Chapter Six
Ian
July 2014
It has been a month since I saw Callie, and I haven’t been able to get a bead on her whereabouts. I hope to hell she wasn’t from out of town. Her accent was a mix of Chicago with New York. Maybe she’s from Boston.
My contact is trying to find her, but it seems like she’s been wiped clean from all databases, or at least the ones I could get access to, so I need to bring in the big guns. I’m about to head home after another search for her and those lousy friends. I refuse to give up, so I call in a favor and use our favorite tech guy, hoping he can crack the secret of her location. “Hey—I need you to find someone for me.”
“Okay, lay it on me.”
“Female, twenties, brunette, about five foot six or seven, caramel eyes and goes by the name Callie. My search has turned up nothing. And don’t bother doing a facial recognition search. It’s fucking pointless. For some reason, there is no way to trace her, or the images from the club aren’t crisp enough to make a match with all the damn colorful strobe lights.”
“Okay, I’ll get to work on it right now and call you back when I have something concrete.”
As I’m pulling into the estate, I see my father exiting. Frankly, I don’t give a fuck if he leaves and never comes back, but I would never get that lucky. As our vehicles pass each other, I turn my head and give him a cold stare.
Feeling a sense of unease, I go to Jack’s house. I’ve had enough of my father. Everything about him makes me sick to my stomach. Even just mentioning his name pisses me off. The bastard destroyed my mother, and I want to rip his heart out.
My father and I have always had animosity toward each other. I think he blames my mother for having another kid, like it’s her fault that she got knocked up. Connor was two when I was born, and they’d had enough of screaming babies by then.
When I was a boy, I wanted his attention like any son does, but he used to favor my brothers. I supposed it was because I was the youngest and incapable of doing things that they could, but as a pre-teen, I knew that I’d been an accidental pregnancy—a mistake he wanted to forget existed. No matter how tough I became, he would always find a way to bring me down. My brothers had my back, keeping me out of my father’s face and taking the blame when I fucked up.
I left the day I turned eighteen. My mother was devastated, but my father said good riddance. I came back when my brother told me things were getting rough and that they could use my help. When I arrived, I learned my mother was pregnant again.
After all those years, she was expecting another child. I couldn’t believe it because she was fifty and we all knew that it was dangerous. Still, my little brother was born and my mother died. I decided to finally take my role in the family seriously because my father completely lost power among the families, and we were in danger of being killed.
I’m just inside their house when a loud explosion hits our ears. We lead the women to the safe room, and I check the cameras, seeing Dad’s garage on fire so I call 911. I know instantly that it isn’t an accident; whatever his reasoning, he intended for his house to turn to cinder.
My brothers are on the phone quickly, both of them wanting to speak to me after the women let them know I’m here.
“Ian. What the hell is going on?” Connor asks in a frantic haze. I can hear their SUV rev as it picks up speed.
“It’s Dad’s garage. It caught fire, and the fire department is on the way. I’m just making sure the women are safe until it’s all clear.” A loud boom can be heard outside, so I look at the cameras and shake my head. There goes his house. I hope to fuck none of his employees are inside.
“Fuck.”
“What the hell was that?” Connor shouts.
Jack answers, “Dad’s house.” He can see the cameras on his phone, and he’s checking the surveillance just like I am.
“The bastard.”
“Keep our families protected,” Connor tells me.
“I will.”
“We’re on our way, and we need to talk to you.”
I nod as if they can see me. Realizing my error, I say, “Okay.”
“And pass the phone to Nora since Jack wants to talk to her.”
Then, I wait it out and it’s not long before the guys are here, but the fire department beats them here by ten minutes. They’re working on the blaze, but it’s a little difficult. I never had the desire to become a fireman, and now I’m glad I didn’t. It looks like a brutal job.
The guys come running in to hug their women and John, and this drives my thoughts back to my missing woman.
“I was worried about an attack. Ian told me there was nothing to worry about, but it doesn’t mean that he wasn’t just placating me,” Claudia said, giving a side-eye.
“True,” I admit, smirking at them both.
“Ladies, can you please play with John somewhere safe while we speak to Ian privately?” Jack asks. I’m all motherfucking ears and feeling extremely ready to bust some heads.
“Is this about my father?” Claudia asks, brow raising.
“No. It’s not. Fuck, I completely forgot about him,” Jack says.
“Me too.” Connor shares a warm look with his wife and then kisses her cheek before shooing her away.
The ladies lead John away, and once they’re safely out of listening range, I ask, “What the hell is going on? You two are acting weird.”
“Dad set the house on fire, and he fled.” Jack holds no punches.
I have no doubt about it, but I want to know why. “What do you fucking mean?”
“He’s the one who orchestrated John’s kidnapping, and he planned to have him killed. If it wasn’t for the nanny, they would have executed John.” A ball of hatred and rage fills my gut.
“I’ll destroy him.” I flex my fists, clenching them tightly as my teeth gnash. I’m ready for war with that old prick.
“We need to get rid of the police and firefighters, but why don’t we just track the fuck?”
“Good idea, Connor.” My brother pulls up an app and runs the tracker on the car our father took. It’s traced to only two miles outside the damn estate.
