Chapter Thirty-Two
Jonas .
“Ready?” Maverick asks, backing out of the parking spot from the airport.
“Fuck yes, just get me home to our girl, please.” I reply, fastening my seatbelt then fixing it so it doesn’t rub against my neck or choke me.
Damon chuckles from beside Maverick. “We’ll be there soon. It’s still early and there’s no traffic.”
I haven’t talked to her all day. Even with our quickie this morning, it was so hard to go.
The coaches and scouts for the New York NFL team I met with were promising great things.
Yes, there would be a bit of traveling but from February to mid-July I would be pretty free.
I would also be able to have my girl (and guy) and Maverick come with me.
I told them we are a unit. I’m sure one of the two wouldn’t mind staying behind with Mav since he’ll be teaching at Columbia come Fall.
Plus, as a Texan, the man almost bleeds football.
When I asked what team he rooted for he just grinned and said whatever team I play for will be his favorite. Which made me squirm inside.
So I grunted at him, Maverick-style.
We signed on the mansion in Brooklyn Heights, Mav almost fainting when he saw the fifteen million dollar price tag, but we assured him it was no big deal, and it would be his house as much as ours, but he offered to put in whatever his old house sold for to contribute to the price and we agreed.
Whatever makes him feel more at ease. I mean, I know what it’s like to think you have a home and family and then it’s taken away from you out of nowhere.
Even without this money, his name will be on the deed.
But if this is what he needs to have peace of mind, then so be it.
Damon put our house up for sale, unfortunately not with Maxine as our realtor, and I didn’t let him choose any members of the Syndicate that were listed as realtors in the area. The last thing those fuckers deserve is our money.
“So, it turns out none of the pictures found at the Hoover mansion were of any women that were reported missing in the area.” He tells us, merging onto the highway that takes us straight home.
“But your mother was right. They found more paperwork with the Whitmore’s the more they dug deeper. There’s a new ongoing investigation.”
I tap my fingers along my knee, something not settling well with me.
“The good thing is there is nothing mentioning the Andersons.”
I look up at him in the rearview mirror and roll my eyes. “The Whitmore’s, Hoovers, Winters’, Mikaelson’s, etcetera, they’re all medium to low on the money pole. Of course the Andersons aren’t touching them.”
“The Winters’? That’s Sabrina’s family name isn’t it?”
I nod. “Yeah, I’m sure they’d be up higher if her brother hadn’t drowned when he was twelve and they could’ve negotiated with someone and arranged a marriage. They’re divorce lawyers.”
“I thought you couldn’t divorce in the Syndicate.”
I shake my head. “You can’t. Like John, Raven’s stepdad, you can only remarry if your spouse dies.”
“How did Monroe’s wife die?” He asks.
“Officially? Suicide,” I murmur and my gaze flicks back out to the window as we start crossing the bridge to get to Kingston.
“Unofficially, she was found at the bottom of the stairs. Having been pushed when she tried to leave them in the middle of the night. Mom hears all the gossip from the maids. That’s why she gets along with them so well. ”
Mav makes a face, and Damon turns in his seat to face me. “Aren’t Sabrina’s parents divorced?”
“Yeah, but that was a special case. I don’t know what all happened after Charlie died, but because he no longer had a legacy, Sabrina being a girl and all, there was nothing really tying them together anymore.
Now, if Sabrina has a son, he automatically gets grandfathered into the Syndicate as a legacy due to blood relations…
even if they’re dirt poor. And that’s few and far between.
It’s the only time you’ll see someone without money at Rayne-Moore and again, they’re low on the totem pole.
They don’t get to marry anyone of high class unless they miraculously begin to make millions of dollars while they’re there. But they do become Syndicate henchmen.”
“Huh.”
“So many rules,” Damon grumbles with a lifted brow, turning back in his seat to face forward. He has no idea.
________
It’s dead silence when I open the front door.
“Honey, we’re home!” I call out, but again, there’s no flow of cello music stopping. No feet running from upstairs to get to me and it’s fucking cold in the house. Freezing.
“Siren!” Mav calls out.
Kronos barks from the back yard but it sounds… it sounds weak. My stomach swoops when he whines, pawing at the ground.
