“That’s cool,” Chad said. He hadn’t gotten any feedback, though that was probably because Mark figured Aiden would give him a helpful critique after working with him one on one.
He hadn’t.
“You should join us sometime,” Mick said. “That way Rick could come too and we’d be an even number.”
“That would be cool,” Chad said. After the debacle of the Desert Energy job he’d been having trouble making friends with the guys he worked with, and he wasn’t going to waste an opportunity like this. “Let me give you my number after class and you can call me the next time you guys want to work out.”
“Sure thing,” Mick said.
Exiting the shower, Chad got dressed in a hurry. He only had ten minutes before the start of class. They were meeting in one of the rooms on the other side of the building, and then they would head outside for the actual rifle training.
“Making friends?” Aiden asked, walking next to him. His voice was snide. “You should be careful. Peter isn’t big on sharing his toys.”
Chad rolled his eyes. Peter had never had any kind of a problem with Chad making friends.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said. The lack of a reaction had Aiden frowning, but the expression only lasted for a second. Whatever he was about to say next, however, was interrupted by the sound of Chad’s phone ringing. Sliding it out of his pocket, Chad saw that it was his mother.
He frowned. His mother didn’t usually call him at this time. Not wanting Aiden to hear whatever she had to say, Chad turned around to take the call in the bathroom they had just passed a few feet back.
“I’ll just be a second,” he said, closing the bathroom door in Aiden’s face and locking it. The bathroom was small, with a single toilet and sink, and over the sink there was a frosted window facing out toward the parking lot.
“Hey mom,” Chad said, pressing the answer button and bringing the phone to his ear. “What’s up?”
There was a brief silence, and Chad got a bad feeling in his stomach. The feeling blossomed into full-blown panic when the person on the other end of the line spoke.
“Mr. Brand, we have your parents. If you don’t follow our instructions to the letter they will be shot. This is your only warning.”
The voice was distorted and deep. A voice modulator, Chad realized.
“What do you want?” he asked, already having some idea. Silkwood had said that he hadn’t paid for another attempt on Chad, but he must have been lying. Chad couldn’t believe it.
“Are you alone?”
“My bodyguard is right outside the door,” he said. “Please let my parents go. They haven’t done anything.”
He knew it was useless to bargain. Whoever had taken his parents wouldn’t just give them up. Not until they’d used them to get whatever they wanted.
“Find a way to ditch him. I’ll be texting you an address, and if you’re not there in thirty minutes—alone—your mother and father will be executed.”
“You can’t—"
“We’re monitoring your cell phone. If you attempt to call anyone we’ll know. We’ll also know if you don’t come alone.”
“I want to talk to my parents,” Chad demanded. “Let me know that they’re all right.”
“No. You have thirty minutes.”
The line went dead. Chad stood there a second, paralyzed, not moving until his phone pinged with the sound of an incoming message. Hands shaking, Chad opened the message. It was an address, but not one that Chad recognized. He clicked on it and the map application opened automatically, providing him with both the address’s location and a suggested route to get there.
“Hey, you’re going to be late for class!” Aiden called through the door, banging on it and making Chad jump into the air like he’d been electrocuted.
He should tell Aiden about the call. He knew that he should. This was Aiden’s job, and while they might be monitoring Chad’s phone, they weren’t monitoring Aiden’s.
But what if something happened to his parents? Chad felt like he was going to cry.
“Chad!” Aiden banged on the door again.
Chad took a deep breath. The kidnappers had obviously been hired before Peter confronted Silkwood, which meant that they were going to use him as leverage to influence Peter’s vote on the merger. That meant that they needed Chad alive.
