws attention to himself. But in Europe he’s a big time sleaze, runs all of his brothah’s busine
sses. He looks enough like his brother for Wiz’s facial recognition to flag him, though.”
“And we think he’s behind this?”
“We know he is.” Grabbing a file off the table, he grabbed a picture of me I’d never seen. It was grainy and beyond blurry, but it was definitely me. And behind me was Bear. “A few years ago, right after Scott died, Seth hired a PI to find you. The only lead he had was this girl.” He handed me another picture, one that had been used as a sales ad for one of Scott’s girls. One of the women I’d carried out that night and given another chance on life.
“She was no help, not really. But, she was able to tell the investigatah that there were three of you. One named Tank, one named Bear, but she never caught your name.” I swallowed. He’d been trying to track us down for years. “Tank and Bear are common road names so the PI couldn’t narrow it down. Until last spring when Will hired him to dig up dirt on you.”
I clenched my fists at my side. Fucking Billy. Rob ignored me and continued. “Once he had that picture and your name, the rest was easy. He got moah pictures of you from Dyer, givin’ those to Will, and then focused his attention on the club, and the three of you. His first attack was Ellie.” I looked back at Bear, who was watching Wiz with a fierceness I hadn’t seen. “It looks like he had business that dragged him away, or we’d have been doin’ this last fall and not now.”
“Where is he?”
Rob nodded at the projection on the wall. “He has a warehouse in Manchestah. We think he took the girls the theah.” Manchester? That was an hour’s ride. Shit! Fuck!
“Why haven’t we left yet?”
My friend tipped his head. “Easy tiger. We’re goin’. We’re just trying to figure out the best way in. This dick’s got heavy hitters on his payroll. This isn’t us goin’ up against Jo Schmo’ and his gang bangahs. This is serious shit. As soon as we have a route, we’re gearin’ up and hittin’ him hard.”
*****
It felt like it took forever to get loaded up and on the bikes. Tiny drove the Expedition, because while we didn’t know what condition we’d find the girls or the prospect, we doubted any of them would be able to get on the back of a bike. The ride itself didn’t last as long as I thought it would, though. Probably because I spent the entire time imagining how slowly I was going to kill the men that took her.