Chapter Seventeen
Sawyer
The last thing I wanted to be doing was heading over to my brother’s office on a Saturday when I had Riya up in my apartment in that robe that was so thin and silky that I could make out her morning-chilled nipples poking through the material.
It took everything I had to not bend down and suck one into my mouth, right there in the same room with Marg.
But the fact of the matter was, I needed to make some headway on her case. Finally getting the video footage from the Grassis was key. Barrett had been going over them all night, likely piling up about a dozen coffee cups for Riya to clean up on Monday.
“Alright, what can I take to Alex?” I asked as I walked in the door, more than a little surprised to find that the piles of toppling paperwork that had always been on his desk, even when he worked in my office, were gone and everything was sorted into a wire file separator instead.
The fact that he went along with Riya’s attempts to organize him instead of completely disregarding them said a lot.
“Nothing,” he said, looking up at me with bags and purple bruises under his eyes from lack of sleep.
I stopped dead. “What do you mean… nothing? This is the Grassis here. They have every inch of that place under surveillance. No way did they miss the drop.”
“They didn’t,” he agreed, moving around on his computer to, I imagined, rewind it.
It wasn’t his computer. Last I checked, he kept his personal computer locked up in some hidden vault at his place, swearing out it was the most compromising piece of equipment in anyone’s possession, that it was absolutely insane that people left them out where they could be stolen and, therefore, have every bit of financial data ripped from them as well.
Barrett kept about six laptops around at all times that he considered “disposable” to do various work tasks with, always smashing the hard drive to fucking dust afterward.
“Alright, I need you to focus and give me some information here,” I said, sitting down in the chair across from him and trying to keep my impatience under control.
“Here,” he said, unfazed, understanding the gruffness, being that way himself.
He turned the laptop toward me and played the video.
“Here comes the van. White. There are plates, but they have that fucking plastic shit on them so they can’t be read.
On top of that, they have the tint heavy on the front windows and windshield.
You can’t see shit. Even if you enhance it.
There,” he said, pausing it as it pulled up near the dumpsters.
The camera caught the front of the van as it stopped. And I expected the doors to open. I expected to finally, fucking finally get a face. But, instead, the van shook like someone was moving around. About a minute after that, it pulled away, and there was an unconscious Riya.
“Mother fucker,” I growled.
“Utility van. He drove, walked into the back, opened the doors from inside, and pushed her out.”
Pushed her out.
He fucking pushed her out of a goddamn van.
The video kept playing, and I couldn’t look away from the prone body of Riya, her body bent just a tad far to be comfortable.
Then I watched as she slowly came to, lying there, blinking up at the sky for a long minute, likely too disoriented to freak out yet.
Then her head swiveled, and she looked at the building.
I would say she shot up then, but she didn’t. She moved like everything hurt, like everything took effort.
I remembered how she said she was sore and felt weak. I guess that explained why her movements were so zombie-like.
She got into a seated position first, her gaze going to the dumpster for a long time, likely thinking what I had thought—that she was tossed there like trash. That idea couldn’t have been lost on her either, even disoriented and scared.
She slowly got up onto her feet too, swiping at her pants, a habit anytime anyone got up off the ground, but again, the movement was slow. So was it when she took a few steps toward Famiglia, likely thinking to go there for help. But then she looked at the lot, and her shoulders slumped.
There was nothing in that area and she had to climb a steep hill up toward town, where I knew she hit the police station next.
I watched as another camera angle popped up, likely something Barrett had done—cropped the images together.
And I watched her obviously painful ascent up the hill, having to stop several times.
By the time she got to the top, she stopped, falling down on her knees and cradling her head in her hands for a long second.
Right fucking then, I wanted to rip the dick off the bastard who left her like that—alone, scared, confused, in pain.
But Riya, being the strong woman I knew her to be, slowly got up on her feet, lifted her chin, and kept walking.
Right out of our view.
“Take a breath,” Barrett said, drawing my attention. “And uncurl those fists.” He was right; I had them curled enough to turn my knuckles white. “I was as pissed as you were when I saw it, but that won’t get us anywhere.”
