by J. J. McAvoy
“You need to drink,” Bo said, pushing the cup in front of me.
“You make me sick,” I flinched. Talking burned.
“I know, but you gotta live long enough for my brother to save you, right?” He smiled like we were old friends and like he hadn’t just kidnapped me.
“If the bitch don’t wanna drink—”
“I brought her here!” Bo hollered at him. “I brought her here to save your no-good ass, not so she will die, okay? She’s Noah’s girl—”
“And the little bitch still can’t protect her after all this time.”
“Kind of like you can’t make an honest living,” I snickered, looking up at him.
“What is that—?”
“I got it, Frank!” Bo said, stepping in front of me. “She’s beat up as it is. You do anything, she accidently dies. Then you got nothing. Screw anyone else. Noah will lose it. You want to get outta here, just wait.”
Frank glared down at me. “You shouldn’t go around walking with your head up so high, princess. You are covered in mud just like us. You’re a killer, a thug, a piece of filth just like us. Only difference is no one knows it.”
“Fuck you.”
Bo turned back around, grabbing my face. “You need to listen to me, because I’m trying save your life. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. This will be over soon, okay? So can you do that, Ms. London? Can you shut up and stay alive, please?”
Again, he lifted the cup for me. This time I drank. It stung and brought relief at the same time.
“Now, what’s Noah’s number?” he questioned, putting the cup down beside me.
“What?”
“Noah’s number. I’ve only got Austin’s.”
He couldn’t be serious. He was so proud to call Noah his brother, yet he didn’t even have something so simple as a cell phone number.
I wanted to laugh, but my head hurt too badly.
“Oh no you don’t. Wake up.” He lifted my head up. “The number.”
The vision of him blurred, and everything became dark again.
Idiots. Him, Frank, me, all of us.
Noah
Being closer to the hospital, we got there a few minutes before the ambulance. I didn’t care. I ran straight up to Austin, side-by-side with the doctors rushing out.
“Austin! Austin!” I yelled as they brought him down.
“Sir—”
“N…N…o…ah,” he said. One side of him was blackened and bloody with burns, the smell of his skin was so horrid I flinched. However, when he reached out to me with his other hand, covered with cuts, blood, and small burns, I didn’t back away from him. His eyes were wide and red with pain. He was in agony.
“N..eck…lace….neck….lace.”
“Necklace?”
He nodded the best he could.
“We need to get him inside!” The doctor yelled at me, but Austin just held on.
“A…m…eli…a…ne…ck.la…ce—”
“He’s out. Page the OR!” One of them yelled, pushing me aside. “We gotta go.”
It was painful, his hand ripping from mine like that, but seeing it drop, lifelessly, was even worse.
“Sir? We need to get inside before the press makes its way here,” Daniel said beside me.
Amelia’s necklace?
She always wore this butterfly necklace whenever she went out. Her mother had given it to her. But what the hell did that have to do with anything? Esther had only given it to her so she could—
“Of course.”
“Sir?”
“Keys,” I demanded.
“What?”
“Give me the keys!” I yelled and he threw them at me. “Stay here.”
I wasn’t just going to get her back. Bo and Frank were going fucking pay dearly, even if I had to make a pact with the devil himself.
Chapter Ten
Noah
Pulling to a stop in front of the restaurant, I saw them sitting at the window, casually talking to each other as my world was going up in flames.
“Can we help you?” Two men stepped in my path, flexing their muscles as if that was enough to get me to move.
“I’ve got an appointment—”
“No one disturbs Mr. and Mrs. Callahan while they’re at lunch. No one,” he said sternly, like a brick wall I was more than ready to blow up.
“I’ma say this once. Let me in or you’re going to wish you had when they find out the reason the police got Frank Sloan was because you didn’t have the balls to disturb them,” I replied.
They glanced at each other, and the man before me nodded at the guy behind him, who took his sweet old time dialing on his phone.
I glanced at my watch and then the map I had on the screen of my phone.
Fuck this shit. I thought, running between them.
“Hey!”
“Liam!” I yelled, only getting a few steps into the empty restaurant when two of their men grabbed me.
He casually looked over to me, his green eyes annoyed as drank his brandy.
“Let him go,” the woman across from him said so softly I wasn’t sure how they heard her. But they did and released me, allowing me to get closer to them.
“If you knew how hard it is to get my wife on a date, you would not be in front of me right now,” Liam snapped, cutting into his steak.
“Mr. Sloan, it’s a pleasure. Please, grab a chair and sit,” she said, ignoring him completely and focusing on me.
“These are the coordinates to find Frank—”
“Maybe you didn’t hear me,” she said, reaching for her wine. “Grab a chair, Mr. Sloan, and sit.”
Inhaling, I reached over to the empty table beside her grabbed a damn chair and sat it down right between them.
“So your brother kidnapped your girlfriend? And I thought our family had issues,” Liam commented. You would have thought this had happened weeks ago and not only an hour.
