Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
“What do you mean she’s not there?” I yell through the phone.
“I mean, I came up to check on her, and she’s not here. There are, however, three of your guys unconscious on the floor,” Emmanuel says.
He went up to my mother’s room. I had three men stationed in the hall outside her door. What the fuck happened?
“Fuck. Where’s Lailani?” I ask myself more than anyone else. “I’ll call you back.” I hang up and dial Lailani’s number.
“Hello?” she answers, and I feel myself release the breath I didn’t know I was holding.
“Thank fuck you’re okay.” I sigh into the phone.
“Why wouldn’t I be? What’s going on?” she asks.
“Where are you?” I say, instead of answering.
“In your apartment. I’m about to head out, though. You need something?”
“No,” I tell her. “I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.” Jumping up from my chair, I text Emmanuel to let him know I’m headed to my mother’s suite.
When I step out into the hall, the last person I expect to see is Lailani. Talking to E.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” I wrap my arm around her back and pull her body against mine, while pressing a kiss to the side of her forehead.
“I came to check on your mother, but found this instead.” Lailani waves her hand at the door to my mother’s room. Peering inside, I spot the three guys I had stationed on this floor, all laid out unconscious. “I… ah… These guys were fine ten minutes ago.”
“How do you know that?” I ask her.
“Well, after I logged into your guest registry, I might have hacked your security system to see what was on this floor,” Lailani tells me. “Sorry.”
I don’t even know what to say to that. “You could have just asked for access. You don’t have to hack into anything.”
“It wasn’t hard.” She rolls her eyes. “Which we are going to fix by the way.”
“What the fuck happened here?” I step into the room. There doesn’t appear to be any obvious signs of a struggle.
“Have you tried to call her?” Emmanuel asks me. “Your mother?”
Fuck. That would be the first thing I would have done, except I didn’t. I heard my mother wasn’t where she was supposed to be and my first thought was about Lailani and if she was safe.
“Doing it now.” I pull out my phone and call my mother’s number. It rings, both in my ear and from the other room.
I follow the sound and find the phone on the floor in the bedroom. I bend over and pick it up.
“Fuck,” I curse as I log into the CCTV system and flick to the footage of this floor. “E, call Louie, tell him to lock the place down. I want everyone out looking for my mother.”
“I’ll find her,” Lailani says.
I look over to her. “Stay here… please.” I don’t know why, but I really need to have her in my line-of-sight right now. I cannot lose her.
Lailani nods, and Emmanuel walks out of the room with his phone pressed against his ear. After a few beats, she comes and stands next to me, watching the footage on my screen. I click fast-forward and we watch as all three of my men fall to the ground like they just fucking passed out.
“Huh,” Lailani says.
“What is huh?” I ask her.
“I’ve done this before,” she tells me. “They were hit with darts. Puts you to sleep for hours. Rewind it and watch their legs.”
Sure enough, when I look back at the video, I can see them each take a dart to the thigh.
“They’ll wake up,” Lailani says.
I fast-forward the video again and see them being dragged into my mother’s suite. She is then carried out. Unconscious while some asshole had her slung up on a shoulder. I watch him go through the stairwell.
“Are you okay?” Lailani asks.
“Ah, yeah… Come on, I need to go find Louie and sort this out.” I take hold of her hand and guide her away from the suite. I have no idea where my mother is. “Whoever took her is going to reach out soon and demand something,” I say.
“They will,” Lailani agrees. “You know I can find her. I can help.”
“I know you can, but I’m not ever going to ask that of you,” I tell her.
I might know she’s capable, but I will never ask her to take a life for me.
And let’s be honest, if she were to try to find my mother, one life wouldn’t be all that needed taking.
“I’m going to find the asshole who did this, and I will make them pay. ”
“Okay.” Lailani checks something on her phone as the elevator takes us down to the casino floor. “I’m going to go find my dad. He was with John getting their suits.”
“You’ve seen John?” I ask her.
“He was in my dad’s room this morning. My dad mentioned us dating. I downplayed it, but I don’t think John bought it.”
