Chapter Thirteen
Victoria
"Craig," Az said, "Why don't you explain the phone sitch to the Princess."
"Pussy," Leighton laughed as Az slipped around us to the front door.
Craig let out a long-suffering sigh. "We all have burners to handle business, Bunny." he started, scowling in the direction Az had fled. "Until we know who is behind this mess, it's not exactly smart to give you free reign to call people. You wouldn't intentionally give away our location, but with Tiffany and Theo's connections, it would be easy for them to trace the call."
Leighton leaned forward and dropped an arm around my shoulder. "If it makes you feel any better, Rich doesn't have a phone either."
"He's barely gotten back to staying conscious more than not," I snorted. "So, no, that doesn't make me feel better."
"Well, maybe when we get everything settled, we can get you in with Phil's therapist to talk about it?" Leighton chuckled.
"Who the fuck is Phil? You keep mentioning him."
"He's one of our most trusted guys, if one of us can't do something he usually does." Craig answered candidly.
"So, he's a mobster that sees a therapist. Maybe the five of you should get an appointment." I deadpanned.
"She's… I mean, I'm sure she's very good at her job. But–" Craig started, stumbling.
"He dips his wick, if you know what I mean." Leighton said in a loud whisper.
"So, there'd be lots of conflicts of interest going on." Craig finished the explanation.
I shook my head in annoyance. "Can we circle back to why I'm not allowed to have a phone. Like, good for your guy or whatever, but this feels suspiciously like being kept prisoner again ."
"It's not that you're not allowed one, Bunny. It's just… we have to be extra careful right now. We're not at our best game, and the burners we have were ones we could get our hands on quickly when we made a run for it." He paused, looking at me earnestly.
"But they're burners. Aren't those supposed to be untraceable? That's the whole reason to have them, isn't it?" I protested.
"Burners absolutely can be tracked. That's why I brought so many." Leighton replied, his face startlingly serious. "We only call people we can trust. I'm sure Craig can tell you all the why's and how's of tracking burners if you really want them."
"He's right. Sure, they're good about offering some anonymity on the surface, but it's not foolproof. Anyone with the skill and equipment can track them using call records, location tracking, stingrays, or surveillance. Even if they're not tracking things on our end, they can also track the activity for people that we might call and put two-and-two together. It's a matter of risk reduction to have a few on hand, but not so many that we can't keep an eye on them all." Craig explained simply as if it were common knowledge.
"So, what you're saying is with all your big-brain-techy skills, you can't set up a phone for me to call my father? My best…" I trailed off as the memory of what they'd shown me came to mind. "Have any of you even bothered to let my father know I'm alive? He must be worried sick."
Craig and Leighton shared a look that I couldn't decode. But before I could call them out on it, Craig gave me a sheepish look and took my hand.
"I have been working on something, but I didn't want to say anything until I was finished with it. It's not a phone, but it's what I can do with what I have here." He led me into his room and sat me down in the chair at his desk. He turned on his system, and I had to blink with the light of several monitors coming on at once. After a couple seconds, he pulled up what looked like an old-fashioned dialer.
"You can't call people from this, but I have set it up where you can get into your voicemail specifically by dialing your number. You know how to get into it from calling that way, right?"
I looked at him like he just asked me a question in tongues. "Why would I have ever needed to know that?"
By the way his lips twitched, I could tell he was keeping his answer to that question to himself.
"Neeeerd." Leighton, from the doorway, laughed out loud.
"L, how old are you? Twelve?" Craig said, without any menace. "If you're not going to be helpful, go away."
"How am I supposed to help with this?" Leighton asked, seemingly with genuine curiosity.
"You can't. So, go away." Craig said with a grin.
"Thanks for ruining my dick joke." Leighton pouted, flipping him off and sauntering out of the room.
"So, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted," Craig said loud enough for Leighton to have heard it, then turned back to me. "With this, I've set it up where you can call your own number and get into your voicemail."
"But I can't call other numbers?" I asked, a little annoyed.
"Nope. If another number is dialed, it will terminate the call before it can go out. Pay attention, Bunny. Call your number, and when your voicemail picks up, hit the star key on the number pad here," he said, pointing to the star key; I rolled my eyes at his over-explaining but stayed silent. "Then you'll put in your voicemail pin, and it will let you check your messages. If there's anything concerning, important, or time-sensitive in there, come and let one of us know."
"Okay, cool. Easy enough to remember." I said simply and then looked at Craig expectantly. He looked back at me as if he was waiting for me to say something else.
"Tag out, bro!" Leighton called from the doorway. "You're hogging her."
"Thank you for this, Craig. Now," I said, looking between him and Leighton, "shut the door on your way out, please."
"But we just made up!" Leighton pouted.
Craig shook his head at him, forcing him to step back just enough to leave the room and shut the door. Given the way we'd found Craig, Joey, and Az eavesdropping earlier, I suspected the pair would be listening on the other side of the door. But having it closed gave me some semblance of privacy.
Taking a breath, I followed Craig's instructions and let my voicemails begin to play through.
"Honeybee, where are you?" My father's voice rang out, laced with worry. "The news said the manor was on fire. Please, call me. Let me know you're alright."
