Chapter 28 #2
The kid’s face was pale and drawn, his eyes wide and glassy, like he was fighting not to bolt or break down.
His hoodie was twisted tight around one elbow—the fabric stretched and wrinkled as if it had been yanked, then wrapped around again and again.
His breathing was shallow, his chest rising too fast, and his free hand hovered near the doorframe like he didn’t know what to do with it.
Every instinct Brian had went from casual to razor-sharp.
“Hey,” he said slowly. “You okay?”
“No.” Andy’s voice cracked on the single syllable. “Something’s wrong. Very wrong. With Tess.”
Cold slid down Brian’s spine. He stepped inside, letting the door swing shut behind him, and tossed the box on the dining table. “What do you mean? Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” Andy said, the words tumbling out as he ran his fingers through his already unruly hair. “She called—then someone else called—and I didn’t know what to do and—”
A jolt of terror hit his chest, sharp and immediate. He locked it down because he had to figure out what the hell was going on. “Andy. Slow down. Start with Tess.”
The kid nodded, his breath stuttering. “She called from an unknown number. She didn’t say where she was—she couldn’t.
She just said, ‘Do what they say, Andy. Don’t call the police.
’” His voice wavered. “She sounded scared. Like she was forcing herself to stay calm. And then I heard a man in the background, and the call just... dropped.”
The room seemed to tilt. Brian grounded himself—feet planted, breath steady. Unknown number. Short call. No police. Male voice in the background. He focused on the details and refused to panic. That wouldn’t help Tess.
He tried to keep the fear out of his voice—her brother didn’t need to hear it. “Okay. What happened next?”
“My phone rang again,” Andy rushed on. “From a different number. It was Diego. He said he has her. Said if I want her back, I have to do exactly what he tells me. No cops. Not even you.”
Diego.
The name slammed into Brian’s chest, sharp and immediate. His pulse spiked hard enough to feel in his throat. He swallowed hard. “Did he say where she is?”
“No. Just that she’s alive. For now.” Andy shoved his phone toward him. “Both numbers came up unknown. I tried calling back, but nobody picked up.”
Brian took the phone, eyes scanning the screen.
Unknown Caller—0:32
Unknown Caller—1:58
He handed it back, already sorting the timeline. “What else?” he said. “Tell me everything. Start from the first call. Don’t skip anything.”
Andy nodded, desperate. “Okay.”
Brian stayed where he was, still and focused, holding the fear behind his ribs where it couldn’t touch his voice.
Andy dragged in a shaky breath. “He said he had Tess. Or his people did.” His eyes filled up with tears. “He called her my weak spot. Said if I did what he wanted, she’d go home. If I didn’t—”
He couldn’t finish.
Brian didn’t need him to.
A thought settled in, cold and unwelcome—this hadn’t been impulsive. Diego had thought this through. But none of it made sense.
“Why you?” he asked. “What’s his connection to you? You said you barely knew him that day in the interview room.”
Andy’s shoulders curled inward. “That was true—then. But he knows me somehow.” He swallowed. “He knows I’m good with computers.”
Tess had mentioned that more than once—the kid was a whiz. What mattered was how Diego had decided to use that bit of knowledge. Brian was almost afraid to find out.
“He asked me to do something for him a couple of weeks ago,” Andy rushed on.
“He paid me cash to reroute an IP. That was it. Simple.” His voice cracked.
“Simple and stupid. I thought it was harmless. But I never did anything else for him. I blocked his number and stayed away from him after that. I swear.”
But that one job was enough for Diego to get his hooks in Andy.
“What does he want now?”
The teen looked like he might throw up. “He—he wants me to mess with a crypto account.”
Brian stared at him for a fraction of a second. “Cryptocurrency?”
Andy nodded, frantic. “He didn’t say much.
He said I had to log in to an account and change where the money goes.
Just redirect it into another wallet and don’t get caught.
He asked me to do it the other day, and I told him no.
Brian, I swear, I said I wouldn’t do it.
But he said it didn’t matter. That I already owed him.
And now he has Tess.” The tears spilled over now, unchecked.
“He said he’d text me everything I need.
I told him I had to research how to do it—I’ve never done it before.
He said I had an hour then he’d send the text.
And if he sees any cops—any at all—then Tess.
..” He swiped his eyes. “Fuck! I never meant for this to happen. I swear. I didn’t think—she’s my sister. I wouldn’t have—”
“I know,” Brian said quietly, his mind racing.
Inside, rage flared hot and vicious. Terror followed, cold and suffocating. He locked them both down and exhaled slowly through his nose.
Impulsiveness. Stupidity. Teenage logic. It was a part of growing up, and he could rake the kid over the coals for it later. Right now, what mattered was that a sixteen-year-old stood in front of him believing a gang member’s choices were his fault.
“This is not on you,” Brian said, voice quiet but firm. “You made a bad call. Yeah. But Diego is the one who crossed a line. He’s the one who decided to grab Tess. That’s on him. Not you. You hear me?”
Andy’s jaw flexed. He nodded once, but his eyes said he didn’t believe it yet.
Brian filed that away with everything else he couldn’t afford to deal with in this moment.
He had to think.
See the angles.
Work the problem like an agent.
And, most importantly, save Tess—nothing else was an option.
“Listen to me.” He gripped Andy’s shoulder and kept his voice low and steady. “You are not doing anything for him. You are not touching that crypto account. You are not logging into anything. You understand?”
Andy’s eyes flicked to his. “But Tess—”
“We’ll get her back—unharmed,” he cut in, sharper than he meant, then reined in his temper.
