31. Theo
Theo
Rescue
T he alarms are raised all over town. The cops, the fighters, Checkmate, and every man in between.
My heart aches, and my stomach cramps, because not only is Evie Kincaid missing, but so is Libby. It might not be as bad as my imagination is running, but I have never in my life felt this way except the one other time the most important woman in my life was hurt.
I knew then just as I know now; Libby is hurt, and it’s my job to fix it.
I stand in the Checkmate offices while call after call blasts the lines. Libby was on vacation, but now she’s not, and when the town’s sweetheart and a beloved cop goes missing, word spreads and tensions climb.
Every man I’ve ever met while in this town is called up to help, and though Spence’s girlfriend is literally still unconscious and resting in her hospital room post-surgery, Spence is here walking laps into the boardroom carpet.
“Sixteen years old.” Alex Turner stands at the head of the room right beside Aiden Kincaid and Kane Bishop. The three rulers of today’s empire. “Five feet, six inches tall. A hundred and thirty-two pounds. Her hair is wild and unmistakable. Sky blue eyes. No scars. No ink.”
“It is now seven o’clock, which means she’s been missing for three hours,” Kane says.
“The girl was at the gym, which is basically her life on a daily basis. No one checks in every hour to make sure the kids are accounted for, so no one knew she was missing until an hour after she was gone. She didn’t show up for a sparring session with her cousin, which is when the alarms were raised. ”
“Elizabeth Tate,” Alex continues. “Thirty-one years old. Five-feet, four inches tall. One-thirty-five. Green eyes, light brown hair. She’s one of us, she’s a highly trained police officer with a keenly honed sense of danger.
” His eyes come to me. “Last seen at the Rollin On Gym. We have her on security footage going out the same door Evie did.”
“The girl was last seen giving a tour at the gym. We don’t know the guy. Kit Kincaid was the contact there, and she said she’s never seen him before.” Kane’s words cut into every person’s heart.
We already know he’s the connect. The man, the new guy at the gym is the connect.
“Six feet, two inches tall. Two hundred pounds neat. Gave his address as the hotel in town, but we’ve already been there. That room isn’t occupied, and the hotel staff says that man has never stayed there under that name before.”
My blood sizzles with a kind of awareness. A pulsing, burning knowledge that this is going to hurt.
Alex opens a manila folder and slaps a picture of the blonde teen onto the wall. Evie’s electric blue eyes haunt us all. Find me. Help me .
He reopens the file and slaps a picture of Libby up beside Evie with such savagery my stomach almost rebels.
Finally, with a tight jaw and rough movements, he grabs a third picture, turns, and slaps it onto the wall beside the women. “Oliver Dunne says he’s new to town, because his company,” he looks to me, “ Griffin Industries, has transferred him out here for the next little while.”
Waves roar in my head as every set of eyes flip to me in accusation.
“Olly?” I look from Kane, to Alex, to Libby’s official department photograph, and then finally, to the girl’s dad. “Olly is my friend. It can’t… he’s not…”
“He’s our number one suspect,” Alex snaps.
“Security footage and eyewitness statements show him and Evie walking out the back door. Two minutes later, Libby follows – she wasn’t out for a stroll.
She was on the scent already – the doors close, and now all three are gone.
We’re splitting into teams, and we’re going to find him. ”
“We’re standing in the offices of Checkmate right now,” Kane declares. “We’re not at the cop shop. This isn’t a police investigation as far as I’m concerned.”
Aiden’s face remains stony as he nods and makes his way toward Kane. He’s going vigilante, and he’s taking a flamethrower with him.
“We apprehend, we disembowel, we get our family back,” Kane continues. “We get them back before they’re hurt. I’m gonna start calling names. We’re splitting into teams that we think will work together the strongest.”
“Griffin!” Alex shouts over the rising noise. “You’re with me first. We need to know our target, and it seems kinda weird that you call this fucker your friend.”
“Cruz?” Kane shouts. “Your new leg?”
“It’s fine. I can do any terrain.”
“Good. I want you, Spence, Bobby Kincaid, and Jon Hart together. That’s team one. Team two is Oz, Romeo, Jimmy, and Blair. Team three is Eric, Macchio, the other Turner, and Mike.”
“Come with us.” Aiden and Alex stop in front of me. “We need to talk.”
“I need to stay here to find Libby. She’s mine.”
