Twenty-seven
Twenty-seven
Jaime had to fight the urge to follow Sean when he left. Randy had been giving her worried glances, and she didn’t blame him. She hadn’t been this nervous about anything since she first picked her first pocket. To make matters worse, the crowd seemed to swell with each passing moment. It made sense. It was high tourist season, and it was a weekend. Rough ‘n Ready was the only club in Honolulu. They had to be crazy to think this was a good idea.
She took a sip of her water and started to watch the clock. Five minutes since he had disappeared, and she was ready to crawl the walls. Everything was irritating her, including Randy.
“Settle down. He’ll be back in a second,” he told her as he sipped his water.
“You always just want to let things go.”
“Of course, and you and Sean are the planners. Makes things easier.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but she saw Micah making his way through the crowd. The look on his face left her blood cold. He was watching the crowd like he was looking for an attack. He was always a man of few words, and he always seemed to be on guard. But tonight, there was something different in the way he looked around the club.
“We have a situation. Come on,” he said, not waiting for them to comment. She slid out of the booth and followed him to the back of the club and up to the office. It was hard to keep up with his long strides, and people kept trying to stop them to chat. Randy set his hand in the small of her back and guided her through the crowd.
When they reached the top of the stairs and stepped into the room, she was stunned. She had expected a small room with some monitors. She did not expect all the cool colors or the fabulous sofa. Of course, that probably had more to do with Dee than Micah.
A stern-looking man was there, along with another man, who looked vaguely familiar. They sat in front of several monitors and seemed to be going over footage from the club. If her blood was cold before, it was iced over now.
“Jaime and Randy, meet Conner Dillon and Devon Stryker.”
Of course the second man looked familiar. He was one of the richest men in the world, along with being married to the infamous Ali—the woman from Sean’s past who did not like Jaime. Both men nodded, but did not look away from their duty.
“Ross, I think they took him out that side door. I told you to get rid of that,” Dillon said. She knew of him because their professional world was small. He was also former FBI, and someone she not only respected but also admired.
“It is a fire regulation, Conner,” Micah said shaking his head.
“What?” Randy asked.
“They took him,” Micah said.
Everything seemed to freeze in that moment, and the air backed up in her lungs.
The burner phone Del gave them went off. Randy answered. “Okay, you have a hit on where they are going?”
He listened as Jaime’s heart raced out of control.
“Okay. Send them as you get them. We’ll go on your command.”
“Clothes are in the back room. You can change here.”
“No, we need to stop them.”
Randy grabbed her. “No, we need to let him get to where they are taking him. You know Letov isn’t here. And you know he had your father. You know that was Sean’s plan. We need to follow it, or someone will get hurt. Sean or your father.”
She closed her eyes and counted backwards from ten. Then opened them. Randy studied her for a moment longer, kissed her, then released her. “Hurry up. We need to get on our way.”
She nodded and went into battle mode, as the men discussed the situation and the direction of the GPS tracker. Jaime knew the only way to get through this was concentrate on the job.
As soon as they had Sean and Royce back, then she could fall apart. Right now, she thought about making Letov cry, and making sure she could take a video for Emma.
They were headed out of the city via Likelike Highway when Emma called.
“Where are you?” she asked over Jaime’s phone.
“Put it on speaker,” Jaime said. Randy had told her to drive because she was much better at it than he was. He clicked on the speaker.
“Where is he, Emma?” Randy asked.
“It looks like they’re headed to Kahuku,” Emma said over Jaime’s phone.
“Fuck.” Randy knew the area, knew it wasn’t easy to handle at night. Hell, it was one of the reasons the military trained there from time to time. The terrain was a bitch.
“What?” Jaime asked, not taking her eyes off the road. It wasn’t busy this late at night, but the higher elevations of Likelike got rain, and left the roads slick.
“Lots of jungle. At least, that’s the way it looks,” Emma said. “And they are already there, which means they flew that way.”
“Wait, I think I have it,” a voice said.
“Who the bloody hell is that?” Jaime asked, as she sped up to get around a slow moving minivan.
“It’s Adam. He works with Del, who has the coordinates too. He’s probably about ten minutes behind you.”
“What were you saying, Adam?” Randy asked.
“Kahuku has a lot of forest area, but the road they are taking leads to one house. A compound really.”
