Episode 73
Episode 73
Collateral Damage
RHODES
There was a pep in my step as I held Maia’s hand, and we walked along the Seine River in the heart of Paris. I’d shown her the Rodin Museum, the funky and quirky St. Germaine district and now the Seine. Seeing things through the eyes of someone I cared for was more rewarding than seeing those same things for the first time myself. And Maia was enthralled with the city. Her dark-brown eyes were big and sparkling every time she pointed to a unique building or something beautiful that caught her eye. My gaze, however, was entirely on her. I thought she was beautiful when I bid on her, when I first kissed her, the time I first saw her smile, and certainly when I made love to her, but seeing her so genuinely happy and carefree? Priceless.
She clung to my hand and pointed at a boat trailing through the water. “They look like they’re having fun,” she murmured.
“If you’d like to take a boat ride down the river, we can do that. They offer the excursion regularly.”
She shook her head. “No, I prefer walking alongside it with you.”
I looked down at the same time she looked up at me. It was the perfect opportunity to kiss her, so I did. She tasted of the raspberry macarons we’d just purchased from a local vendor and snacked on while we walked.
“Mmmm,” I hummed and flicked my tongue across her bottom lip. “You’re delicious,” I said against her soft lips.
She sighed and looped her arms around my neck. “So are you.”
I kissed her a couple more times, enjoying the sunshine, the taste of raspberry-coated kisses, and the cool Parisian breeze until my ringing phone broke us from our reverie.
One of our bodyguards interrupted before I could answer the phone. “Mr. Davenport, I’m sorry to bother you, but we have a problem.” I let the call go to voicemail as the large man shared more. “The team assigned to the Toussaints and Ms. Davenport haven’t checked in. We connect with one another every hour to ensure all charges are safe,” he added, his tone openly concerned.
I hugged Maia to my front while I took in the two bodyguards that I’d forgotten had been following us through our weekend away. They were excellent at keeping a distance and not disrupting us.
“Okay, what does that mean exactly?” I asked.
“We don’t know. It’s unusual, and when something like this occurs, we prefer to take extra precautions by getting you and your fiancée to safety while we look further into it.”
My phone started blaring once more, so I pulled it out of my pocket and noted Christophe’s name. “It’s Mr. Toussaint now. I’ll check on things.” I gestured for them to wait a moment.
“Hey Christo…” I started jovially.
“They’ve been taken!” Christophe roared brokenly.
“What? Taken? What are you talking about?”
“Alana and Emily were just kidnapped. I’ve been shot in the arm. But they are fucking gone. The guards are all dead!”
My entire body went stone cold. Icy fear chilled my blood and made gooseflesh rise from head to toe. The back of my neck prickled like a fire poker was stabbing me.
“Did you hear me?” he yelled. “Alana and Emily have been kidnapped! We need to do something. Oh my God. I couldn’t get to them. I screamed…then the bullets started flying and I…” I could hear a muffled choked sob as he continued. “I’m sorry, I…Alana was annoyed with the guards. We went to Versailles, a very public place, so we let them wait in the car. Stupide! Désolé! Je suis vraiment désolé!” He kept repeating the apology.
“Christophe, stop. Calm down. Breathe and tell me exactly what happened.” I gritted my teeth as Maia’s expression contorted in distress. She clung to my side as the bodyguards barked orders into their phones.
I held the phone tightly to my ear as Christophe reiterated exactly what had happened, finding the dead guards, and then the new car squealing toward them, gunshots, and then finally Emily and Alana having been shoved into one of the SUVs. “So Diego knows who’s behind this. We have to contact him now. Text me his number. I’ll call him.”
“ Oui, oui ,” he hissed.
“Christo, the moment after you send me his number, call the police and get medical attention. I’m going to track Emily’s phone.”
He spit out several phrases in rapid French, but I ignored him, looking at the messages icon on my display until it showed I’d received his text. I double checked it was the number. “Get help while I talk to Diego. Tell the police everything you can remember. We’re headed your way now.”
