Chapter Twenty-Eight
Pacino
Pulling up to Velvet Desire, I hurry to the guys outside talking to Queenie.
“This doesn’t make sense,” Capone says.
“They stormed in and threatened us with knives,” Queenie says.
I frown. This doesn’t sound like Ryan. He’s more the gunplay type.
“And you locked them in a supply closet until Rooster and Penn showed up to tie them up?” Capone asks.
His statement really rings true. This doesn’t make sense.
Heading inside, I throw my phone on the desk and pull up the security cameras. Anyone in Ryan and my father’s network would have alerted us as soon as their faces hit the cameras. Unless they’re not directly connected to them.
“Fuck,” I mutter as I click through.
They cut a few of the camera lines but not all. Which is more work for Scotty because he’ll have to come out here and fix them all. As soon as possible because we’re shut down until it’s done. I won’t have the women working in rooms without cameras.
It takes longer than I like, and I sit back as a strange feeling washes over me. Like I need to be somewhere, but all I had planned for today was spending all day wrapped up in Phoebe. Basking in my ray of sunshine.
I finally get the backup cameras going after a few minor issues, and I’m annoyed that I’ve already been gone for over thirty minutes. Closer to forty-five.
“What the hell is going on?” I ask as I click around.
The urge to get home to my girl almost chokes me. Even though I haven’t told her I love her yet, it doesn’t change the fact I do. And I show it even if I haven’t said it. But this is more than just love.
“Find something?” Capone asks, walking into the office.
Three men get out of a beat-up Honda Accord. “Sort of. What the fuck is this?”
He walks behind me and snorts. They wear jeans and sweatshirts that look as though they haven’t been washed in days. One of them has scabs on his face, the tell-tale sign of someone addicted to Venom Dust.
“Ryan’s guys drive SUVs and probably don’t own a sweatshirt,” Capone says.
“Something isn’t right,” I say, standing to walk into the room where the three men sit with their hands and feet bound.
Ryan would never talk to these guys. He wouldn’t have any of his guys talk to them, either.
“What the fuck do you want?” the leader asks with a thick Mexican accent.
Capone and I exchange looks. Our families are particular with who they work with. These guys are not in that spectrum.
“Who are you?” I ask.
“We were hired by a guy.”
“Who was the guy?”
Snapping his mouth closed, he glares at me with a smirk that I want to punch. He just shrugs as he continues to fidget.
“You three are gonna die, so you might as well come clean. The longer it takes for you to tell us the truth, the longer it takes for you to die,” Capone says.
Zep walks up and mutters, “You really don’t think this is what it looks like, P?”
“They’re dressed in dirty casual clothes, so they’re not Italian. Plus, they’re junkies. This is not Ryan’s typical men for hire,” I say.
“You work for Ryan Vega?” Capone asks the skinniest one.
“Don’t say a fucking word, Grande,” the leader snaps.
Grande. He weighs a buck fifteen, if that. Cute.
“Yeah, we work for him,” Grande says.
“What the fuck?”
“Look, if I’m gonna die, I want it to be quick. You guys do what the fuck you want,” he says.
Something about this still doesn’t make sense. “How long have you worked for him?”
“I don’t know, man,” Grande says and shrugs. “Like, a little while.”
“Like, a little while?” Capone asks. “Guess. How long is a little while to you?”
“Leave him alone, man,” the middle guy says, fighting against his restraints. “It’s been a short while, okay?”
“See, that’s the problem. What we think is a short while may not be so short to you, so let’s try to narrow this down a bit.”
Buzzing from the office echoes in the quiet hallway, and I should be annoyed. If it’s Scotty, he knows I’m busy. But it wouldn’t be Scotty.
“A couple weeks or so,” he says.
This doesn’t feel right. It’s all wrong. Even though the attack on Phoebe at the bakery was sloppy, this is beyond that. This is just… stupid. Employing junkies is always a mistake. Especially junkies hooked on Venom Dust.
“You work with Butch Ballard?” I ask.
“Work with him? Nah, man, that guy’s crazy,” Grande says, running his nose on his shoulder. “We just like his product.”
“Yeah, we can see that,” Zep says.
Capone grabs my arm, pulling me aside. “Something’s wrong.”
“Even if Ryan was desperate, he’d drop a good chunk of change to get reliable people.”
“If they get caught… This is just…”
He can’t finish the sentence because there are just too many options. Stupid. Irrational. Unreliable. Illogical. Nonsensical.
“What did Ryan hire you to do?” I ask.
“Look, you’re not the cops, okay? We don’t gotta answer your questions. So either call the cops or let us go,” the leader says.
The buzzing in the office continues, and I wish I’d grabbed my phone when I walked in here.
Crouching in front of him, I smile. The type of smile that immediately strikes fear into anyone who isn’t related to me. “Didn’t you hear me? You’re fucking dead. It’s just a matter of how long it takes to get you dead that you’re determining right now.”
His eyes widen. “Why do you even care who hired us? We attacked your business. Just kill us if you’re going to, man.”
“Ryan Vega… the man who hired you is my brother. And you’re not the type he usually works with.
Then you come here and attack our girls.
I want answers before I kill you, and if that means I have to pull out every fucking finger and toenail you have to get you to tell me what I want to know, I will. ”
“Don’t forget the fact they use our enemy’s product. That gives us even more reason to break what teeth they still have on the curbs out front. That might get their attention,” Capone says.
Normally, Zep and Jethro would be running this, but this isn’t really club territory. It’s the world Capone and I ran from, and we need to handle this. Pull from our past to fix the present.
My phone continues buzzing, and it makes me itch not to check it. What if it’s Phoebe? She’d have to use Scotty’s phone because I haven’t given her the one I bought for her to replace the one Ryan and his men broke yet. And if she’s calling from his phone, it’s an emergency.
“Someone go check my phone in the office, will you?” I ask.
Rooster nods and heads out of the room.
“Okay, look, Ryan told us through one of his men what to tell you. We were given fifty grand to keep you busy. Told us to attack the brothel and get you here.”
A sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach makes me stand. “They’re a distraction.”
“For what?” Capone asks.
“Pacino, your phone’s blowing up. Some alarm is going off,” Rooster says.
Taking it from him, I look to see it’s been going off for over thirty minutes. “Phoebe knows the alarm code. She’d shut it off if it was an accident.” I look up at Capone. “Ryan did this to take Phoebe.”
“Are you sure?”
I run to the office and log into my home security system. Sure enough, not fifteen minutes after I left, Ryan and his men broke into the gate to my house.
“Jesus,” Jethro mutters behind me.
Ten minutes later, Phoebe’s brought out and shoved into an SUV. They’ve been gone almost half an hour. “Where the fuck is Scotty?”
“He was there?” Capone asks.
I scour through the footage. No Scotty.
“He wouldn’t have just let them take her and not called me. They did something to him.”
“Why didn’t she fight?” Zep asks.
Shaking my head, I shrug. “I don’t know. She might’ve thought it would be easier for her if she didn’t.”
“What do you want us to do here?” Rooster asks.
“Kill them and get rid of them,” I say. “They’ve got nothing else to give us. I need to get to my house. I have to find out where they took my girl.”
Capone is right on my heels as I hop onto my bike, and I race to my house. If Scotty’s still alive, he might know where they took her.
I have to get to her.