Chapter 23
Arya
It’s funny how many messed up things I’ve learned listening to my father’s conversations with his men and friends over the years.
One of the things that I have been able to figure out from all those nightmare-inducing lessons is that if a person is a loner asshole with no friends and a perpetually-online life, he’s going to be a lot easier to kidnap than someone with a family, an outside job, or a healthy social life.
Brian Cleary is exactly the kind of guy in danger of disappearing off the face of the planet without anyone noticing except the dozen or so women he’s harassing online at any given time.
He’s scrubbed a lot of his online presence, but now that we know more of what to look for, we can still find bits of it. He’s done a sloppy job, incomplete, and now that he’s so upset, he’s making even more mistakes.
We find his rants online about his “half-million contract job he’s getting stiffed on by a bunch of mobsters.” We also find his porn accounts and various little conservative social-media bolt-holes.
And finally, we find him.
He’s holed up in a hotel near the Oakland Airport, one with ample Internet-connected security cameras. Moreover, he has already managed to kick up an unnecessary fuss about his room and the hours for the continental breakfast during check-in.
He’s been there with the lights on since sundown that day. His flight out to Canada leaves at 10 in the morning. I have no idea if he is armed, but I can absolutely guarantee that he does not have a backup.
“You’d better take custody of him while I back you up online. If I try to do it—” I start, but he’s already shaking his head.
“I don’t want you going anywhere near that guy until he’s safely tied to a chair. He’s too nuts, and he hates women.”
“Thank you.” I feel better about this... but I also hate the idea of Michael going in there alone. “I’ll make sure to scrub the security videos of your presence. We’ll time it for when there’s only one person on and they have to pee or something.”
“Sounds good.” He sighs and gets up, going over to the safe bolted under one of the great room counters. “I never actually thought I’d be in a position where I’d have to use a gun on a job, but here we are.”
“You’re practiced with it, right?”
He unlocks the safe and pulls out a black 9 mm handgun that would scare the piss out of me if it was pointed at my face. It will definitely do the job of intimidating Cleary. “Are you kidding? My dad dragged me to the range every weekend, starting as soon as it was legal. Yours?”
“I wish. I’m a girl, so I had to learn on my own. But I do know how to shoot straight.”
He nods and pulls out his shoulder holster, putting it on. “Well, hopefully, neither of us will have to apply those skills tonight.”
I nod, praying that as well. The prospect of losing Michael when I’ve just found him gnaws at me, and I try to push it aside as he drives.
The drive to Oakland is long and chilly. Fog hangs over the Bay, filling the air with a faint, foul smell of the sea. Jazz plays on the radio, and the heater hums constantly.
We’re not driving his usual car. This is a small panel truck, the kind that swarms around that area day and night. In the back are two rolls of duct tape, a pair of handcuffs, and a lot of dark, uncomfortable space for Cleary to knock around in. That should take some of the fight out of him.
If it doesn’t, I’m not sure what we’re going to do. But Michael says he’s got it covered. I just wish he’d tell me what his contingency plan actually is. I suspect, though he hasn’t said, that he’s worried.
“Will you be able to remote-hack the hotel from out here with that gear?” he asks as he drives.
“I’ve done more with less. This system’s been heavily modded, and as long as their Internet isn’t out, I should be good to go as soon as we’re in the parking lot.”
“Good.” He put his earpiece in. “You got your microphone on?”
I sigh and put in my earpiece. “It’s ready to go. Are you?”
He nods, patting the pistol under his leather jacket. “I’ll be back with our asshole within fifteen minutes.”
My stomach tightens as I turn to my laptop and start the fight to get in past the motel’s online security. It isn’t much to speak of: These smaller places in undesirable spots usually don’t pull in the cash for real Net security. This isn’t going to take me long.
It doesn’t. By the time Michael is almost at the lobby door, I’m already looking at him through the security cameras. “I’m in,” I tell him through the microphone.
“All right. I don’t want to hang out outside. Should we wait for a pee break or—”
“No. Act natural. Walk in like you belong there. Go straight for the elevator.” I pick up my phone to distract the deskperson with a call.
She yawns in my ear when she picks up. “East Oakland Fairway Hotel, can I help you?”
“Yes, hi, when is checkout in the morning?”
