CHAPTER NINE
Levi
Los Angeles, California
I wake with a start, as my fingers fall on the keys of my piano and send a loud noise echoing through the room.
Right before Saylor and I eloped, we started a ‘New Adventure Jar’ .
We wanted to start doing activities that were new to us as a couple.
We each placed five activities, written on a folded piece of paper, in a jar and once we completed the task or adventure, we’d pick a new one.
We drew “learning to play the piano” when the threats against my love started rolling in and I made the biggest mistake of my life.
I bought us this beautiful grand piano to learn on, here at home, after I refused to return to the class she signed us up for.
She and I were the oldest in the beginners’ class by two decades.
After that, I found a nice lady who came here to teach us.
My hazy eyes try to adjust to the bright light from the floor to ceiling windows.
I see another large empty bottle of liquor sitting on top of the piano, with the tumbler missing.
It’s either shattered against the wall somewhere in the corner, or I bypassed it all together and drank straight from the bottle.
Again . Saylor loved this piano and played all the time.
Sometimes I’d bring my work home with me and sneak in so that I could hear her play when it was her time for a lesson.
She was getting to the point where she didn’t need to look at the sheets to play the three songs that we’d learned because her fingers moved to their own accord. She is truly a priceless gem.
I can’t keep going on like this. It’s been a month since Saylor’s due date, and we still can’t seem to find her.
I can’t keep drinking every night, hoping I don’t have nightmares of my beautiful wife laying on the cold floor next to my dead child.
The thought makes me vomit in the trash bin next to my piano.
Tina knows my routine by now and it saves her time and clean up if she just places it there in the early mornings.
We haven’t been able to find one trace of where Saylor has been sent.
Not one piece of paper shows where that asshole, Burt Buttons, placed her.
Dean has hacked the government database and found all the Witness Protection placements, but with over ten thousand to look through, it’s going to take a while to find my family.
The penthouse has become command central as William, Dean and others are now camping out here, working around the clock.
Reid has taken one of the guestrooms and stays here as often as possible.
Lincoln comes by after work most days. He calls several times a day checking in.
Things are still on shaky ground with him and Everly.
My mother comes by every day, before or after she’s heading to work, to check on me to make sure I’m eating and to make sure I’m still healing properly.
Daniel has been banned from coming within twenty feet of my building, and I haven’t seen him in a long time.
After what he did, I don’t think I could ever get past his actions, even if he thought he was doing the right thing.
Mitch mentioned that he has hired his own PI to find Saylor and our baby, but I don’t care at this point.
He could find the cure for cancer and I’d never bat an eye at him.
My father-in-law blew into LA not long after I woke up.
Adam Gentry is the scariest motherfucker I’ve ever experienced in my life.
He looked every bit military but there was something about him that felt off.
Saylor had mentioned his time with Everly’s Dad, Tommy Bryant, when he was in the service and the trauma they experienced.
She’d said that he’d go missing for months on end, leaving her to Glammy and Granddad to look after.
Adam didn’t take too kindly of how his daughter was treated when he was told why she took off.
Everly and Tommy had finally gotten ahold of him after many attempts of trying to contact him.
He was up in Alaska, deep-sea fishing for two months, and came back with hell beside him.
I’ll never forget meeting him for the first time.
“Where is my daughter?” we hear roared down the hall. I’d just gotten back from physical therapy and was exhausted. My family was here, all waiting to hear if tomorrow was the day that I got to go home. Lincoln had stopped by with Everly’s dad after they went to lunch to discuss some things.
A man storms into the room and the temperature dropped to freezing. His eyes were wild, and only when they locked in on Tommy did they focus.
“Where is she?” Adam asked.
Tommy went straight to him, speaking in a hushed voice. Every muscle was locked into place on his body the more Tommy spoke with him.
“Mr. Gentry, I’m Daniel Thorne, Levi’s dad—”
“I know who the fuck you are. I know all about you and your family,” Adam sneers over Tommy’s shoulder, looking Dad straight in the eyes.
Mitch and Dean had some questions for Dad of his time when he was at the police station with Saylor, and just happened to be there during all this.
“Which one of you is responsible for all this, this time?”
There is a lot of activity outside my hospital room, as I see multiple hospital security guys hovering close. Apparently there was a famous movie star giving birth and was in my private wing of the hospital, so security has been tight the last day or so.
“There was a slight misunderstanding when Levi—” Dad didn’t even get the chance to finish his sentence before Adam lunged past Tommy and nailed him with his large fist. The room erupted after that.
He not only laid out my father, knocking him on his ass, but every security personnel in his wake.
I watched, mesmerized, wishing I was the one who knocked Dad’s ass out.
He didn’t spare me any favors either, and knocked my ass out even in my wheelchair, at the time.
I deserved every stitch of pain he landed across my face.
He was furious, and promised that if he found Saylor then he’d make it his life’s mission to keep us apart.
Mitch, of course, has someone on him following his every move to make sure he can’t find her first, then take off with my family.
God only knows what he’d fill her head with since he hates me, and I’d never get my chance to explain the reasons behind that horrible scene at the restaurant.
The day after he whirled in, we received a call that Blaire Hutchins was dead.
According to the Police Department, she hung herself with torn sheets from her bedding.
Everyone chalked it up to her upcoming trial, but something in the back of my mind didn’t add up to me.
It wasn’t until the day before she died that I learned that it was that rancid bitch who was the ring leader, who had Saylor assaulted in jail.
Mitch and Dean put me on lockdown to keep me from leaving the hospital and choking the bitch dead with my own two hands.
Lincoln confessed to the family, shortly after, about Blaire and all that she was involved in.
Of course, dad went into lecture mode but Mom shut him right up.
Olivia is holding down most all of my cases at work.
Lincoln thinks that it’s best until further notice, and doesn’t want me to be bothered with anything business related until my family is back safe and sound.
I spend a lot of time working with my hands at a new property I just purchased.
It’s a gut job and I love nothing more than taking a hammer and destroying everything in my wake. Nothing else matters.
Mitch has exhausted all his leads and is following up daily with new ones.
I wanted to go to the public and have a news conference about finding Saylor, but was strongly advised against it.
Since I didn’t listen to their advice the first go around, I’m much more dependent on sticking with their opinions these days.
We haven’t heard from our suspect, who made the threats against Saylor and our child since before the bombing incident, but it might tip him off if I was to make a plea for her to return home.
Also, the crazies would come out of the woodwork trying to find Saylor, and then we’d be putting her in a hostage situation.
I’d sign my entire life’s worth over to have her here right now.
As for Detective Ford, let’s just say that he will have a problem collecting a paycheck anywhere here in the states. Between Lincoln and Olivia, they had him blackballed here, Canada, Mexico and anywhere else they have pull. Good luck at the North Pole, fucker!
As always, I head to the nursery and sit down in the rocking chair beside the crib and stare around the room.
I found the perfect room decor online one night I couldn’t sleep, before I started to drink to fill the void.
I had Tina organize someone to come and recreate it except for the crib, I felt like that is what dads are supposed to do as parents; a rite of passage.
There are neutral colors throughout the room, and small little animals fill the walls and corners of it.
It’s like a miniature zoo in here. Mom went crazy and has the first years’ worth of clothing, for both a girl and boy, in the walk-in closet.
Christ, I don’t even know if I have a son or daughter.
Automatically, I touch the chain around my neck that holds Saylor’s rings. I do this often. They never come off, I always want to feel them against me. I was lucky that I didn’t lose them in the bombing, or at the hospital, when I was transported.