Felix furiously types on the keyboard, the sounds punctuating my thoughts before I even understand what he’s doing. I don’t know what he’s searching for, but the hard look on his face makes my stomach twist. This isn’t Felix right now. This is Otto_Bot, and he’s pissed.
It takes only three minutes for him to pull up the footage from outside Elsie’s school. Together, we all watch Ric enter the school, a gun in his hand. Five minutes later, he leaves the school dragging Elsie behind him. She’s crying and clearly terrified and it makes something in my chest feel so savage, I have to grab Wylan’s arm to keep on my feet. I see red, but I take a deep breath to still my beating heart. I can’t lose my shit. Not right now. There’ll be time for that later. I’ll make sure I lose my shit on that asshole when Elsie is safe.
“Where is she now?” I ask, my voice low.
Felix glances at me because of my tone, but he doesn’t comment on it. Dagen and Wylan are close enough to offer comfort, but they don’t insult me with lies of, “it’ll be okay,” or, “we’ll figure this out.” I’m not stupid. I understand how bad this is, and if something happens to Elsie, there will be nothing on this earth capable of saving Ric. Not from me. Not from them.
“There’s some interference,” Felix begins, typing furiously, moving from camera to camera, tracking him as he moves through the city. He’s gone from not being found to being scene on every camera. “I think he’s in?—”
“He wants us to know where he’s at,” I say, staring at the footage. “He’s baiting us.”
My phone rings, the shrill sound grating on my nerves.
I look down at the caller ID and tense, already knowing what this is. The bastard didn’t even bother getting a different phone. It’s his same old fucking phone number.
I press the green button and give him no chance to say hello before I put it on speaker and speak. “If you’ve hurt even a single hair on her head, I’m going to kill you,” I snarl. My hand starts to shake where I hold the phone too tightly between my fingers in front of us.
Ric laughs, clearly amused at my threat. “She’s my daughter. I can do with her as I please, just as I can with you, wife.” He grunts. “You always were the self-sacrificing lamb, Ava, so let’s make a deal. Her for you. You show up unarmed and come with me, I’ll let her go. You have twenty minutes. The warehouse district. Number twenty-five hundred. Don’t be late.” He chuckles. “I’d hate to see what happens to Elsie if you are.”
He hangs up before I can respond, and I’m left to stare at the phone.
Wylan grabs me so roughly, I shriek in surprise as he starts to drag me away. Felix and Dagen follow close behind. Felix is on his laptop still typing away, his brows furrowed. Dagen has his phone open as he barks commands to someone on the other end. Wylan? He drags me to his motorcycle and grabs the helmet. He shoves it onto my head and buckles it with quick fingers, not asking me anything. He climbs onto the all-black motorcycle and drags me on behind him.
“Arms around me tight, crumpet,” he orders and I do as he says. “Hurry up,” he tells Dagen and Felix. “Because I won’t be waiting.”
And then without another word, he starts his motorcycle and takes off, my arms wrapped tightly around his waist as he pops a wheelie and guns it.
Forty-Four
Felix
“The warehouse hasn’t been in use for a year,” I say as the car speeds through the city. Barely a minute after Wylan had taken off with Avaa, a black Porsche drives up and John is tossing Dagen the keys. We don’t exchange many words until I find answers. “The company declared bankruptcy and vacated. There are rolling doors on the west face, likely all shut tightly. The East face has four doors and a large rolling door, but those will be highly visible. It looks like there’s an office on the North face that we can slip inside the door and maybe go unseen. It’s difficult to know where Ricardo chose to set up shop.”
“No cameras inside the building?” Dagen asks.
“None in operation and the exterior cameras have deteriorated enough that they only have fuzzy video. It’s not exactly in a good part of town. The whole street appears run down,” I answer, running through page after page.
Dagen doesn’t follow the speed limits. He guns the engine through the streets, surprisingly catching up with Wylan despite the man driving like a bat out of hell. We weave through the streets of the city, tension hanging in the air between us. None of us wanted anything to happen to Elsie. If something does. . .
“He shouldn’t have been able to get into the school,” I growl under my breath. “The security was top notch. We all checked.”
“Someone had to let him in,” Dagen nods. “Someone who wrongly took pity on a father and probably thought nothing would come of it. It doesn’t matter right now. This ends today. We’ve played our games. It’s time we protect our girls for good.”
I nod. We’d played too much and assumed Ric wouldn’t be so bold but I should have known once he had help disappearing. I should have set traps, made sure that there was extra security at the school, expected something like this. We’d been foolish, our egos getting in the way of us taking more extreme measures sooner. And now poor Elsie could pay the price.
The warehouse rises on the street before us like a forgotten skeleton, graffiti tagging up the sides, some of it art, some of it just useless scribbles. The sidewalks around it are cracked and overgrown despite it only being a year since the business went under. No one loiters around the building, save for a few homeless people ambling down the street pushing their carts. The street is otherwise quiet, as if this part of the city has long since given in to decay.
“That must be his car,” Dagen says, nodding toward the black sedan parked half on the street, half on the sidewalk in front of us.
“It is,” I confirm. “License plate matches his rental. Bastard didn’t even attempt to hide his identity coming here. He called Ava from his actual phone number.” We lock eyes because we both understand what that means. He’s not worried about being caught. Ava mentioned he had connections in the police force. Does he have their blessing to be here? The good ole boy system has caused lots of problems in the past. Is it working in his favor now?
“Did you call the police chief?” I ask Dagen, glancing at him. He has more influence than anyone else in this city. He could call the damn mayor if he wanted to and get SWAT to show up, but no one else is here except us and Wylan where he hops off his bike from where he parked it on the sidewalk before helping Ava off. He carefully pulls the helmet off and reaches for the gun in his waistband.
“Of course I called,” Dagen answers. “I told him to wait thirty minutes before he organizes his people.” He glances at me before popping off his seatbelt and stepping out of the car. “We don’t want any witnesses to the act, only help with the cleanup.”
I nod appreciatively. Ricardo won’t be walking out of this alive, no matter what happens here. We’ll make sure of that.
Setting my computer aside because I won’t need it for this next part, I follow after Dagen, the both of us stepping up to Wylan and Ava where they wait. Ava is shaking, but her eyes are hard and angry. As I meet her eyes, the shaking stops, and she purses her lips. The hesitation in her eyes over Ricardo’s untimely death is gone.