I watch the camera as she turns her attention away from the lobby toward the call, and Michael becomes a background activity in the corner of her eye. She doesn’t call after him or even look his way. I smile with relief.
I keep her on the phone with a few small, inane questions she probably gets dozens of times a day until Michael is safely in the elevator and heading up. Then, I let her sign off so she can get back to work, none the wiser that an armed kidnapper has just slipped past her.
It takes almost no time for me to find the footage of Michael’s walking through in the system and replace it with a copy of another guest’s late-night arrival.
Things are going smoothly so far. But Michael hasn’t even made contact with our target yet, and the closer he gets to doing that, the more dangerous it becomes. I concentrate on getting him the right room number and then remote-unlocking the door for him.
“You’re ready to go,” I tell him as he reaches the right floor and heads for Brian Cleary’s room. “Good luck. Please...”
“I know, sweetheart. Thank you. This will be over soon.”
He opens the door to Cleary’s room and closes it behind him. I hear a muffled yell over his microphone and then Michael speaking in a stern voice I have never heard from him before.
“Shut up. Keep your hands where I can see them.”
“I... I... I... oh, God, what is this...” Brian stammers in a low, choked voice. “Are you here to kill me?”
“Not unless you fuck up. By which I mean you try to run, you try to yell for help, or you don’t cooperate. If you do any of that, I’ll empty this gun into your ass without thinking twice about it.”
“I didn’t—”
“I don’t want to hear it.” I have no idea how Michael sounds so quiet and calm and yet so menacing at the same time. It scares me and turns me on all at once. And God, does Cleary deserve every bit of the terror he’s feeling.
“What do you want?” Cleary whimpers. It’s clear he’s never had a gun pointed at him before in his entire fucking life. “Just tell me!”
“I want you to come with me.” Michael’s voice stays low and commanding. “I want you to walk out with me calmly like we’re going out for a late-night drink.”
Cleary starts to pant in terror. “No! I can’t let you take me to some secondary location—”
“I don’t give a fuck what you think you can or cannot do. See, you just helped a really stupid girl steal $5 million from a powerful mob family. People are reckless enough to do something like that; well, they don’t generally survive very long. And as I have just proven, we can find you anywhere.”
Cleary is blubbering, sobbing like a five-year-old boy with a skinned knee. “I don’t want to die... it wasn’t even my idea! She never told me who she was even stealing from—”
“Oh, bullshit,” Michael grumbles.
“Please... I’ll do anything...”
Michael is quiet for a few moments while Cleary sobs. Then, he speaks calmly again: “If you cooperate, you have a single fucking chance of surviving the night. If you do not, I’ll scapegoat you for everything my sister did, claim she was coerced, and hand you over to my father and his men. Or I’ll just hole you out right here.”
“No... please...” he starts sobbing harder. “Please...”
“Calm down and dry your fucking face. If you cooperate properly, you have nothing to worry about. If you don’t, you die. You already know how to make sure you live. So, pull yourself together and listen.” Icicles are hanging from Michael’s tone.
“How do I know you won’t shoot me the moment you get what you want?” His voice is so high and reedy with terror that I almost feel bad for him. Almost.
“I’m not going to shoot you. What my father will do isn’t up to me. But I’ll tell you this right now: If he has to go chase you down after this, he absolutely will kill you. Cooperating with me is your only chance.”
I sit back in my seat in the van, keeping half an eye on the security feeds and half on the parking lot around me. It’s hard to listen to this. Cleary keeps crying like a little kid in a way that almost embarrasses me, and Michael’s cold, hard voice in my ear does weird things to me. I don’t like feeling horny and scared at the same time.
But I’m both, though right now I’m mostly chilly from worrying that Cleary will snap and screw everything up.
Please, I sort of pray as I keep quiet and let Michael do his thing. Please, let this work. Please, let Cleary just give in so we can resolve this.
Finally, the sobbing and whimpering lets up. Cleary manages to pull himself together. And they leave, barely speaking further.
My lungs feel like I’m breathing helium. I see them exit Cleary’s room together, no gun evident, and both acting calm. I start editing security camera footage to cover Michael’s tracks again. The deskperson retreats to the back for a while. I tell Michael, and he and Cleary step onto the elevator and quickly make their way down and out of the building.
