Chapter 6
SIX
ICE
"Did one of you fuckers kidnap Kennedy?" Hands in my pockets, I strode into the kitchen.
Mannix and Ares, were in the middle of eating lunch. Both stopped with sandwiches halfway to their mouths and stared at me.
"What now?" Manix demanded.
Slowly and patiently, I repeated the question. Although, the fact they were standing in front of me answered it anyway.
Fuck.
Mannix threw his sandwich down on his plate. "Where is she?"
"If I knew that, I wouldn't be asking either of you." Someone was going to get themselves stabbed. Not these guys. Mannix was my boyfriend and Ares was my brother. I didn't have cause to stab them. Mostly.
No, whoever took our woman was going to regret the day they were born. Three lifetimes ago.
"Wasn't she supposed to be buying her dress?" Ares squinted at me.
"She was, but when Chelsea was getting changed, someone took her.
" I managed to keep my voice even in spite of the fact I was bubbling with rage on the inside.
If they touched a hair on her head, they'd lose their hands.
After they lost their fingernails one by one and then their fingers.
And their toes. And their eyelids. And… I could go on.
In short, being them would suck.
"Fuck." Ares slammed his sandwich down hard enough to make the plate jump and clatter across the countertop."Someone has a death wish."
"My words exactly," I agreed. "I’m happy to deal out that death to them, but we need to find her first. Chelsea said she only saw a dark car pulling away from the curb."
Ares turned his narrow-eyed glare at Mannix. "Is there any chance this is some kind of joke? A Christmas prank or some shit?"
"I've put out feelers," I said. "Since it probably has something do with us, someone will reach out with some kind of ultimatum."
As far I was concerned, whatever they wanted, they could have it, as long as they didn't hurt her.
I wasn't going to think about the possibility of losing her.
It couldn't happen. She was the centre of my entire universe.
If they took her away from me, I was going to tear down the entire fucking world.
"Motherfuckers." Mannix scowled.
He picked up his phone and started to send off text messages to probably everyone he knew. No doubt threatening them with everything he could think of if she didn't turn up on our doorstep in five minutes. Two minutes would suit me better, but I doubted either would happen.
People didn't take someone like Kennedy Knight without a reason. Whatever that reason was, they wouldn't just disappear. For that I was grateful. Someone took our woman because they wanted something from us. So let them ask.
"Has either of you pissed off someone new recently?" I asked.
"Probably," Mannix said with a shrug. "Comes with the territory, but everyone should know better than to touch her."
"What about you? Tortured anyone's cousin recently? Their brother, perhaps?" Ares asked.
"Highly likely," I said easily. "Also comes with the territory. Why come after her though? Why not come straight after us?"
Okay, I knew the answer to that. We were three highly trained, objectively violent mobsters. We were connected and usually armed.
Kennedy was a much easier target than any of us.
"One of us should have gone with her," I said.
She should have been safe with Chelsea, but clearly they'd let their guard down. I could be angry at Chelsea, but I wasn't going to be. I adored my sister and I knew she wouldn't want any harm to come to Kennedy either. The two were like siblings.
"Everyone is on the lookout for her," Mannix said, scowling like that wasn't even remotely sufficient.
It wasn't. I wanted to tear every house in Dusk Bay down to the studs to make sure she wasn't inside. Unfortunately, that would take time. We'd have to start with this.
"This is bullshit." Ares pushed himself away from the counter and stalked from one end of the kitchen to the other. "If they want something, they should just ask. We could have told them to fuck off without them doing this to her."
His hands curled into fists that he might put straight through the wall if that would help. If she wasn't returned soon.
I pointed out, "We might have told them yes. Why do criminals always have to resort to criminal behaviour?"
They both slid me a look. Brows creased in matching frowns. I'd appreciate how cute they both were, but right now, fury burned me up inside the same as it was to them.
"Because they're assholes," Mannix concluded. He placed his phone down on the countertop. A moment later, it started to ring. We all stared at it.
"Who is it?" Ares asked, side-eye like it might explode.
Mannix picked it up carefully. "It's an unknown caller."
"Of course it is.” I smirked. "The moment we know who they were, they're dead meat. I'd keep my identity a secret too."
Mannix pressed on the screen to answer the call.
"What?" he snapped.
"Mannix Cassani." The voice on the other side of the phone was soft and sounded artificial, like someone was using AI to communicate with us.
Didn't they know what that shit did to the planet?
"Yep," Mannix said simply.
"What do you want?" I asked.
"We have your woman," the mechanical voice said. "If you want her back, meet us at Jordan Park in an hour."
Before any of us could question them further, the call ended.