“You don’t get a fucking choice,” Alex shouts. “We need to talk about Evie. She’s the one with your friend . Move it, now. We don’t have time for–”
“Come.” Jay arrives in front of us and grabs my shoulder. “We’re team four or ten or whatever number we’re up to; Alex, Aiden, Kane, you, and me.” He looks into my eyes. “The girls are gonna be together, I guarantee it. We need to talk fast, then we’re setting out to find them.”
It takes minutes to move through all the bodies.
There are easily more than a hundred people in this one building, and though an attempt at order is being made, everyone is panicking, and no one is listening, so when Kane shuffles our smaller team into his office and snags Sophia on the way through, he closes the door and turns to me.
“I don’t know! Olly is my friend. He’s my driver. He’s been working for me for fifteen years.”
“Security footage shows him walking into the parking lot out back with my daughter,” Aiden growls. “She is a fucking child ! No matter his intentions, that is a crime. Stop defending him, and start answering.”
“Who is he to you?” Kane asks. “Specifically.”
“He’s my employee. He’s Oliver Dunne, I call him Olly. He’s twenty-five. I’ve known him since he was, like, twelve… thirteen.”
“How’d you meet him?” Alex demands.
“On the streets. I lived in an alleyway during my youth. That was my stomping ground, and over the years, I saw this kid hanging around. We said hey, but it wasn’t much.
I left that place when I was eighteen, built Griffin up, but those streets were still my beginnings, so I visited.
This same kid was still there. If I had an errand to run or whatever, I’d give it to him and slide a little cash his way for his troubles. ”
“Illegal errands?” Turner prods.
“No, legit errands that I didn’t actually need help with.
I was trying to help the kid out, but when you live that life, you know not to accept cash for nothing.
So I gave him work and made him earn it.
Just little things, like… head up to the computer store and get me more ram.
I gave him the cash for the parts, and what was left over – which was always enough for his time and appetite – was his.
We did that for a few years. He was still a minor, so I couldn’t just ask him to come home with me. ”
“Did he ever give you another name? Any clue to who he really was?”
“No. He didn’t give me any name for years. We don’t much like to talk, so when I needed to address him, I just called him kid. It was fine, it worked for us. When he was eighteen, I pulled him off the streets, gave him a place to live and a salary to keep him happy. He’s been mine ever since.”
“And his family?”
I shrug. “He’s never mentioned them. Not once.”
“Did you ever mention yours?” Soph asks. She’s mostly silent, tapping away at her laptop while listening to the others speak. “Did you ever talk about you?”
“No. Never. Bishop isn’t a name I’m proud of. It’s not something I toss around.”
Alex’s eyes widen when my words penetrate his brain. “You’re a Bishop?” He looks to me, then to Kane. “You’re a Bishop… and you’re with Tate.”
“Don’t do that, Chief.” It burns me up to see his pale face and the judgments being laid down just how Libby always feared. “She is not her father, and I’m not mine. Don’t lump that shit together.”
“Oh my god.” He sits on the edge of the desk and rubs a hand over his face. “She’s dating a Bishop.”
“Griffin,” Kane intercepts. “You’re saying in fifteen years or so, you have never once slipped that you’re a Bishop to that man? Not once?”
“I mean…” I try to cast my mind back. “I don’t think so.
It’s not something I chat about. The first person to call me Bishop since I was a kid was Libby.
And that was three months ago when I came back to town.
I honestly don’t recall anyone using that name since I ran out of Hayes’ club when I was eleven. ”
“Hayes’ club,” Alex chokes. “Fuck me. History is rolling back around.”
“What else did this dude do for you?” Jay asks. “On a day-to-day basis.”
“He shopped for groceries if I asked, collected my dry cleaning, intercepted meetings if I deemed the client too stupid for my time. He collected orders, signed for orders. He interviewed some of the lower-level staff. He was very much my second in charge the way Annaliese is. She takes care of corporate, while he’s more hands-on. ”
“Did you teach him the things you know about computers?” Soph asks. “You spent all these years building machines and software. Did he have that same skill?”
“Yes… no… sorta.” I run a hand through my hair. “I taught him things, and he learned more than the average dude in the street. But it didn’t come easily to him. I think he’s dyslexic or something, because he struggled with numbers.”
“Dyscalculia,” Soph says. “We’ve long said whoever was trying to search our files was clumsy, right? He’s good, but he’s clumsy.”
“Fuck.” I let my head drop into my hands. “He just… it can’t be him. He’s Olly. He’s the closest thing I have to family.”
“He’s the only choice you had,” Jay counters. “You chose him because you had no other options. That doesn’t make him worthy.” He turns to Kane. “What else?”