I do the last of the cleanup, and suddenly, there’s no evidence that anyone was with Cleary when he left. By the time I’m getting out to unlock the back of the van for them, the whole job is done.
Cleary glares at me with suspicious rage. “Why’s there a female here?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I growl, staring at him in disdain. I go back to sit in the driver’s seat.
“You’re really pushing your fucking luck with me,” Michael tells him in that same murderously cold voice. It makes me shudder even more in person. “That’s my woman and our driver. Get in the van.”
They both get in, and Michael pulls the van doors shut after them. I hear the rattle of chains and Cleary whimpering in terror. “You can’t let her drive; she’s going to kill us!”
“Jesus Christ, dude. Do you see this syringe?” A pause. The sounds of a struggle stop dead. “Yeah. Good. Hold still, or this needle is going in your thigh. If you’re lucky, all it will do is tranquilize you. If you’re not, you’ll stop breathing.”
I hear the click of locks and then the ripping sound of duct tape being pulled off its spool. “Believe me, at this point, this part is for your own safety.”
Cleary’s whimpering gets more muffled. His mouth’s been taped. I sigh with relief.
When Michael gets up front, he buckles in and lets me drive. “Don’t go too easy on these roads,” he suggests, and I scoff with amusement.
“Thanks for shutting him up,” I say, and he chuckles.
“No problem, sweetheart. I didn’t want to subject you to any of that.”
I smile shakily and, once we’re buckled in, steer us out into traffic.
I drive with incredible care. I take every poorly paved backstreet and uncomfortably tight turn possible between the hotel and Michael’s parents’ home, keeping tight control and maintaining a responsible speed. And yet every turn and jostle gets me a squeak of pure terror from the back of the van as if I’m inches from driving us off a cliff.
I’ve never been to Michael’s family home before. Even before our families became rivals, I’ve never been invited over. Finding out that my father is a creep explains a lot of that. But as we walk in with a trembling, pale Brian Cleary walking ahead of us, I can’t help but feel like I’m walking into enemy territory.
We get curious looks as we walk in. One of the guards is muttering on his cell phone. Michael sees him and sighs. “Well, Dad knows we’re here now.”
I try not to get too scared when he says that, but I know the truth: He’s here uninvited, with the daughter of an enemy and a captive whose testimony was the only excuse we had to be here. And that hinges on whether Michael’s father would even hear it.
One of the guards, a lean man with a heavy five o’clock shadow, walks up to Michael. “Sir, you know you’ve been banned from the premises.”
“Tell my father I have one of the thieves in my hands right now for him to question.”
The guard looks between me and Cleary and notices the latter is pale and sweating. He nods after a moment and moves away to speak into his phone. When he returns, he has a solemn look on his face.
“He’ll see you.”
Within a minute, we are standing in his father’s elegant office, across the desk from a solemn, scowling man who bears a strong resemblance to Michael. Cleary starts shivering when he sees our host, who looks him up and down dubiously.
“I said not to come back until you found the money.”
His voice is quiet and cold, and I hear echoes of Michael’s earlier voice in it—the one that scared me and turned me on at the same time. This is where he’s got it from.
“This man is the thief’s accomplice. He can tell us how it was done, who was involved, and where the money went. And as for the money itself, only the thief can access and return it.”
“So, where’s the thief?” His father’s eyebrow goes up, and I see Michael tense slightly. “And while we’re on the subject, why the hell is Castellucci’s daughter with you?”
“Arya wrote the program, and she’s been working with me to find out who did this.” Michael squares his shoulders as his father stares between us. “She’s also my woman.”
His father splutters in astonishment for a few moments before saying, “You accepted a job to steal from her heist, from me, when you were—”
“When I was in love with her, yes. It’s why I asked you to reconsider.”
He shakes his head incredulously and points to two of his guards. “Take this meat sack out of here; I have family business to tend to.”
The guards drag a terrified-looking Cleary out of the room, and I don’t know whether to be relieved or even more worried. Michael is fudging the timeline of our relationship with his father. I don’t know why he’s doing it, but I’m going to play along.
“I wasn’t intending to test your loyalty that harshly,” he admits, and I blink in shock and something like sadness. My own father would never have expressed regret over his actions, no matter how much they hurt me.
