Chapter 26
Chapter twenty-six
Mac
Since Di doesn’t have any visible injuries or blood on her, I decide the hospital isn’t necessary.
My driver is surprisingly helpful as I tell him a story of how I stopped a man from hurting my friend in the nick of time, but that she fainted.
He drives as fast as possible to my place, helping me get her out of the car and holding the building door for me.
Asking Di to rest is a losing battle once she wakes up in my apartment. She jerks awake with a whimper, and I hurry back out from the bathroom. Approaching her on the coach, I don’t get there in time to stop Di from sitting up.
“Where’s my laptop?” she demands, rubbing her eyes where glasses would normally sit. I pull the pair I grabbed from her place out and hand them over.
“You’ve just been through days of torture. You need rest,” I insist, sitting on the coffee table in front of her, conveniently blocking the computer. “If you have a concussion, you shouldn’t be looking at screens.”
“I don’t have a damn concussion, Mac. I’ve been through this before, remember?” Di spits out and then sighs. “They only fed me twice a day, so I am hungry.”
Getting up and walking quickly to my kitchen, I know she’s picking up her laptop. That can’t be helped, but I can feed her. I had some groceries delivered when E and I got here, so I grab a banana to bring to her until I can make a sandwich or something.
“What’s the app for the collar?” Stopping short with the banana outstretched, she takes it from me with one hand, logging in to her side of the laptop with the other.
“What do you mean?”
Di rolls her eyes and starts to peel the banana while the screen loads. “Don’t get cute with me, Mac. I monitor your purchases to make sure none will get flagged. You bought him a high end titanium collar with a tracking device.”
“I did.” I confirm, moving back into the open-concept kitchen where I can make Di food and still keep an eye on her. “But why do you need to know the app?”
“I thought I said not to get cute. You put a tracker on him for a reason. We can find Ethan and get him back.”
“There is no we,” I say in a low, warning voice. Cutting the lettuce more aggressively than necessary, I pause to take a breath. “You will stay here until I take you home. And you’re moving into my guest house.”
“I will do no such thing, Owen Theodore MacKenzie.”
Di’s stern tone and use of my full name has me looking up to find my assistant glaring my way. She’s frail, under a blanket and still sitting, but I can sense her strength of conviction across the room.
Plating the sandwich without another word, I bring it to her and sit on the coffee table again. “I need you safe, Di.”
“Why?” She asks, a challenge in her tone. “Why do you care if I live or die?”
“Because,” I start, searching for the words. “Becuase you're my assistant and I need you.” When she humphs in disapproval I go on. “I care about you, Di. You’re one of the only people or things in the world I would be sad to see gone from it.”
“That’s better,” she nods and takes the sandwich plate from me. “So you don’t care if Ethan dies?”
“E will not die,” I insist, standing to pace the room. “I know where he is.”
“For now. But what if he cuts the collar off?”
“He wouldn’t,” I practically growl, then a thought occurs to me, sending a thrill of something like fear through me. “But his father might remove it if he suspects the tracker.”
“Exactly,” Di nods and sets the half-eaten sandwich aside to look at her laptop. “I have a better chance of tracking his father if I start as soon as possible.”
“And?”
“The Hamptons house has more activity than usual. I think they’re going out there, next.”
Letting Di get to work, we stay up planning the next move until she can’t keep her eyes open. I take the laptop from her, moving Di to her side and covering her with the throw blanket from the back of the couch.
Slipping out close to dusk, I know she’ll back me up on comms. When she wakes up, I’ll move. Until then, I have a drive to make, and the trip will take a couple hours.
The Miller house in the Hamptons is fenced on three sides, but it only takes hopping the fence two mansions over and trekking down the beach under the cloud cover of darkness to find a place to hide my bag.
Di hacked into their camera system before she fell asleep, and told me how many guards to expect. They were focused on the gate, and only two were circling the property. I don’t care how many there are, I will kill them all.
Unlike most of my kills, this one will be messy.
After waiting for an opening, a quick jog up wooden stairs to reach the house undetected is easy. Hiding in a wisteria-covered gazebo, I watch the guard rotations along with the house while waiting for Di to come online.
The flutter of an upstairs window curtain catches my attention, and I see E there. His face looks like a mix of anger and fear, and for once, I feel the emotions along with him. Whatever his father did, he will pay.
It’s time for Thomas Miller to die.
As if summoned by my thoughts, the man’s voice filters out to me through the open window. “What the fuck are you doing standing around? You need to pack.”
E replies but I can’t hear it, and I watch as if in slow motion as his father slaps him. E touches his cheek but doesn’t yell out, replying with more volume. “Yes, sir.”
Rage boils through me at the assault. Fuck this, he’s mine.
Right as I’m about to surge out of the gazebo and scale the wall using only the trellis and sheer force of will, Di is in my ear. “You left without telling me?”
“Can you see me?” I ask in a whisper instead of answering her rhetorical question. Obviously I left. “I’m in the gazebo.”
“No, you’re in a blind spot,” Di admits and I hear the tell-tale sound of her nails on the keys.
I saw that a couple were broken when I looked Di over.
If she wants a personal manicurist on speed dial, I will happily oblige when this is over.
“You need to get to the north side to cut the power. Copy?”
“Copy. Any obstacles?”
“One, nine-o-clock,” Di tells me, and I’m glad to hear her using the radio language like we’re on a military op. “He’s distracted on his phone. Move now, over.”
Taking the prepared syringe out of the pocket of my cargo pants, I spot the man texting and about to wander past. Removing the cap, I tuck it away before covering his mouth with one gloved hand. The drugs get pumped right into the side of his neck, but the man isn’t going down with a fight.
He bites my palm, but instead of tearing my hand away, I shove inward to muffle his yell while kicking the back of his knees.
When he’s down, I grab a nearby statue of a cherub and hit him over the head.
His brown hair gets dark with blood as life drains out of him.
Dropping the statue, I roll the man so he’s laying on the his injury.
Now it looks like he got high then passed out in an unfortunate accident. So maybe I won’t be so messy after all.
Approaching the north side of the house, I find the panel in an attached utility room and flip all the breakers to the off position. Shouts of surprise ring out, but one voice in particular stands out.
Anger boils through me when I hear E, my pet, calling out for his father. Despite everything the man has said and done for him, when he’s in danger, he still calls for his dad.
Does E not know I came for him? That I will always come for him?