“This has to connect to the emails and the Jericho graffiti. It all connects, so why does Olly want to say his name is Theo? Why does he want to paint you as the bad guy in our eyes? And how does it connect to the girl?”
“It doesn’t connect to her,” Aiden rages. “She doesn’t connect to you people! But she’s in trouble, and I can’t sit in here any longer.”
“Hold up.” Alex slaps a hand onto Aiden’s shoulder to stop him. “We don’t know where to go. You’d literally get to your car and have no clue where to go.”
“Hotel?” Jay asks.
“They said he’s not there,” Soph says. “They said he’s never been there.”
“Under my name.” I look up. “Have them check under Griffin. He has stayed there, because he was there when I was there. But we book the rooms under my company name.”
Alex jumps up as though to make the calls, but Soph’s already doing it. She doesn’t need to call the hotel and ask the lady on the line. She easily slides into their accounts and checks for herself. “Yeah. He’s checked in under Griffin. Got to town yesterday.”
“Like the rest of us.” I meet Kane’s gaze. “He was in the valley with the sour-sisters, and now he’s here.”
“He followed us straight back,” Jay says. “He followed us.”
“He didn’t follow. It’s not like he hasn’t already been here with me. He knew where we were going.”
“Why would he try to get us into the valley to talk?” Jay seems to be speaking to Soph more than anyone else. “Why? Griffin was there, which means he would have been recognized right away. Why show his face?”
“Maybe he wasn’t on a peace-making mission like he said,” Kane inserts. “Let’s look at this logically; he had two Bishops, one Tate, and two Hayes daughters all in the same space at the same time.”
“Don’t forget Spence and Romeo.”
“And Soph.”
“Right, but they’re extras,” Kane argues. “Soph, Spence, and Romeo were nothing more than a tidy bonus, but those original five were around from when we were kids. So why did he want all the kids together?”
“You weren’t in the valley,” I say.
“No, but he wanted me there. He called me out. Those were my signs he was marking. He was calling me specifically, but he can’t have known I’d stay with Jess.”
“So again, why the original kids? And why Evie?”
“She’s an original kid,” Soph exhales. She looks to Aiden, then to me. “She’s a Kincaid now, but she was born a Frankston. Everyone knows Frankston was in that club when your mom was murdered.”
“Oh God.” Aiden slams his back against the wall and slides down until his ass hits the floor. “Fucking Frankston! Why does this continue to hurt us?”
“Frankston is in prison,” Alex says. “He’s locked up tight. He’s not doing this.”
“So who is Olly?” Kane says. “He must be someone. He knows shit about us that we don’t advertise. He targeted Griffin back in the streets, and Griffin has never muttered the words Bishop in front of him. Which means the kid knew, and he went looking.”
“No, it’s…” I press my thumbs into my eyes and try to fight what’s so obviously being laid out. “A twelve-year-old can’t plan like that. And that was so long ago. That’s a long fucking game.”
“If we’re talking kids of those gangsters, Evie is the last piece.” Kane looks to Aiden. “She’s the youngest, and she literally wasn’t even conceived yet when the shit went down for Griffin. But there’s no denying she’s Frankston’s, which makes her a target in Olly’s head. Why?”
“I don’t know.” Aiden’s voice cracks with pain. “She’s just a baby, and Sean has been locked up a long time.”
The door swings open so hard that Alex nearly loses a leg. Benny, that boy from the octagon, steps in with a bruised face and zero fucks about the fact he should knock before entering. “Here it is. Her daddy, the chief, and the Bishops. This is where the real shit is being discussed.”
“Get out, kid.” Alex stands and tries to turn the boy away. “You’re not part of this.”
“Fuck I’m not.” He turns and slams the door at his back, and without invitation, he leans against the same wall Aiden does and slides down until they sit side by side.
“I’m here, and there’s not a damn thing you can do to remove me.
I will snap your fucking necks if you try, so keep talking, catch me up, and then we find her. ”
Aiden’s eyes, glassy and on the brink of tears, come up and look at the boy.
He studies the teen as though in search of faults.
The instinctual thing to say is that he’s a kid, and to go away.
But instead, Aiden and Ben’s eyes meet, and after a moment, Aiden nods and looks back into his lap. “He’ll be with me. I’ll watch him.”
“Alright. Let’s break.” Kane claps his hands. “Hotel first. And while we do that, Soph needs to find the Hayes sisters. We know who they are, we know their names, and we know they’re with Olly, so they’ll be easier to track than he is.”
“I can do that and run.” She leaves her laptop behind, but snatches a Griffin cell from her pocket and goes to work. “Let’s go.”