25. Leopold
Chapter 25
Leopold
W hen I entered, the smoke alarms were going off and smoke literally filled the whole house. I began coughing through the haze and stormed into the kitchen before yelling at the guys. “I’ve been gone for less than two hours, and you're already trying to burn the house down?”
My hands quickly turned the exhaust fan on in the kitchen before shutting off the oven completely and pulling out the baking sheet inside. Whatever appetizers they were cooking were chunks of charcoal now. I moved to the windows and began opening them to air everything out before storming into the living room where the smoke had also traveled.
Odd. T he TV was running, but they were no longer on the couch. I went to their rooms next to see if maybe they went to one of them for some fun. It would make me insanely jealous because I couldn't do anything for two weeks, but our girl had needs. The doctor said the surgery went well, and my new healing was doing what it needed to do. It didn't take the pain away from my groin, but I kept trying to mask it to not hurt Vicki's feelings.
“Guys?” I began to grow curious as to where they could’ve gone. I went back into the living room to see a beer that had been freshly opened but not drank. Kage would never waste a beer, so I headed back into the kitchen.
Now that some of the fumes cleared, I could see a little bit more in my view, including half cooked bacon spread across the floor with its grease. Blood joined the oddly placed bacon by the entry, and it splattered like someone had been shot.
My eyes quickly darted around to see what I had missed initially. The smoke made me blind to it because I didn't know to look for it immediately, but someone intruded into our home. Someone fired bullets, and I could see the holes in the sheetrock around me. I looked to the oven that I had first s topped by, seeing that I completely missed. White powder all over the countertop and the floor.
In the white powder, a clear handwriting met my gaze. It said:
LEO
HELP
CARNEL
Somehow, one of them found a way to write me a message. One of my family members believed I could rescue them, and I would once I deciphered what they left me.
"Carnel?" I questioned it out loud. My guess was that Vicki wrote it because it didn't match the guys' script. Even then, I knew they could all spell carnal the right way. Vicki read dark romance. That word always appeared, and I knew this from the two I picked up this week to see what she liked. Carnal hunger and rage came up often. I'd have to figure out why she spelt it wrong, but I knew I couldn't do it alone. Not something this severe. With all of them taken, I needed to call in a reinforcement, only having one at my disposal that knew about our arrangement.
I ran for the burner phone and called the number instantly. It rang only a few times before she answered. “Vic, I'm about to walk into an orgy, so this better be important. In T minus five, I won't be able to make any words or sounds from having every orifice stuffed. If you weren’t having your holes filled, I’d invite you.”
“It's Leo,” I started, hating that she was my only avenue for help. “Vicky's been kidnapped.”
“Um, duh! You're the one who kidnapped her.”
“Someone else has taken her with Talon and Kage. Shots were fired, and someone was shot.” My hands studied the blood, seeing the bullet had exited and hit the wall with the splatter.
“And who the hell would do that?”
“Talon’s other job isn't quite as law worthy as the officers you've been seeing,” I remarked in a subtle way.
“ Sonofa …” She stopped talking for a minute and gathered her thoughts. “You're all just lucky I love her so much I’d give up an orgy for her. I'm on my way.”
While she drove, I sat down to think of any theory that might help me. Carnel kept repeating in my mind. My eyes moved to the bullets next, seeing the holes and blood. The bacon suggested a struggle, so who would actually kidnap for harm rather than money? Then it dawned on me like I mentioned on the phone. Talon's secret job. Oy, my brain fog from meds was already trying to hinder me.
I leapt from my chair, feeling the sudden onset of pain in my groin. Right. I couldn't dash around like this situation called for. Grunts left my mouth as I hobbled through the living room to reach my stuff. My laptop would help me undercover everything because Talon had a secret dash cam on his van to help him in possible problems that could arise. We turned it off the day we took Vicki, but he wouldn't leave it off. He needed to make sure no one ever broke into it to find his ties to organized crime.
It hurt to try to hurry, but I knew every second mattered to find out who did this. If they came to collect, it meant something with his last job didn't go off without a hitch. Well, that was my assumption. Sitting back at the table, my fingers ran over the keyboard. I typed to find new arrests that would've happened in the last few days. Even through the happy pills I was on, I knew it would've taken them a day or two to figure out Talon's identity.
A list of local arrests came up in my search, but one stood out as a possible murder suspect. "Dante Carnelli. Carnel... Vicki didn't have enough time to write the full name!"
I pumped my fist toward the ceiling. That's when a voice caught me off guard. "Do you celebrate everything?"
My gaze turned to see Luce in the entry after she let herself in. She must've drove like a bat out of hell to get here in that amount of time, but I didn't care. Actually, I appreciated it.
"If you must know, I found who took them, so it wasn't a little feat." I fixed my glasses before gesturing for her to take a chair. Her eyes took in the chaos that ensued, seeing what I did when the smoke settled. I hadn't cleaned anything, so the bacon still sat all over the floor. Missy came out of hiding now that we were here and began eating the smoky meat with a purr. Her eyes focused on the cat.
"Vic loves bacon. She never lets herself eat it because she doesn't want to get fat." Luce had a few unshed tears in her eyes. She marched to the neighboring chair within her reach and plopped down. "Whoever took her better be ready for my vengeance."
"It was the Carnelli family," I informed her, showing the arrest report for Dante.
"Um, when you said unlawful, the organized crime families didn't come to mind. What the fuck did you guys do to piss them off?"
"Talon is known as The Cleaner to the families. He goes in after certain incidents to make it look like nothing happened. He had a job a few days ago, so I'm betting something happened with that. The cops were still able to tie Dante to the kills."
"So they paid but want a refund from not being satisfied with the cleaning?"
