Chapter Twenty-Three - Akim
“You can’t get ahold of the bodyguard?” Accelerating to the garage of the penthouse, I keep Boris on the line, furious about Kiara being so careless and for not taking Ethan’s threat at the estate more seriously.
“No. I can’t get him on the line, but I can have the cyber security hack into Kiara’s phone.” I regret taking the tracking off the phone. She’s become a weakness to me, a thorn in my side that I can’t and don’t want to remove. Stupidly, I figured having an on-call bodyguard with her all day would prevent the need for it, but now I can see how wrong I was.
“Yes. I’m at the penthouse. Meet me there.” I call the cyber network team retrieving the details on my home computer, picking up the pieces. The last message she sent was to the bodyguard.
KIARA: I’m okay. She’s here.
What the fuck does that even mean? Who’s she? The text message was sent at 6.25 p.m. I check the call log to see how she is. Maybe it was one of her girlfriend’s she was meeting. Could have been Emily, but the last number who called her was a number not recognized in her phone. Not saved under any name.
“Anything?”
“Yes. Somebody called her in the morning. The number’s not saved,” I mutter, hiding the caller ID and putting a trace on it. With my heart beating a million miles an hour I make the call. I reach the caller, putting it on speaker. When I find Ethan, I vow to destroy him. The phone rings out, but goes to voicemail.
“Hey. You’ve called Ethan M. Leave your name and number, and I’ll call you back as soon as I can.”
“Fuck!” I shout, throwing the paperweight on my desk against the wall, leaving a dent in it. Shaking with anger, I take a deep breath, the rage reaching its boiling point. “Ethan’s got her, and he must have done something to the bodyguard. She spoke to him, and he must have found her later this evening. The fucker planned this. And he’s been planning this since the estate ball.”
“Yep. No arguments there. Where was she earlier?” Boris asks, his head cooler than mine at the moment. “Wait. I’ve got a call coming through. This might be information.”
Raking a hand through my hair, I pace the office, unbuttoning my shirt because I’m burning up on the inside. I pick up the phone again, searching through her apps to see if I’ve missed anything else. I check the earlier numbers she called in the morning. The hair salon. Nails.
Okay, the bastard called her then. It still doesn’t give me enough to go off other than suspicion. I need more….
Boris hangs up from his call. “Good news. We tracked down the car, and the bodyguard took her to the Rockpool Bar and Grill down near the Lower West Side.”
“Right. Ring the restaurant and find out if she was there with him.”
Boris rings as an extra layer of torment kicks in. Kiara went to the restaurant to meet her ex-boyfriend. Why would she do that knowing what I could do to her? She wouldn’t do that without a reason. I don’t know what that reason is, but when I get her back, I’m going to find out. I open my drawer, loading bullets into my gun and dropping it into my holster. I add a knife, sliding it in my ankle holster, preparing for war with a bulletproof vest.
I don’t have to be a genius to know he’s kidnapped her as some sort of vendetta against the Bratva. “Ah, Boss. You’re right. Ethan was last seen with her at the restaurant. He left with her after about fifteen minutes.”
“He’s taken her. We need to find out where.” I’m back on an even keel. I can’t find Kiara if I don’t keep my head straight.
“Working on a location.” I keep in connection with the cyber security team having them obtain the surveillance footage from the restaurant for the time period Ethan and Kiara were eating there.
It takes an agonizing ten minutes for them to release it, and immediately as I zoom in on the footage, I see the gun in her back as she shoves her in a black van. I grab the license plate and call in a favor at the police department with our contact, Jeff
“I have an emergency request.”
“Sure. What is it?”
“I want you to run a plate and track the location of the plate. Can you do it?”
“Yes. Give me an hour.”
“Good. If it’s quicker even better.” In that hour, I organize my weapons, both Boris and Luka warning me it’s a mistake to go once I have the location.