“Neither will this shit,” I growled, waving my hand as the camera showed the people starting to pull into Famiglia.
“That’s what I thought until I realized something…”
“Spit it out. I’m short on patience right now.”
“Look,” he said, coming around the desk to look at the screen, rewinding the video until he caught the van just starting to drive away, then freezing it.
“What am I looking at?”
“Look at the side of the van,” he said. I leaned closer, squinting, not seeing anything. “Yeah, it’s hard to see. Let me just adjust…” he said, hitting a couple of buttons and the picture got clearer, higher in contrast. And I saw what he saw.
“What the fuck…”
“This isn’t some typical rape van. This is a work van.
There is a decal on the side that they have tried to cover up for some company.
If we find the company, we can find who drives it.
Or, if it was sold, we can find the records for it.
” He paused, sensing my frustration. “Sawyer… it’s something.
It might take another couple of days, but it’s something to go on finally.
No one has spotted the ex. No one is following Riya.
No other cases like this are popping up. It sucks, but this is all we got.”
“You think you’ll be able to figure this out?”
“If I can’t, I know some people who can. I mean, it will cost…”
“I don’t care what it costs. I want this shit figured the fuck out already.”
“So,” he said, moving back to his side of the desk. “How did her redo year go?”
“Seen a lot of shit in my life. Never seen someone light up like that.”
“It led somewhere, didn’t it?”
“Not your fucking business.”
“Maybe not. But that reaction tells me everything I need to know.”
He was quiet after that, but there was something in his shoulders, in his jaw, that told me he wanted to say something. “Say it.”
“Don’t fuck it up,” he said easily. “You’re my brother, and I know I should be on your side, but that woman needs someone who isn’t going to fuck her over or get tired of her or just can’t get his head out of his ass. And, bro, your head is pretty firmly stuck up there.”
“Am I really getting advice from a guy I have literally never seen with a woman?”
He reclined back in his chair, pulling off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose before giving me an almost uncharacteristically cocky smile. “I do alright.”
“Sure. But getting around isn’t settling down.”
To that, his brow rose. “Settling down? You’re settling down?”
I shrugged. “I can’t say what’s gonna happen. But she’s in my house. She’ll be in my bed from now on. That’s pretty fucking settled already.”
“She know that? I haven’t known her too long, but I know her history, and I think a girl like that might need things laid out pretty clear.”
“I recreated a year for her, complete with gifts that made her cry. And I told her I am taking her out tomorrow night and…”
“And that maybe you are serious about her and plan to stay that way so she doesn’t have to worry.”
“I might not have gotten that far.”
“Sawyer…”
“Marg showed up to clean, and I had to meet you. It was a busy morning.”
“Since you don’t have to meet up with Alex, can I suggest making it a not-so-busy night where you let her in on this shit?”
“Alright, Dr. Phil, I’ve had about enough of this,” I laughed, getting to my feet. “I want a call as soon as you have a name… before you start tracking down the vehicle itself.”
“Got it. Talk to Riya.”
“Jesus Christ. I liked you better when you were piled under endless sheets of paper and old coffee cups.”
After Barrett’s, I headed to the office, knowing Marg was still up in my place and not wanting to get in the middle of whatever chick talk they might have been having.
Marg had a lot of shit on me. I had no delusions about myself.
I was a demanding boss. I expected a lot from the people who worked for me and didn’t accept excuses.
That being said, I never screamed at them, and I didn’t ride their asses.
I paid good salaries, and I provided an expensive (to me) as fuck, all-inclusive medical plan.
Partly because Tig and Brock put their well-being on the line anytime they went on a job, but mostly because it was just the right fucking thing to do.
I caught up on some of the cases I had been neglecting until I went to look out my window and noticed that Marg’s car was gone.
I finished up what I was doing, locked up, and made my way upstairs.
It was almost disappointing to see everything back to normal. I wanted to watch her looking at the Christmas tree with wonder again or sipping out of her champagne flute or wearing the fucking birthday crown I bought for her.