“Well, it’s the truth. I never mentioned it because I didn’t know how you’d take it.” Michael looks at me, and I nod and turn my gaze to his father, who is staring at me thoughtfully.
“But what about your family?” he asks me directly.
My throat seizes up, and Michael reaches over and squeezes my hand.
“I’m not really sure I’m going to have one for much longer,” I hear myself say softly. “It’s not just being with Michael, and it’s not just the heist.”
He sits back, readjusting his reading glasses on his nose. “What is it, then?”
“You already know how he treats women outside our family, in public,” I say. His face darkens, and he nods. I go on. “Imagine how he treats women he has power over, in private.”
His eyebrows go up, and then he sighs and nods. “Seems like I’ve caused trouble for one of the few Castelluccis that didn’t deserve it,” he rasps, watching my face for my response.
“Well, I’m not happy to be out a great big pile of money, but Michael and I are working on fixing that as well.”
He considers us both. “This is unusual, Michael, and I’m guessing you’re sticking to your blaming your sister for the money being missing.”
“Honestly, I don’t know if she was using him or he was using her,” Michael lies, and I nod along. “I was hoping that if you had your experts question him, you could get the facts.”
He sniffs, looking between us again. “We should have grabbed him the night I kicked you out, but I was too busy with every other damn thing.”
“I know,” Michael says stiffly. I can tell there’s a lot of unexpressed anger in this conversation, which makes me feel awkward.
“You can’t expect me to just take it at your word that your own little sister, my daughter, is behind this. I don’t even know what her motivation could possibly be.”
Michael spreads his hands. “Dad, I’ve been trying to understand why since we figured out it’s her. I wish I could tell you, but I’m not a psychologist. I just... I’m surprised you’re even listening to this now.”
“I’m listening to this because your mother isn’t in my ear about how her precious daughter is just being scapegoated right now. She’s too upset over me forcing you out, though she hardly gave me a choice.” He sighs and looks at me. “Still wondering what I’m going to tell her about who my son’s going steady with.”
I blink at him. ‘Going steady?’ Is it 1970? I keep my mouth shut about it, realizing that I won’t be helping anything by commenting on it.
“You know, Dad, sometimes I wish you and Arya’s father would just go fight it out with your fists and leave the rest of us out of it,” Michael sighs. “None of the rest of us wanted this, and none of the rest of us have a stake in it.”
“Except your mother,” his father reminds him harshly.
“Yeah, I am taking that into account. You could kick his ass with your hands shackled.”
I end up nodding. “He doesn’t even work out anymore.”
His father sits back again with a little bit of a smirk on his face. “All right. Look, you do have a point, but even right now, while things are calm, I have to say that unless your guy Cleary comes through with a lot of good details, I’m not moving against your sister. I can’t tear the family apart over this.”
“Dad,” Michael sighs, “Maria is already tearing the family apart over this.”
The older man’s expression hardens, and I realize he’s still wrestling with the idea that his daughter might really be responsible. “We’ll question the guy. We’ll see what he says, what he knows. And once we have the details, I’ll call you back and let you know what I decide.”
There’s a note of finality to his tone that I really don’t like. I’m being shut out of the questioning and the chance to advocate for the truth. And so is Michael.
And just as fast as we were seen in, he shoos us back out again, telling us that he’ll handle everything from here. Michael and I walk out into the parking circle under the weight of exhaustion, and I can see the strain on his face.
“You okay?” I ask him.
He shakes his head. “I wanted to be there for the questioning. I’m the one with the expertise to explain what that moron is even saying. My father may miss some of the fine details by having some generalist handle the interrogation.”
“I get it,” I tell him. “But I’m also too fucking tired to figure out how we could have done better. He was reasonable, but... not that reasonable.”
Michael grunts in acknowledgment as we walk to the van. “It went both better and worse than expected,” he mutters. “I can’t really think about any of it anymore right now, either.”
“Let’s not,” I urge softly. “Let’s go back to the houseboat and not worry about it for a little while.”
He’s quiet for a while as he unlocks the van, and we get in. Finally, he says, “Fine,” in such a flat tone that I know he won’t stop worrying, no matter what I do. And I don’t even know if I can blame him.