“Is Maia okay?” he asked before I hung up.
“We’re fine. I’ll be in touch soon,” I bit out and ended the call. Then I clicked on the message and called the head of the West Coast Latin Mafia. How in the fuck was this my life?
He answered on the second ring. “Salazar. Who is this?”
“Mr. Salazar, I’m a friend of Alana Toussaint. She and my daughter have been kidnapped. Supposedly you know exactly who has taken them. I’m willing to do or pay anything for information about this individual.”
“Who am I speaking with?” he asked, cool as a cucumber, while I was fighting to overcome fear and anger and remain calm.
“My name is Rhodes Davenport. My fiancée is Maia Fields. I’m sure you remember that name.”
“ Sí I don’t make it a habit of forgetting people I owe, Mr. Davenport. Unfortunately, we are both in a predicament. If I tell you who has likely captured your daughter and friend, he will then retaliate against me and my organization. His resources reach quite a bit further than my own.”
“Did Alana not tell you that I’m a very wealthy man?” When shit hits the fan, and you’re backed into a corner, throw money at it. At the very least it was worth a shot.
“She did, in fact, share that. Money cannot help a man who is dead, mi amigo .”
“From what I understand, you owe Alana this information at bare minimum. And she is not here to defend herself. She is in the clutches of someone you are hinting is a very powerful and fearsome man. If you’d shared this information days ago, we could have avoided this situation. He has my daughter, Mr. Salazar. A thirteen-year-old girl that I’m certain is terrified out of her mind. Are you comfortable knowing that her life may very well be in your hands if you don’t share what you know?”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No, I’m guilting you. There’s a difference. Don’t you have someone in your life who means everything to you. Absolutely everything?”
Silence.
One beat. Two. Three.
“You do. Now imagine if this kidnapper had your loved one. What would you do?”
“I’d kill them all. It would be a bloody, brutal, battle that’s talked about for generations to come. Their descendants would feel the stain of their brethren’s betrayal and my wrath their entire lives. And that’s if I allowed them to still breathe.”
I gasped, my throat clogging with unchecked emotion. “Fuck.”
“What are you willing to lose for your daughter’s life, Mr. Davenport? A piece of your soul?”
“Without her, I’ve already lost a piece. I’d do just about anything.”
“Even if it could mean your life in exchange for hers?”
I swallowed against the lumpy fear bubbling at the back of my throat.
“Yes,” I choked out. “She’s worth everything.”
“You will owe me a marker. That marker might require you to do something unlawful or against your moral code. This part is not open for negotiation. When I call, you will answer or suffer the consequences,” he grated.
“Unlawful?”
“Do you want your daughter back, Mr. Davenport? My help requires sacrifice. I’m not in the business of reuniting children with their parents,” he clipped.
When he said that, I remembered my friend Joel Castellanos told us he’d received help from a man named Salazar back in Las Vegas when Faith’s daughter was kidnapped by her ex, Aiden Bradford.
“Technically, I don’t think that’s exactly true,” I said, stupidly risking losing his help.
“?Disculpe?” Excuse me he said in Spanish. Thank God for high school foreign language requirements.
“You helped my friends, Joel & Faith Castellanos during their situation earlier this year.”
“?No me jodas!” he spat, which I knew was slang for something liken to Fuck me! “These are friends of yours?”
“Yes, very good friends.” A slight exaggeration. We did know one another well, but it wasn’t as though we spent holidays or birthdays together. “I’m an architect. My company built The Alexandra in Las Vegas and many of his other locations around the world.”
“That was you? He’s mentioned your work is top notch.”
“Yes.”
“Beautiful building. Would you consider building one for me, at half the cost? I have found that my legitimate businesses are doing quite well, and I need a new headquarters. Nothing as grand as The Alexandra—”
I cut him off. “Mr. Salazar, I will build you a fucking castle in the middle of the ocean at my expense. I just want my daughter and Alana back. Please…anything you can do.”