"Is there any chance this isn't a trap?" Ares said with a sigh.
“Unlikely." Mannix slipped the phone into the back of his jeans and grabbed up his keys. "It's a trap. We need to get there first. If they think they can trap us, they're in for a nasty surprise."
"Funny, that's my favourite kind of surprise," I said.
They both smirked at me. They knew me better than anyone. They accepted that I was sweet and cheerful on the outside and just slightly unhinged on the inside. Only a little bit.
Right now, if I had a hinge, I'd jam it down the throat of whoever took our woman.
Actually, that gave me an idea. I could make a small door and attach it to their chest. Then I could open it up and take out bits, one organ at a time. That would be fun.
I made a mental note to try that the next time I had someone down in my workroom. What was the point of life if you couldn't think up new ways to have fun? Life was too short to be serious.
Tell that to these guys, though. I'm almost certain they shared the same middle name: Mannix Serious Cassani and Ares Serious Turner.
If the situation wasn't so serious, I'd laugh at my own thought.
"To the Revenge Mobile." I gestured toward the garage and followed them both in that direction.
"Revenge Mobile?" Ares asked over his shoulder. "I think you finally lost it. Assuming you ever had it to start with."
"You're so sweet," I told him, giving him a soft smile.
"I think that's the first time anyone called Ares sweet," Mannix observed.
"Fuck off," Ares told him. "I can be sweet if I want to."
Mannix snorted. “When? I've never known you to be sweet."
"Of course you are," I told Ares, hurrying over to jump into the front passenger seat of Mannix's SUV.
He didn't like me driving his car at the best of times, and this was not the best of times. This was time for me to hold on to the handle and hope like hell he didn't kill us all by driving too fast to the park.
While he backed the car out of the garage with a squeal of tyres, I sent off a text message to some of our friends, asking for their help. We'd given them lots of it in the past, so they owed us. Even if they didn't, they'd want us to owe them.
No one in this town did anything without a good reason, that reason usually involved a favour that ended up being regretful. Right now I didn't give a shit. The only thing that interested me was getting Kennedy back.
"We're going the back way," Mannix said. "If we take the direct way, they'll be watching for us."
"They'll be watching us for us to go the back way." Ares shut the car door and leaned over into the space between us.
"Stop breathing down my neck," Mannix snapped.
"He's right," I said. "They will be expecting us to take the long way."
"What am I supposed to do?" Mannix snapped. "I can't take the direct route and I can't take the back road. Newsflash, this car can't fucking levitate either."
"I knew we were missing something," I said. I snapped my fingers. "I'll make a note to buy a helicopter with guns and bombs attached to it.”
"They'd never see us coming then," Ares said sarcastically.
"They'd hear us coming, but we'd see them when they tried to run," I pointed out. "Although, if we blew them to smithereens, where would the fun be in that?"
"Don't fucking blow Kennedy to smithereens," Mannix growled.
"I'd blow myself to smithereens before I did it to her," I assured him.
Her absence was taking a toll on me, like a piece of me was missing. The ache got stronger and stronger. The longer it took, the less chance we'd ever see her again.
That was how things like this went down, especially in Dusk Bay. They might decide to move her out of the city. They could take her just about anywhere.
There's nowhere in the world we wouldn't go to find her, but as soon as she left, tracking her would become more difficult.
We had to do this right. If we screwed it up, she'd be dead. So would we. Possibly literally, but definitely on the inside. She was the glue that held us together. Kept us more or less sane. Without her, we'd be no better than wandering around a dark forest in the middle of the night.
"Don't," Mannix said to me.
"Don't what?" I asked.
"Don't start getting morbid. There's no world where we don't get her back today. None. Not a fucking chance." He glanced over at me and gave me a faint smile before turning his attention back to the road and driving too fast around a bend.
"That's a first," Ares remarked. He was still sitting too far forward, clinging to the backs of our seats so he wouldn't get thrown around. The back seat had perfectly good seatbelts, but apparently he felt the need to be closer to us right now.
"What is?" I asked.
"Mannix telling you to chill the fuck out." He smirked.
"It had to happen at some point," I said. "If it wouldn't happen on a day like this, when would it happen?"
We all knew the answer to that. If anything was going to pitch me over the edge into full-blown insanity, it would be this. I hoped like hell Mannix was right. If I didn't have her back with me soon, I was going to go completely bananas.
Okay, okay, more bananas than I already was. I turned my face to watch out the window, partly to see Dusk Bay fly past, partly to watch for anyone watching for us.
They were out there. I just had to see them before they saw us.
They were ready.
We'd be…
Readier.