“Why would you downplay us?”
“Because I don’t need that asshole knowing how connected we are. I don’t need my dad to become a pawn in his twisted schemes either,” she explains.
“I’ll come with you…”
“No, you need to go and talk to your friends, find your mother. I will be fine.” Lailani pushes up on her tiptoes and presses her lips to mine. “She’s going to be okay, you know.”
“I know,” I tell her.
I don’t want to let her out of my sight, but I know I can’t follow her around like a lost puppy. I do, however, notice Emmanuel’s sidekick tailing her as she walks away, though. He gives me a slight nod before turning his focus back on Lailani. Why the fuck is Emmanuel having Lailani shadowed?
When I walk into my office, everyone is here. Louie, Carlo… and E. I look to him immediately. “Why is Paz following Lailani around?”
“You noticed that, huh?” he says.
“Another man watching my girl? Yeah, I fucking noticed. Why?” I repeat.
“Because she’s my friend and I look out for my friends.”
“What do you know that I don’t?” I press him.
“I’ve told you everything I know about Santiago,” Emmanuel says.
He did tell us that Santiago is planning to come in hard on our turf. He’s set up camp just outside of town with a hundred men. Louie has already sent out an army of our own guys. It hasn’t happened yet, but within the hour, that camp will be nothing but a fireball.
“What do you know about Lailani that you’re not telling me?” I clarify.
“She might have killed one of Santiago’s guys in her suite this morning,” E admits, albeit reluctantly.
“Might have?” I raise an eyebrow. “Who? And what the fuck were they doing in her suite?”
“My guess? They wanted to take her, but couldn’t. So they took your mother instead,” Emmanuel says.
“Has anyone made contact yet?” Louie chimes in.
“Nothing.” I shake my head and turn on the screens that span the wall.
“They haven’t left the building. I’ve watched every exit and no one has left with your mother. We have people combing the place. We will find her,” Carlo tells me.
“Okay.” I flick to the stairwell by her suite. Where did the guy go? What floor did he take?
I find the footage and follow him down three flights before he exits the stairwell and enters the elevator. And then there’s nothing. The elevator doesn’t descend or rise. It appears to go nowhere.
“What the fuck?” I curse. “Get someone from IT. Find out where that elevator stopped,” I yell out as I continue to flick through every camera on every floor during that period of time. I don’t see anyone stepping off an elevator carrying my mother. “They couldn’t have just disappeared…”
“We will find her,” Louie says.
“Fucking hell, I know she has issues, but she’s still fucking family,” I grunt.
I’ve been so focused on Lailani that I really haven’t thought too much about how this mess would affect my mother. This is supposed to be her wedding day. She thinks this is real. I’m going to fucking gut that filthy pig when I get my hands on him.
“We know,” Louie says.
“Where is Jazzy?” I ask Carlo.
“She’s at home, with Antonia and Charlotte,” he says before looking to E. “Don’t suppose you can convince Lailani to babysit again, do you?”
“Wait… Did you know she was working for him?” I point from Carlo to Emmanuel.
“No, but she protected my daughter. I’m not mad about it,” Carlo replies.
“Yeah, me either,” I tell him. I need to find Lailani. “I’ll be back.”
I walk out of my office, peering behind me when I hear footsteps, and find Louie hot on my tail.
“I’m coming,” he says.
“You don’t know where I’m going.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he says, stepping up next to me.
“Thanks.” I nod my head at him. This is the man who always has my back, no matter what. I owe a lot to my friends. They’ve saved my ass more times than I can count. “I’m the world’s worst son. My mother has been taken and all I’m worried about is my fiancée being next.”
“That doesn’t make you a bad son. It makes you human. Besides, we both know your mother is like a cockroach. That woman can survive anything.” Louie laughs.
He’s right. My mother can survive anything. She’s always managed to get herself out of shit. Not knowing what they’re doing to her, though, makes my stomach turn. There are some things no woman should ever experience, and I don’t think even a woman like my mother can come back from those things.