“I need to make a few calls. I’ll be in touch soon. Don’t do anything stupid like call the police,” he warned.
My heart stopped. “I…I…”
“You already did. ?Mierda! Why is it I’m suddenly connected to all of these law abiding, morally sound, rich hijos de puta?” I think he just called me a motherfucker, but I couldn’t be sure. “This is bad for my image,” he grumbled and then abruptly hung up.
I immediately pulled up the location app on my phone and logged in. Emily’s tracker was moving at sixty miles per hour and headed down a highway toward Paris.
She’s close.
“He has Alana and Emily,” Maia whispered, her gaze also on the small dot that represented my daughter’s phone.
I nodded because there really wasn’t anything more to say.
“When they call us, offer me up in exchange. He went for me first for some reason. That could mean he wants me more than her. I’ll absolutely take her place,” Maia offered.
This woman… I pressed my lips to her forehead in a hard and fast kiss.
I shook my head and cupped her cheeks. “No Maia, he’s not getting you too. We’ll get her and Alana back, no matter what it costs. My guess is he’ll ask for a ransom.”
“You think this is about money?” She cocked her head to the side, seemingly uncertain of the direction of my thoughts.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. All I know is I’m a billionaire, and that often comes with people wanting a piece of you. To be honest, I hope money will get us out of this. I’d sign over every dollar I had for them.”
“You’re such a good man, Rhodes, but I don’t know if that’s what this individual wants. If you think about it, really think about it, he left me a note just like Alana’s. Remember?”
“’She ruined my life, I ruin yours,’” I stated flatly.
“Exactly. The person used the word she , which means they weren’t directing it at me per se, but to me because of her . Then Alana’s said, ‘You ruined my life.’”
“What are you trying to say?”
She licked her lips as tears filled her eyes. “I think this person wants revenge against Alana. I don’t think it has anything to do with you or Emily or even me, for that matter.”
“Then why do you think they chose to harass you and take my daughter? They could have left her behind.”
“Collateral damage,” she whispered.
I closed my eyes as the truth behind those two words wove through my mind in endless circles, spinning down and around until all the pieces made sense. Maia was right.
“They planned to hurt you to get to her.”
She nodded.
“And they’ll do the same to Emily.”
Her lips trembled as the tears fell. “I don’t know. We don’t know that.”
“Fuck!” I roared. “FUCK!”
Maia put her hands to my shoulders. “We have no clue if he’ll hurt her. She’s a young girl.”
“Oh my god, this isn’t happening.” I bent over and sucked in as much air as I could. “This isn’t happening!” I convulsed, as the fear threatened to cripple me. I braced my hands on my knees and silently prayed. Over and over, I asked God to grant me a fucking miracle.
“We need to follow her tracker. Call the police and tell them where she is,” I blurted, pulling myself back together bit by bit.
“But Diego—”
“I need everyone on this, Maia. Not just some twisted mafia guy. Anyone and everyone.”
“Okay, Rhodes. What do you need from me?” she asked, her heart flooding into every word.
I reached out and took her hand. “Just hold my hand and don’t let go. I can’t lose you too.”
“I won’t let go. No one is taking me from you,” she promised, but I didn’t believe her. Some psycho had already kidnapped my daughter and friend. We had no idea what he was capable of, only that the highest guy in the Latin freaking mafia was afraid of the man’s reach.
I squeezed her hand and lifted it to my face, breathing in the spicy vanilla scent that surrounded her. For a moment it calmed me enough to clear my head and focus on the here and now.
“It will be okay,” I said as much for myself as for her.
“We’ll get them back,” Maia said with such confidence I put all my faith into her belief.
“We’ll get them back,” I repeated.
One way or another, I was getting them both back. Even if I had to risk it all—my money, my morals, my very life.