“Leave her. You don’t need the hassle, Akim. You married her to help her father already and the warehouse he has her in is heavily guarded. Forget about her. What is it with this chick?” Luka scolds in irritation.
Ignoring him, I hand him a gun. “Are you joining me or am I on a solo mission?”
Luka snatches the gun out of my hand with a disgruntled growl. “Fuck! You know I am. Boris, let’s go with this lovesick puppy to rescue his woman.” I can’t hear anything else they say, only that the warehouse is in Rogers Park.
The drive is a solemn one as we strategize ways to get inside. “Veer’s got the intel. They’ve got two guards at the front gate, and it’s coded to get in. You gotta get past them first,” Luka advises.
“Easy. We’ve got hand grenades. I’ll drop a couple. What else,” I reply robotically, pressing the gas. If Kiara’s dead, I’m avenging her death on sight.
“Urgh. You’re a pain in the ass. Three guards. Two out front. One out back. Wait. There’s an open field behind the warehouse, so you can avoid the gate. I’ve got a visual. The problem once you’re in, is how many are inside?”
“I don’t care about that,” I say calmly. “That all?”
“That’s enough. You sure about this?” Boris adds with skepticism as I slow my vehicle to a crawl, turning off my headlights, as both Boris and Luka line up with their guns.
“Have the car ready when I bring her out,” I remind them with a sole objective in mind.
Both nod in the dead of night as I park the car far enough back, so our vehicle remains undetected. I check the status of the warehouse through binoculars, a thick plume of billowing smoke and orange flames licking the building. “Fuck! He’s set the building on fire,” I shout, all plans flying out the window. Without thinking, I round to the back of the vehicle, grabbing the hand grenades to get through the gate, but I don’t need it.
The gate’s open. I hear them call my name, but I can’t hear anything, only the lifeforce of my beating heart in my chest.
Kiara. Hold on. I’m going to get you out of this. I won’t let you die. I promised your father.
Charging through the gate my lungs immediately fill up with smoke. Coughing and spluttering, the thick arid smoke clouds my lungs and my eyes smart from the sting of it.
A gun shot whizzes past my head as I draw my gun, running blind into the blazing building. The heat is so severe I can feel my skin peeling from the flame’s proximity. Shooting blindly, I use my instincts, stumbling into the thick, gray haze, shadows scattering like roaches in multiple directions. I shoot at anything that moves, noticing the warehouse is multitiered.
I run to the open spaces the gunshots lessening, but hear the groan of the steel beam above buckling as it falls inches from me, early striking me in the head.
“Kiara!” I call out in a croak, wanting feedback, and it’s a longshot above the roar of the fire. Shit. I’m not going to make it. Flames lick at the timber of the warehouse, as fire balls fall from the roof. One of them singes my back, and I cry out. “Fuck!” Lethargic and running out of air, I hallucinate, sweating and barely able to breathe.
Wheezing, I push past the sting on my back as the caustic flames lick at the edges of the warehouse and more of the beams swell tumbling from the top floor as part of it collapses. I have to get her out before the entire building deteriorates.
A small whimpering voice calls out through the haze. “Help! Help!” A hard banging on a door, alerts me, but I can’t keep my eyes open. The smoke inhalation is too much to bear, but I stagger to the door, and the handle is metal. I know I won’t be able to open it with my hand. I’ll scorch it. Coughing, I call out.
“Kiara! Get back from the door.” I use up all my strength to call out to her, but don’t know if she’s alive. I’m working on a hunch that she might be in the room, but there’s other doors to pick from. If I’m wrong, I risk her being dead already, and it would be all for nothing.
I shoot at the door handle, stepping aside as it falls off. I manage to do it, busting through the blistered-up door, finding Kiara on the floor unconscious, her hair manky and the room surrounded by flames. The structure strains, ready to fall as I find the inner strength to haul her on my back, carrying her out of the building with flames threatening to devour us both.
Bringing her to safety, I drop to the ground, voices in the background, shouting. Is she safe or am I dreaming?
Farewell….