“Diego thinks he’s got you backed into a corner.
He doesn’t. You did one stupid thing for him—okay.
That’s done. We’ll deal with that fallout later.
Right now, the only thing that matters is getting Tess back in one piece. ”
“But she said—” Andy’s voice cracked again. “She said not to call the police. That’s the first thing she said. ‘Do what they say, don’t call the police.’ But she stressed the word don’t, so that means do the opposite, right?”
“Yeah. That means someone was standing over her,” Brian said, feeling his teeth grind. “She said it because they told her to. That’s not the same as her not wanting you to get help.”
He believed that down to his bones.
Tess trusted the system more than most. She’d spent her adult life helping turn hard truths into something that couldn’t be erased. She wouldn’t suddenly decide, unprompted, that notifying the police was off the table.
Glancing at the phone in Andy’s hand, a thought came to him. “Do you and Tess have an app or setting that lets you see where each other’s phones are?”
His hope died when the teen’s shoulders slumped and he hung his head. “I already tried that. The last place her phone pinged was the M.E.’s office, a few minutes after she texted me. According to the app, it’s off now.”
“Damn.” He set his hands on his hips, took a deep breath, and stared at the ceiling, trying to think of what to do next.
“Could they know you were coming here?” Andy whispered. “Diego said not to tell the cops, especially you—my sister’s detective boyfriend. He said that. Could they be watching the house?”
He stepped over to the back window and scanned the beach—low dunes, packed sand, and the glistening water beyond. Nothing and no one looked out of place.
“They’re not watching from out there,” he said. “At least not in a way that sticks out. When I pulled in, I didn’t see any occupied vehicles parked nearby, and I wasn’t followed from headquarters.”
He trusted his instincts when it came to patterns and anomalies—nothing on the drive to the house had set them off.
That made surveillance unlikely. Possible, but unlikely.
He didn’t voice the other scenarios that flickered through his mind.
Paranoia spread fast, and he needed Andy to be functional.
Brian checked his watch. 6:42.
If Tess had been grabbed at the end of her shift, Diego knew exactly what he was doing. Crypto didn’t close. There were no business hours, no overnight pause, and no safety net. That was the point. He’d picked something that could be done day or night and couldn’t be quietly undone later.
Brian handed Andy his phone back. “I need you to do something for me, okay? Two things, actually.”
Andy swallowed. “Okay.”
“First, you’re going to forward both of those unknown numbers to me. And any texts Diego sends from this point on. Don’t reply to anything without me telling you what to say. Not one word. I want him to think you’re sitting here scared and obedient and ready to jump when he says jump.”
“I—I don’t have the old stuff. From the IP thing. I deleted it. Blocked the number. Shit! I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”
If they really needed it, they could contact Tess’s phone provider, but they would need a warrant to do so. “All right. No worries. We’ll deal with that later. For now, send those two unknown numbers to me.” He rattled off his own phone number.
Andy’s fingers moved at lightning speed across his screen.
“Second,” Brian continued, “after I make a couple of calls, you’re going to walk me through everything you remember about that first job. The one with the IP. What he asked for, what you did, and when you did it. Dates, times—anything that sticks.”
The teen’s hands stilled. “Am I... am I in trouble for that?”
He didn’t hesitate. “No. What you did then was a gray area. Dumb, yeah—but not something anyone will arrest you over. They took Tess to get to you. That makes you the target right now, not the problem. And you’re also a witness.”
A hard swallow worked its way down Andy’s throat as his gaze dropped. His shoulders hitched once. “Okay. I’ll tell you everything.”
“Good.”
Brian’s instincts screamed at him to call it in. To light up every channel he had and start pulling resources. But Diego had made his expectations painfully clear, and Brian didn’t yet know how tight the leash was—or how closely Andy was being watched.
The gang held all the cards at the moment. Even if Brian knew where Tess was, charging in blind could get her killed. But doing nothing could do the same. He needed to walk a narrow path through the middle.
“I’m stepping outside to make those calls.” He cocked his head toward the door. “I’m not calling 9-1-1. Not yet. But I am calling my partner and my brother. I can’t do this alone and need their help to get to the bottom of this mess and find your sister.”
Andy looked up, hope and fear knotted together in his expression. “That’s not... the same thing? You said your brother’s an FBI agent. That’s gotta be worse than the police.”
“It’s not. There’s no alert, no patrol cars swarming in. I’m making two calls to people I trust, and that’s it—unless Diego does something stupid. Well, even more stupid than taking Tess. All right?”
He received a slow nod in response.
“Stay inside,” he ordered. “Keep your phone on you. If Diego calls or texts, I need to know immediately. You answer like nothing’s changed. Tell him you’re still trying to figure out how to do whatever it is without getting caught—in other words, stall. You got it?”
“Yeah,” Andy whispered. “Brian? I’m so sorry. Please save Tess.”
He pulled the kid in for a hug that went unopposed. “I will. I promise.”
After releasing him, Brian held his gaze until some of the panic on his face eased—not gone, but manageable. Then he turned and headed for the back door.
Outside, the light had softened, the sky fading into a deeper blue but still holding daylight. Waves rolled in beyond the dunes, steady and indifferent, as they had for centuries.
He stepped onto the deck and pulled the door nearly closed behind him, leaving it cracked just enough to hear if Andy called out.
Then he pulled out his phone and hit the speed dial set to Rafe’s number.
As it rang, Brian stared out over the water, his jaw tightened as a hard, cold focus settled into his mind.
Diego had made a serious mistake taking Tess—and he would pay for it.