Chapter 19
REID
I need to show Callie that I’m serious. She left for work dodging my question, so I’ll make her understand that she’s my endgame. She’s going to be my wife.
As soon as she’s left the house, I walk out behind her.
I don’t take my men. It’s just me for this job.
I’m going to get her a ring, and arrange the house to be comfortable for her.
Baking ingredients, all her favourite snacks.
Anything and everything she likes. I call my housekeeping staff on the way to the jewellers, and reel off instructions.
In the jewellers I’m starting to browse the rings—one of the ones with a huge sapphire has caught my eye—when my phone goes.
My second-in-command.
I answer, irritated at the interruption. “This better be important.”
“It is. She’s gone,” Jack states.
“What?” For a moment, my mind can’t process what he means.
“Your nurse, Sir. I think the Essex Cartel have taken her.”
“Fuck.” I grab the sapphire ring and drop it into my pocket, before tossing my credit card at the shop assistant. “Charge me and bring the box to my house in Woodford.”
His stammered thanks follows me out of the door. Smart man.
“What the fuck happened?” I ask Jack as I break into a run to get to my car. “I told you to take her to work, and then guard her at the hospital.”
“They must have had hospital staff passes somehow. The man we had watching over her said she didn’t return from getting into her scrubs.”
My heart freezes.
This is the worst thing that could happen. My Callie, my sweetheart. The innocent little nurse who I was going to care for forever… Gone.
“I will kill anyone who has touched her. Who took her?” I know the answer already though.
“Loughton,” Jack and I say at the same time. “Fine, we’re going to get them.”
“Sir, we need a plan.”
“No, we need to get Callie back. Bring in all the men.” Unlocking my discreet silver SUV, I start the engine.
“Sir—”
“Bring them in!” I roar as I pull out onto the road and put my foot to the floor. I’m beyond being rational. The person most important to me in the world has been taken, and I’m going to go to literally anything, kill anyone, to find her.
“The Maths Club.” My second-in-command has fear layered into his voice. “If you want to get Callie back alive, our best bet is overwhelming force.”
Through the anger pulsing in my brain, I fight. I breathe as I take some corners faster than advisable.
“Fuck.” He’s right.
The next minutes are a fog. I call Lambeth, because he’s the first member of the club that I think of, and he loves his wife enough to wear fucking bat wings. I barely have to explain the situation before he snaps that he’ll be with me immediately.
Lambeth turns up as Jack and I are handing out guns and ammunition to my men from the armoury at my house in Woodford and I go out to greet them. But I have to blink, because on the drive it’s not just Lambeth, but also a dozen other Maths Club bosses, each with men. We have a small army.
“I called around for you,” Lambeth says in greeting.
He has a bullet proof vest on over his shirt but under his suit jacket, and it must be custom fit to ensure he looks as elegant as possible while under fire.
He frowns when he sees I don’t have one on.
“Your death wish isn’t appreciated, Woodford.
Put on some bloody Kevlar. I won’t enjoy explaining to your girl that you came to save her and got caught by a stray bullet and died. ”
I stare at him, and yeah. This feeling, shit. It’s… These men are my friends. I glance over at Mayfair, Westminster, Edmonton, Norwood, and even Canary Wharf is here. They’ve turned up to fight with me, and I’m choked up. Incredibly grateful.
I nod. “I will. Thanks. Thank you for turning up.”
Fuck, I’m no good at this, especially right now, but the other mafia bosses seem to understand.
“Couldn’t let you be killed,” says Edmonton cheerily.
“Wouldn’t miss the opportunity to take out Essex,” adds Norwood with equal casualness, but I know that they both have women at home. Something to lose. They didn’t have to do this.
“Yeah,” I croak.
I accept Kevlar from Westminster, and when Jack emerges with the rest of my men from the armoury, he of course has body armour in his hand for me. I’m lucky to have them.
But however good they are, they’re not Callie. She’s as necessary as air. And if I can’t have her back by my side, I don’t care about the rest. Living or dying is nothing.
“Do you have a plan”?” Lambeth asks.
I shrug. “Kill anyone there. Find Callie. Get her out.”
“Nuanced and excellent though that is,” Lambeth says dryly, “Norwood has an idea he worked up a few months ago when we were talking about taking out the Essex kingpins, and while Loughton isn’t large, it was included due to its proximity to London. Okay if we use that instead?”
“Sure.”
Norwood does a short briefing, sends schematics of the compound and details of all the major players in Loughton, and we agree who is taking which part of the buildings.
In hardly any time, we’re across the border into Essex, and have the property surrounded.
I’m going to get my girl.