"That's just it, though. Tal is thorough. His OCD doesn't allow room for error. There's always someone there to make sure the job gets done, and he came home with the money."
My fingers were back to the keys, pulling up the dash cam footage. I went to that day, seeing what might help me now. Lucinda scooted closer to view it, impressed we went to such lengths for protection. Like I'd ever let Tal have these jobs without it for this very reason. I scanned the videos for the date and time he'd been gone that day. This would take me a moment, so Luce went to the fridge after swearing under her breath that this would take forever before coming back with a string cheese for both of us to eat as I dug through the footage.
“Food now, so we can forget to eat later,” she muttered something that made sense.
I found the time stamped video I needed, seeing the van parked outside a warehouse. A man kept pacing next to the driver's si de of car with his phone at his ear, so I scrolled back to make sure we could hear any detail that might help. The position blocked his face, being too close, but he missed the camera that recorded voices too. He looked nervous, checking the open garage door to make sure Talon didn't see him.
"You can't be calling me right now," he hissed. Someone on the other end said something he needed to reply to. "I told you, I have everything that will put the blame back on Dante. We knew he'd be stupid enough to come after our family, so everyone let me take some blood just in case. I also snagged the knife he used with his prints and more blood on it. It will at least be enough to hold him."
Someone said something else.
"Look, I'm having to watch The Cleaner roll up my brother and put his corpse on a fucking gurney right now! Don't tell me I'm not all in when it comes to destroying that family! " He hung up, smoking a cigarette to take the edge off.
Now that we heard who was at fault, I knew where to begin. I just had to capture his face on the cam better to run my facial recognition software. I fast-forwarded the clip to where he went into the building to verify the job. We knew his plan, so it wouldn't take much to use this against him, but I had another scheme up my sleeve. A penance needed paid for taking my family, and I'd do just that.
His face lit up my screen, so I pulled all the information on Fredrick (Freddy) Smith. Nearly scoffing, I couldn't believe the family fell for such a generic name. Clearly, it was a cover, so I pulled more to find it. Sure enough, someone covered a lot of tracks to not trace they made him a new identity over a year ago. His real name was Jamie Riviera, and he belonged to another family in the ring. A cousin who did things on the side. Almost two years ago, he had a brother 'disappear' and was never found. We knew his motive to join the Carnelli crew.
"He wanted revenge for his brother's death," Luce whispered, reading the same thing as me.
"And they just killed another brother..."
Sitting back, I let my software find the man we needed to get to. He'd be on the run because of his fear, so his address with his fake name wouldn’t show me shit. It took my computer a minute to find everything, so I built a folder to add the proof to. My case had to be foolproof.
"What if I have a crazy idea, but I'm not sure if it's my pain killers?" I asked her.
"I'd say tell m e, and I'll decide. Sometimes, the good shit clears your mind to see what you need to."
"Tomorrow is the day we need to give Vicki back, but she's currently being detained at the Carnelli compound. What if there was a way to pin our kidnapping on the Carnellis?"
"I'd say it'd be a winning hand for you, but how would you make it work? Didn't you want a ransom? Are you good losing it?" She had a valid point.
"I think the Carnellis need to learn they can't mess with us. We can help them free Dante, but they'll have to pay back the ransom we collect for the reasons we planned to use it for."
"And how would you do that? And who is the ransom for?" She quirked her brow.
"The families who were laid off when a certain D'amour shut down a local factory. They didn't deserve to be left with nothing all at once, so they're getting a better severance package."
"So that's why Vic fell so hard for you guys. She has a weakness for white knights, and a bigger weakness when they're morally grey men."
"She doesn't kn ow. We haven't told her why." Some butterflies found my middle when she mentioned me being morally grey because I knew that was all the rage in the dark romance world.
"Oh, fuck. You're going to make her wet herself from the front hole when you do." Luce let her mind wander for a moment before shaking it to get back to business. "Okay, so let's say the Carnellis don't kill them tonight, and that'll be a stretch, considering they like to take their revenge fast. How would we execute this plan in time to save them?"
She had a valid point. We needed to find a way to lead them on a goose chase long enough to devise this plan my brain began to form. I sat back in my chair as my arms crossed. How?
"Maybe we could just ask?" Luce shrugged. "Maybe tell him you can find the bad guy and free his son? If we show him our perp with the truth, he'll let our people walk too soon for us to pin the kidnapping on."
My computer dinged with a ping, locating Jamie at a rundown motel he planned to hide in. "Luce, you're a genius."
She snorted. "Tell me something I don't know. I was valedictorian, sugar tits."
Well, that fact surprised me. "Okay, Casanova, how do we get footage of Jamie confessing?"
"Why don't you leave that to me?" A wicked gleam spread over her face. "You just focus on communication with Mr. Carnelli."
"I'll make a call." I grabbed the burner phone. Before pointing to the living room where Talon's sat on the coffee table. "Can you grab me Tal's phone from in there? I can’t move well, but I bet he has the number because he sends finished photos."
“OMG! When she said she broke your duck it wasn’t a euphemism!” She cackled but understood why I asked her to run to the other room.
She did, and I found the number. I made the call with a voice scrambler, asking him to give me a day to get proof he'd been betrayed. He'd only give me until six in the evening, so twenty-two hours to save my loved ones and pin the kidnapping on Valentino himself. It gave us a three-hour window after the money came to pin him with the crime once he learned who was at fault. That part he wouldn't see coming. He only agreed because I said I could save his son from going down for murder, so I had to do that, but I knew exactly what to do. I never dumped the cremate d remains into the forest like Tal asked me, so we just had to plant them on the man we were currently running surveillance on.