“We need to approach this vehicle cautiously, if there is even a vehicle there. He could have found the tracker and tossed it.” Jack and I nod, and then we leave his office and find the women sitting around the living room with John, playing with his toys. “We need to speak with the fire department and then the police.”
“I’m going to head out and check the car, okay?” I say, wanting to find him before he gets away.
“Please do, but be careful because I don’t trust our father, especially when it comes to you. He wouldn’t waste an opportunity to take you out,” Jack says.
“No doubt. The bastard would definitely try to get me. Connor, you want to go instead?”
He chuckles. “Sure.” We leave the house and drive toward my father’s just as the firefighters finally put out the blaze.
“They are the owners,” Johnny informs a man in uniform, pointing directly at us as we step out of my SUV. Turning to Jack, he adds,“Boss, this is Chief Moses. He has information about the fire and was looking for you.” Jack shakes his hand first, followed by me and then Connor.
“Okay. Please let us know what is happening with our father’s home.”
“Unfortunately, there was a major accelerant used in the garage. It wasn’t just in a container that could be explained away. Although it’s natural to have corrosive and explosive-type items in a garage, this was different. The house caught fire afterward, and inside there were two bombs—inside the main door to the garage, and the other in the kitchen. The mansion is mostly destroyed. We found two dead bodies inside so far.”
The color leaves our faces. He didn’t even have the decency to send them off before he set the place ablaze—the damn devil. Damn it, the man is getting desperate, and that means even more dangerous than we had already thought.
“You’re going to need to find my father,” Connor says.
“We believe he was one of the people in the fire.”
“What?” Jack says, feigning disbelief, but we know the truth. It wasn’t him. Who did he set up inside the house?
“Can we see the body?” Jack asks first. We all want to know if they really have the old man. There is no way in hell we believe it.
“They were badly burned and removed to the medical examiner’s office. You’ll have to meet with them.”
“Thank you. If you’ll excuse us, we need to return to our family. How much longer will they all be here?”
He gives Jack a peculiar look, but I suppose it’s because we don’t care if our father’s dead or not. “The fire is out, but the smoke is unfortunately strong. Please keep indoors, and if anyone has breathing problems, make sure they’re away from this.”
“We will. Thank you again.” We each shake his hand again and then drive back to Jack’s to wait it out.
If I’d known about his involvement before he got away, I would have run him down and pulled him out of the vehicle. I pace Jack’s office, rage filling my gut.
“Do you think Saunders has anything to do with this?” my brother asks.
“No, I believe this is all Dad. I need to figure out what to do with Saunders. With all this damn attention Dad’s just drawn on us, I can’t just have Saunders killed because it would be like a fucking neon sign pointed right at me,” Connor grumbles.
“You’re right.”
“But delaying it will piss off Claudia,” he sighs. I’m glad I don’t have a woman to deal with. They are so damn stressful and piss me off. My mind goes straight to Callie and the fact that she ran out on me and I haven’t been able to find her on my own.
“She knows you’re waiting until after my wedding, so at least that gives you another week.”
“Yeah, but with Dad’s death,” Connor says with air quotes, “you’ll be expected to postpone it.”
“The fuck I am. Nora and I are getting married next week, and your wife is going to make the killer cake that Nora has been dreaming about for days.”
“Fine with me.”
“You’ll get no complaints from me. I love cake, and if you’re married, the other families will find you stronger. That means the head of the family will usher in his future family,” I say.
“Since when do you care about the other families?” Connor asks me.
“I don’t, but going to war with other pricks isn’t something I want. Any sense of weakness, and we’ll have a problem. You know that as much as I do. By the way, I’ve got to go. I’ll check the damn car, but I’m guessing the car isn’t there and he tossed the tracker out on the road.” Jack MacNamara Sr. was shady as hell and he proved he isn’t above killing his own children.
“Okay. Just be careful, and call us,” Jack tells me. I nod and then book it out of my brother’s house. Finding that car, or my sperm donor, is important. If I get my hands on my father, he’s going to wish that he died in the fire.
I creep up to the spot and see his vehicle on the side of the road. From my angle, it’s clear there’s no one inside it. “Where the fuck did that bastard go?” I mutter under my breath. The wind is starting to howl, and the smell of the fire is taking over all of my senses. Damn it, he planned this extremely well.
It’s still clear there’s no one in the vehicle, and it’s no longer running. As I get closer to it, an uncomfortable feeling comes over me. That’s when I feel it; the burning sensation hits me in the shoulder. My gut instinct has me reacting on autopilot, but then another shot gets me in the chest. I pull out my gun and aim in the direction that I felt the burn. I fire off six rounds and hear a yelp. So, I managed to hit the vile piece of dirt.
Suddenly a vehicle comes speeding around me. The vehicle stops, and I hear someone approach but I’m losing consciousness. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”
“Good luck, you stupid bastard. My brothers will hunt you down, and you will die slowly .”
He fires another round into my thigh. “They come after me, and I’ll kill them too,” he grunts out, breathing labored. There’s a mocking laugh, and then the footsteps retreat. At least I hit the bastard , I think, smirking to myself. I close my eyes and hope my brothers get revenge for me.