“Baby?” I make my way from the front door to the back and see the back door wide open. I can hear the guys walking behind me and when I look outside, my heart stops. Kronos is walking in circles, sniffing the yard and growling.
“Amourette!” Damon cries but Kronos keeps whining.
I run upstairs, seeing the balcony doors open and scream for her again .
Nothing.
“Jonas!” Maverick yells for me from downstairs.
“What?” I run back downstairs, my heart racing.
“She’s not here! The app! She’s…”
I look over at Damon, eyes wild.
“Where is she?”
He shrugs. “Her last known location was over the Atlantic.”
I can’t. “Check the fucking cameras. Someone took her. She wouldn’t leave us.”
“On it,” Mav says nodding and heading to the study.
My palms are sweating, stomach cramping. “I shouldn’t have gone. I knew going to meet those coaches was a bad idea.”
Damon tries to shush me, but I move away from his touch, rejecting it. “Not now. I can’t right now.” I tell him, hoping he understands this isn’t about him.
“This wasn’t your fault.”
“Yes, it was! We all knew someone was watching!”
“We thought it was Arlo. Remember?”
My stomach tightens and I groan. Playing football in front of thousands, whatever. My mom telling me I have to find the ledger and burn it, sure. But Raven being taken? I can’t stand it. They could be doing anything to her. Anything . “Why isn’t the chip working?” I ask roughly.
Mav stares at the computer screen and Damon looks down at his phone. “It is. It just lost signal. It happens crossing over the ocean.”
“Like it’s roaming?” I ask, feeling a bit better knowing I’ll be able to pinpoint her location.
“Exactly like that.”
“Got it. It doesn’t show much. But the person that came through was swift. All black. Even the boots. Distracted Kronos with meat.”
“What time?”
Maverick sighs. “Forty minutes after you left.”
“Forty minutes.” I rasp, repeating him. “Forty fucking minutes. I was gone for three hours . ”
“We were gone, Jonas. We .” Maverick reminds me.
“Teach me how to use your gun,” I demand.
He doesn’t question me. He just stands and nods, and we go downstairs to the basement gym, Damon follows, but his eyes are glued to his phone, typing away.
Mav opens the safe we have down there and pulls out guns and ammo.
I should be questioning it, second-guessing myself.
I’ve never held a gun before, but as soon as he places it in my hand, the weight of it feels right and all I can think about is gunning anyone and everyone responsible.
I want blood.
Nobody touches my girl.
“There’s a shooting range in town. Let’s go until she pops up again. You may not have a killer aim, but let’s get you as close as we can.”
We pack up everything we can think of, including clothes for our girl. I call my mom on the way to the shooting range, telling her what happened and she’s quick to send the jet to us from Maine.
________
We’ve been shooting for two hours straight, and I’ve finally gotten the hang of it, getting as close to the target as I possibly can. I don’t let my mind wander to anything other than this. Damon is too, shooting closer and closer to the red dot when he gets an alert on his phone.
“She’s showing again. She’s in… they’re over land now, but I think they’re headed to Wales.”
I check my phone, seeing a notification from my mom stating the family jet will be landing in thirty. “They’re all gonna fucking die, Damon.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I know it’s true. I’m sure as fuck not leaving any survivors and if I’m scaring him right now, he makes no sign of it.
But something flashes in his gravestone eyes in understanding. “Agreed. ”
We don’t stop by the house to grab anything, just head straight to the airport where my father’s jet is waiting for us.
I don’t eat.
I don’t sleep.
I just pace about the luxurious cabin, planning absolute fucking mayhem on the fuckers that took my girl.
“Jonas. If you don’t sleep, you’re not gonna be able to think straight until we get to her.”
“We wasted time going to the range,” I reply to Maverick.
He shakes his head, pushing his glasses up. “We would’ve had to wait for the jet anyhow and with the way it was snowing when we left…”
I know what he’s thinking. Any minute later they would’ve said we couldn’t fly out. The gun tucked into the waistband of my jeans on my back feels good and cool against my fevered skin.
“We have no idea what’s waiting for us.” Damon interrupts my thinking.
But that doesn’t matter.
I’ll fuck every single one of them up.
“We’re going in blind.”