“You came to me. You asked me to find my father and bring him to you. I’ve found him. I’m here to offer him—”
“Yes, with the whole nation now watching,” his wife, Melody, replied. “It was different when he was just a lone criminal. Now there’s a movie star involved, not to mention your brother. This is all messy.”
“Who’s better at dealing with messes than the Callahans?” I reminded her.
“Oh, flattery,” Liam smirked, “My wife tells me I’m egotistical, so this approach might work.”
“You’re really not going to let it go?” she sighed, shaking her head. I was doing my best to stay calm, even as they kept on as if I was not important.
“Not even a little bit. Ethan keeps trying to repeat it, but he can only manage ‘ego.’” He took another bite.
“Are you sure he’s not asking for an Eggo, like the waffles?” she replied and paused as he stared at her like she had just unlocked the secrets of the universe.
“Fuckin’ waffles? That’s what he been asking for? Wait who the hell is feeding our son store-bought waffles—”
“What do you want?” I cut in, not able to take another second of this. They both turned to me like they really had forgotten I was here. “You want Frank. But you’re not going after him. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that this is messy. You both get a kick out of fucking with people and taking something like this and burying it. It just proves how powerful you are. So the only reason you aren’t doing it must be because you all want something. What is it?”
“Told you he’s smart.” Finally, Liam put his fork and knife down.
Melody took a sip of wine. “It’s simple, really. My family and I pride ourselves on having a clean image. And while everyone here knows us, we are not household names, nor do we have the luxury of being all over the international media.”
“What are you saying—?”
“Dogs,” Liam stated, his now face serious. “With your father and brother out of the picture, I’m sure after your movie comes out, you and Amelia will go on to do great and better things.
You’ll repair your image, and when that happens, you will be at our beck and call. Any function we want you at, you both will be there. I don’t care what other obligations you have—for all intents and purposes, we are now your new BFFs and will never go away.”
“Done,” I said without hesitation.
“You should think this—”
“I want my girl back. I came fully willing to do whatever the hell you needed if it meant she was returned safely. You want Amelia and me to boost your image and national presence. Fine. I don’t care, just bring me Amelia….and—”
“And?” Melody questioned.
“And, my brother Bo, don’t kill him. I don’t give a damn what happens to Frank, but Bo stays alive.”
“He kidnapped the girl you’re so passionately after,” Liam reminded me as if I would ever forget or forgive him.
“I said don’t kill him. Whatever quality of life that you choose to bestow on him other than that is up to you.”
They both looked over to each other, and Liam reached into his jacket pocket.
“Well then let’s get this done. Who should we get? Chicago PD or the FBI?”
He’s joking.
“Let’s not make it any bigger than it needs to be,” Melody replied, and he nodded like he understood her.
“SWAT it is, then,” he said, then frowned. “I hate giving the department something to boast about.”
They aren’t joking.
His eyes then drifted over to me. “And you’re still sitting at my table because …?”
I hate these people.
Getting up, I put the chair back at its original table.
Amelia
“1945…” I coughed, giving them the last four digits of Noah’s number. I couldn’t remember at first, and between that and all the times I kept falling asleep, I was worried he’d lose it.
“This better be the right—” before he could finish, a light so bright I had close my eyes exploded into the room.
Seconds later, the windows shattered and I jumped, hearing voices shout, “ON THE GROUND!”
Opening my eyes as best I could, all I could see were the white letters S.W.A.T. on their vests. Everything else was a blur. Rushing to me, they pulled the chains at my wrists.
“KEYS!” One of them yelled, and I could vaguely see Bo, with a boot on his head, his face on the ground, motioning to something below.
“Got them,” the man before me said, unlocking my hands. When he did, I limped forward, my body completely giving way to gravity. He picked me up with ease.
“This city hates me,” I whispered, and he chuckled.
“Don’t take it personally. Besides, your boyfriend apparently has powerful friends here.”
Noah.
I didn’t care that I was crying or in pain or that I most likely looked like something out of a horror movie. I just wanted to see him.
But for now, I needed to sleep.
Chapter Eleven
Noah
Stepping into the hospital room, I felt nothing. I didn’t need to think this over. I needed it to come to an end.
“Noah! What is this?” Bo struggled, pulling against the restraints. “Bro, help me get out of this.”
Walking over to his bedside, I took a seat, staring at him as he was strapped into the bed.
“Noah—”
“She was in car accident—bloody, bruised—and you kidnapped her for Frank,” I whispered, sitting on the edge of my seat. “You know I love her. That she’s mine. And you did it anyway.”
“I wasn’t gonna hurt her, I swear. I was trying to make you do the right thing—”
“In what universe is saving Frank—after everything he did to us growing up, after he almost killed your mother—the right thing? When did you stop hating him?”
He was quiet, falling back against the bed and staring at me, tears in his eyes, as if that would save him.
“You left me, Noah,” he whispered. “You just up and left me for your big fabulous life. You never looked back. I didn’t want your money ... Frank was messed up, but for the most part, he and I started over. He ain’t perfect, and he’s a still a mean drunk, but he was tryin’, and you just kept shuttin’ us out. We’re family, and you hated us. You think it ain’t hurt? I couldn’t let you just throw Frank to the wolves. He’s still blood. You’d regret it.”