Jaime shook her head. “Only in Hawaii. A compound in the middle of the jungle.”
She took an exit, following the directions from the phone.
“You need to wait until Del gets there. He said that several times,” Adam said.
“Okay.”
Jaime grabbed the phone and cut it off.
“Fuck that.”
“Jaime.”
“No, do you think now that they have my father and Sean in one place that either of them have a chance of living? They don’t. Hell, we’ll be lucky to get there before they kill Royce. He’s served his purpose.”
“You don’t know that. There are other things going on here that neither of us know about.”
“Yes, but if we assess the situation and it looks bad, then we go in. Fuck waiting for anyone else.”
Randy was quiet for a second, then he nodded. “Okay.”
He knew it might be the worst decision of his life, but he couldn’t even comprehend waiting there, holding his dick in the wind while Del made his way over. Letov was known for torture, but more than most people knew about torture. He was a man who had been trained in it. A man who knew how to keep a subject alive just enough to cause them pain. By the time he was done with people, they were happy to die. He couldn’t wait for Del or anyone else. It would be them.
“We go in.”
He sent up a prayer, then started looking over their weapons. Nothing short of their own deaths would stop them.
Sean woke up, choking on water. He blinked, his mind trying to come to terms with where he was. The room was dark, but he could see Letov there, his two henchmen behind him. Then he noticed another figure in the chair beside him. It was Lassiter.
“It’s about time you rejoined us, Kaheaku.”
Sean tried to move his arm, but found both of them tied behind him. “If you wanted me awake, you should have had your men zap me.”
Letov stepped closer, and now Sean had a good look at the man. The last few years had not been kind to him. He had aged at least three years for each one that had passed, and he was bloated. It was easy to see he had been excessively drinking. But his eyes…they told him the most. This man had nothing left to lose.
He knew Jaime and Randy would be there soon, so he just had to hold on until then.
“You always had a smart mouth.”
“I don’t believe we’ve ever met.”
He didn’t look at Lassiter right now. He wasn’t even sure if his old boss was still alive. But, if he was, he was just hanging on. Sean needed Letov concentrated on him and not Lassiter.
“No, but I have read your reports. Especially the one where you killed my son.”
Of course he had. The man had his greasy fingers into so many different organizations, it wouldn’t have been hard to bribe someone for the report.
“Oh, you mean the one where you sent your son to die so you could fuck with me?”
He knew the hit was coming, but he hadn’t expected that it would be so fast and so fucking hard. Letov backhanded him with such power; the chair almost fell over. Sean blinked trying to focus.
“You bastard. You dare say such things about my son?”
He backhanded Sean with his other hand. This one hurt even more. Fucker. Trying to fight the bile that now seemed to be permanently stuck in his throat from spewing forth. He needed to get the man close enough so he could trip him as soon as he had a chance.
“Your son was a fuck up. A big one. Who calls attention to himself when he knows he has his quarry in his sights. Your son did, and that’s why he’s dead. Of course, you’re probably the one who insisted that he go on the mission.”
That pushed him over the edge. He punched Sean with such force that his chair did topple over this time. Letov took the time to kick him in the ribs a few times, and the fucker must have had steel-toed boots on. Each time he landed a hit, Sean felt as if he were being torn apart.
Sean didn’t move after the assault. At first he couldn’t. Pain vibrated through his body. When he had fallen, the wind had been knocked out of him.
“You know they won’t miss him for long, sir,” one of the other men said. His voice was heavily accented, and Sean remembered it from the club.
“I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
“Sir, Michael is correct. We should kill them both and just be done with it. It is not safe here.”
Sean opened his eyes, and saw the look on Letov’s face the second before he picked up a pistol and shot them both in their heads. Neither man expected it, for they didn’t even try to move.
“Thank God. They were getting on my nerves.”
He squatted down and grabbed Sean by the hair. “Now, it’s time we have a little fun before the end.”
When he stood, he grabbed Sean and righted the chair. It took considerable effort, since the man wasn’t in that good of shape. Letov then went to his table where he had kept the gun and unrolled a pack. Various sharp instruments caught the dim light from above. But that wasn’t what caught Sean’s eye. There was what looked to be a bomb on the far end of the table. The fucker had much worse plans than Sean had ever thought.