“Stupid bitch,” Reyes insulted before punching me again.
I doubled over as much as I could in the front seat, with the steering wheel in my way. With my head tucked, I tried to protect my ribs from another one of Reyes' hits.
Soon, though, he stopped and got out of the van.
I was dazed and out of it from the brief but vicious beating. The inside of my mouth tasted like pennies.
When I looked up again, all I saw was the opened backdoor of the van. Aiden was nowhere in sight.
Despite the pain emanating throughout my body, I exhaled, relieved that my son had managed to escape.
Reyes circled the front of the vehicle.
“Move over,” he demanded when he yanked the driver’s side door open. “Get in the passenger seat.” He pushed me into the seat, painfully forcing me over the center console.
“You try to escape again and I will put a fucking bullet in your head,” Reyes seethed with the barrel of his weapon at my temple.
If I weren’t in so much pain, I would’ve told him that I hadn’t tried to escape. My only objective was to get Aiden as far out of his reach as possible.
“If you try to jump out of this fucking van, I swear to God, I will run you over and shoot you right where you lay. Is that clear?” he yelled, jutting the P365 into the side of my head.
“Y-yes,” I croaked out.
“Fuck.” He slammed his hand against the steering wheel. “The little shit’s gone.”
I closed my eyes in silent joy that Aiden was nowhere in sight.
“You just cost me a lot of money,” Reyes seethed. He continued to hold one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the gun, directed at me. “We’re going to find that little bastard of yours. His father wants his head on a platter, and I need that fucking money.”
He glared at me. “I need to regroup. Then, I’ll come up with a plan to get that little shithead of yours. And once that’s done, I’ll personally take care of the both of you,” he promised.
The evil glint in his eyes was horrifying. When Reyes turned out of the bank’s parking lot, I realized that he never had any intention of letting Aiden and I go off to live our lives in peace.
I was so stupid to think he would’ve taken the money and left us alone. My only hope at that point was that Aiden was able to find someone safe to notify or to use the phone I’d managed to stuff into his pocket.
CHAPTER29
Ace
I took a deep breath as I exited the building that housed my office. It was Friday and I had the weekend off. Although I wouldn’t be moving to Germany, I still needed to head out to another training with my squadron before the end of the month.
That one would be for three weeks, which meant that I’d be apart from Aiden and Savannah for that long. While it had been pushed back until after Christmas, I hated the idea of leaving them when that fucker Reyes was still on the loose.
I ran my hand through my hair and pulled out my cell phone with my free hand. Scrolling through my texts, I smiled at the message from Savannah telling me that she and Aiden were stopping for ice cream.
I bet he’d suckered her into it on the way home from school. She tried to play it tough, but she was just as much a sucker for his puppy face as I was.
While there was nothing strange about her first few texts, the last one was odd.
It read “He”.
That was it. As if she had sent it by accident…or hadn’t gotten the opportunity to finish whatever she was trying to say.
As I strolled in the direction of my bike, unease filled my chest. I started to text Savannah back, but my phone rang as I made it to my motorcycle.
“Savannah?” I answered.
“Dad!” Aiden’s high-pitched voice pushed through the phone.