“No,” I shook my head. He really didn’t get it. “I wouldn’t regret it, I don’t regret it. With Frank gone, I’m so happy, Bo. I’m so happy I’m serious when I say I want to cry.”
“What did you do?” he asked, trying to sit up.
“The Callahans have him. The official story is that he died in the raid, but what the Callahans choose to do with him after that is their business.”
“Noah! How could—”
“Nothing you say will change his fate. I just wanted to know if you have any last words.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“You’re gonna kill me now?”
“No matter what, you will be my brother, Bo, but you chose Frank and not me. And so I’m going to choose the people who have always asked nothing of me. Since I was child, Bo, I’ve been looking after you. My big brother. It should have been the other way around. But I could never look up to you for anything other than how to steal cars and screw women. I’m tired of carrying you, Bo. I’m tired of you selfishly needing to be the center of the universe when you offer nothing to me. It’s out love for your mom, respect for our past, and the daughter you have that I won’t kill you, but I won’t call this living either,” I said, pulling the syringe given to me by the Callahans from my pocket.
“Noah, please, I swear I’ll change my life around. I swear I’ll—”
“You took my girl. There is no mending this bridge,” I got up and injected the drug into his IV.
“Noah. Noah, please no!”
When it was in, I sat back down, “I’ll stay here until the rest of your family shows up. Sadly, you won’t be able to move or speak. You will spend the rest of your life just watching others live. I’ll visit. I promise to keep taking care of your daughter and her mother. But you … this is it.”
“No ...” he trailed off as his mouth opened and closed. However, he didn’t say anything, and as each minute passed, his body relaxed more and more before he stopped moving altogether, the only proof that he was alive being the beeping of the machine right beside me.
“….” I exhaled looking up to the ceiling. It was over.
It was that easy.
And yet it still was painful and ugly.
Hearing the tap on the door, I stood as it opened and a thin woman holding a 9-month-old baby girl in a pink ruffled dress came in, her eyes glued to Bo.
“He’s alive,” I said, moving over to her. Her eyes shifted to mine, surprised. Like she didn’t truly believe I’d be here. I guess that proved Bo’s point that I had left him. Ignoring that, I smiled at his daughter, my hands outstretched. “May I?”
She nodded and her to me. “Her name is—”
“Is Katie, I know,” I replied, bouncing slightly and bringing her round, chubby face close to mine. “Hi, Katie. I’m your Uncle Noah,” she giggled, smacking her hand on my nose, and I kissed her hand.
“What is wrong with him?” her mother whispered behind me, putting her hand on Bo’s head.
“I’m not sure. But I wanted you to know, both of you,” I poked Katie’s cheek again as she smiled, “that no matter what, if and when you need me, I’ll be there. Of course I’ll make sure the house I got for Bo is transferred to your name, along with his allowance. But Megan, this also comes with a warning.”
“A warning?”
Walking back over to her, I placed Katie in her arms. Katie’s hazel eyes never looked away from mine. “If I find out you so much as sniffed bathroom cleaner, I will not just take Katie, but I will destroy you. You’ll never find work in this city or this state again. When I am through with you, you will want to d
ie. Katie’s a Sloan, my brother’s little girl, my niece. If she can’t have both of her parents, she going to have the best damn mother possible. Are we clear?”
Holding on tight to Katie, she nodded. “I won’t. I swear. I’ll watch out for her.”
“That’s all I ask. I’ll be in touch,” I replied, leaving them. When I got to the door, I couldn’t help but turn to look at him one last time.
“I’m sorry. This is the best I can do,” I said to him.
“What? You’ve done so much,” Megan said, looking at me strangely.
Shaking my head, I stepped out, closing the door behind me. Across from me was Daniel, his whole body stiff, as he waited.
“Did you see him?” I asked him, and he nodded, unable to speak.
Saying nothing more, I followed him as we walked toward the elevator. I hated hospitals and the memories they brought with them, always because of Frank. Even as an adult, it was the same feeling.
“Sir, your phone,” Daniel said when we waited for the elevator. I clearly hadn’t even realized I was missing it.
Seeing the caller, I didn’t want to answer. But I did anyway.
“Sloan,” I said into the phone.
“Rest assured, your father will no longer be an issue for either of us,” Liam said. Even though I couldn’t see his face, I’m sure he was smiling.
“Understood.”
“I wasn’t expecting a ‘thank you,’ but you could sound a little jovial? Don’t you think?”
No, I did not think so.
“How?” My thought process felt like it slowed down the moment the elevator arrived, and we stepped on.
“You want details, or how to be—”
“How do you do everything you do and still manage to sit down to enjoy steak and shallots with your wife like nothing ever happened? Better yet, how do I do this?”
He snickered in reply. “And here I thought we were sort of the same.”
That was not comforting.
“To answer your question,” he continued, “make a list.”