I frowned to myself as the options at the end of the message played out. I didn't recall there being any fire in the manor when we took off in the dead of night after Rinaldo's attack.
The following voicemail was timestamped ten minutes later. "I'm on my way to the manor. Please. Honeybee, call me back." My father's voice was strained, and I could hear the soft purr of an engine.
There were several short ‘Call me' messages timestamped within the time it would have taken him to make it to the manor. Each was slightly more frantic than the last before there was a several-minute break in timestamps.
"They're…. God, Honeybee, please. I need to know you're okay, the emergency workers are bringing bodies out of the manor. They won't," he choked out a sob . "They won't let me close enough to know if one of them is you."
"Victoria! Where are you? Your father just called asking if you were with me?" Tiffany's voice rang out in the next message. "If those guys have done something, please just call me. I can help you, whatever it is."
"Jellybean, where are you?" Uncle Theo's voice was next. "The police won't tell us anything other than you weren't in the manor. Hugo is losing his mind with worry. Please, call us."
"Honeybee, I am begging you. Call me. I need to know you're really okay. They… they said they didn't find you in the manor, but nobody has heard from or seen you. I shouldn't have trusted those men to take care of you. I'm-" The message abruptly ended.
"Tory, I swear to God bitch, if you don't call me back, I'm going to be so pissed. Everyone is freaking out. Your dad is calling a press conference. He thinks the guys took you to hurt you." Tiffany practically shrieked.
"Jellybean…" Uncle Theo's voice again, tearful and despairing. "Jellybean, please. If you're okay, you have to find a way to let us know. I don't… You have to be okay. You have to. You're all I have left. I can't… Please…" After that, there were no more words, just Uncle Theo sobbing before it cut off.
"Gentlemen, at this point, I'm assuming that you have my daughter, and you're not letting her have access to her phone for some reason. If she's okay, I implore you to let her let us know that. And gentlemen…" My father paused, taking a deep breath. His voice was shaking, but his tone was firm. "She had better be okay. If she isn't, if you've done something to her, the consequences will be severe ." There was some shuffling on the line, but just before it cut off, "Find my fucking daughter."
I almost hadn't caught it; I'd had to replay the message to make it out. It almost sounded like someone else entirely, despite being my father's voice. It was cold, hard, and demanding as if he was giving someone an order he would accept absolutely no argument for.
I don't know when I started tearing up while listening to the people who meant the most to me begging for some contact and reassurance that I was okay. My chest swelled, and I felt almost warm at my father's message to the guys. But it broke my heart that they were all left without any knowledge that I was alive and… that there was a possibility at least one of them was lying.
Tears streamed down my face as I played through the next several days of messages. They were all similar to the ones I'd already listened to, though there was a heightened sense of panic and urgency in everyone's voices. I listened to each one over the course of the next half-hour or so before I'd finally reached the last message. Steeling myself to have my heart broken even more by their distress, I pressed play.
"It's time for you to end your tantrum, Victoria." Benson's voice played through the speakers in jarring contrast to the other messages. "You've had your little fun running with those criminals. It's time to come out of hiding and come back to where you belong."
Benson launched into a spiel about how I was wronging him, and I couldn't help tuning out his self-important droning until he said something that caught my attention.
"You opened a door when you ran off with those thugs, Victoria. Now they're not the only ones that think you belong to them. But we both know you're mine. If you don't end this pathetic little game of yours, I will come for you myself. And I've got some friends that will help me find you."
It wasn't his words that chilled me; it was the tone in his voice. He'd always been an arrogant prick, but this was beyond that. Benson knew something he wasn't giving away in his voicemail. Something he knew I should rightly be terrified of. Before I could replay the message to search for any clues about what it might be, the door burst open behind me, causing me to jump.
"First thing I'm doing when we get back to Sacona is murdering that prick." Leighton snarled, moving toward me with a predatory gaze, but as he got closer to me, something in his expression softened, and he dropped down to my level and pulled me into a reassuring squeeze.
"Run that one back again, Bunny. There's something there." Craig said, following in behind him.
"Let me go for a second, Leighton." I said softly, tapping his back.
He shook his head and did a bunny step to the side so that we were shifted, and I was able to reach the keyboard.
"Nope. I feel like you need this, so work it out." He said gently.
"...Alright, fine. Whatever makes you feel better, Leighton." I suspected he needed it more than I did, and I couldn't help but smile a little as I craned my neck to look over his shoulder and hit the key to replay the message.
"We'll talk about who needs this later, after you've had your fill." He snickered.
Craig shushed us sharply, and after a few moments of listening, he reached around us to stop the playback.
"Leighton, let her go so she can get out of my chair. I need to analyze this message, and I want to run down if there's anything to his vague threat here." Craig said absently; his voice was all business, and he spoke to us without looking as he tried to wedge himself between us and his desk.
Leighton pulled back just enough to glance at Craig before letting me go and taking my hand to pull me from the chair.
"Yeah, sure. Come on ma petit. I'll give you all the cuddles you need to deal with this emotional load in the den. Craig… sick ‘em big dog."