Maverick shrugs, “A lot of the time, that’s how it was in the FBI.
Sometimes SWAT didn’t show up on time, sometimes there weren’t enough cops to call for backup, and it was just you and your partner, or your team going in.
I’ve been shot at, tasered, stabbed, and even had cocaine blown in my face as a distraction.
It’s Murphy’s law. Anything that can go wrong, will.
The good thing is, we have her location,” his eyes tear away from mine to Damon’s who’s staring down at his phone, nods. “Which is more than nothing."
“How are you so fucking calm?”
“Because I have to be. I was trained to be. Which is why I’m telling you to sleep.
If you overthink and over-worry, you could shoot…
the wrong person if you’re too riddled with anxiety or too exhausted.
Exhaustion is a killer. Try to sleep. We’ll wake you when we land and if we find anything out while you’re asleep, we’ll update you when you wake up. ”
I sit in one of the pods, and Damon throws a blanket and a pillow at me, his face locked on the screen of his laptop.
I close my eyes, itchy and dry from exhaustion, replaying the morning I had with my girl. It was perfect. It was so fucking perfect. How? Why? Who?
These questions swirl in my mind as I finally fall into a fitful sleep.
________
Damon shakes me awake when we’re landing and Maverick was right; I needed the sleep.
A black Rolls Royce picks us up from the runway and we’re off, and they catch me up.
I pull out my phone, freaking the fuck out when there’s only two dots on my screen – Mav’s and Damon’s.
They’ve hurt her taking that thing out. Who knows what else they’ve done to her.
I can’t about it – but I do let it fuel me.
“It’s okay, Jonas. I chipped her a second time. I had a feeling-“
“You had a feeling , and you didn’t tell me?”
Damon sighs heavily. “There’s no way you really thought Simon was the last of this.”
He’s right, I didn’t.
I grunt, looking out to the window, watching the fat, heavy snowflakes billowing by.
I’m so fucking sick of the goddamn snow.
I want rainy days with my girl. I want to have her in my lap reading while I watch TV.
I want to swim naked in a pond while the raindrops make the water ripple against her skin and…
I want to watch her dancing in my jersey while pretending to throw down a football.
I want to kiss my jersey number she has tatted on her ribcage and feel the raised ink under my fingertips.
I want to go trick-or-treating with her because I didn’t get to as a kid.
I want to make every memory with her I can.
I want to move out of Massachusetts with her and build a life.
Marriage. Kids. All of it. Doesn’t matter which comes first .
“Our girl didn’t either,” Maverick admits. “I think she was expecting this.”
That makes my stomach clench. Why didn’t she tell me that? I hope she can see her wrist. Whatever they’re doing to her… I need her to know we’re coming for her. “Where the fuck are we?”
“According to GPS, we’re twelve minutes away from our first stop,” Damon says, his tone low and even.
I don’t want it low and even. I want him to be… something. Anything but so goddamn cool, calm and collected. Am I the only one feeling crazy?
“Where are we stopping?”
“There’s a military base. I’ve already spoken to a friend of mine who’s a Sergeant there. Said he could get us a few things we might need.”
“Like what?”
“Bulletproof vests for one. We don’t know who we’re dealing with. If we go, we have to come back as one unit.”
His friend? Hands us a duffel bag full of everything from the vests to blades and rations at a gate. We don’t even go inside the gate. We all remove our gloves, coats and shirts, shove the vests on and redress. But it takes us an hour to get to her…
The mansion is practically a fucking fortress. Guards walk with large German Shepherds pacing around. There’s an (at least) eight-foot-tall brick fence surrounding the entire place. And Raven’s little dot on Damon’s phone? It says she’s stark in the fucking middle of the place.
“There’s no way they have her in the middle of the place like fucking bait. They don’t want us. They want her,” I growl.
“They'd take her somewhere not easily accessible.”
We stay quiet.
“Wine cellar.” I think out loud. “How the fuck are we supposed to do this?” I ask, swallowing thickly.
“How did they do it?” Maverick asks but I’m sure it’s rhetorical.
I think for a moment. “By watching and waiting for a moment of weakness.”
He nods .
“Alright,” I jut my chin to the mansion, “let’s strategize and get our girl.”