Chapter 19
Idon’t like it when other people play with my toys.
Call it only-child syndrome, call it entitled, call it whatever you want. I believe in taking what I’m owed. It’s what makes me so very, very good at what I do. There’s nobody like me in this industry for a reason. Other men don’t have the stomach for it. They’re too weak.
Not me.
When one has as rigid a control as I have, it can be rather intimidating to some people. It took me far, far too long to find a woman who was able to look at all my dark places without fear. Anya is a blessing. She’s the only one who has seen me in my violence and not shied away. Something about the beast inside of her plays well with the one inside of me.
And now she’s missing.
Kidnapped. Stolen from me by a damned thief in the night. It means I have a rat in my ranks. There’s no fucking way that somebody could break into my home without having inside knowledge, that much I’m absolutely certain of. That slippery bastard managed to get free and took my wife with him. I can only imagine what he’s done to her already. It was personal before, but now all bets are off. He’s got nobody to blame but himself for what I have to do to get her back.
Even if that means getting personal.
My men spotted Daniel leaving Houston about the same time the breakout happened. Horus should have done better. As my right-hand man, I expect a hell of a lot more out of him. He underperformed and I’m going to make sure that he pays dearly for allowing harm to come to my wife.
But I guess it wasn’t a total waste of the day.
I did find out some very useful information.
Not only did Daniel and Helena get married in secret, but Daniel has a ward, a young boy named Henry. Been raising him for most of his life. It means that they are close. It will be a deep blow should young Henry go missing. I don’t relish the prospect. Not at all. But he should have known better than to get families involved. This is his own fault. Helena was bad enough, then his involvement in Lilian’s demise, and now this? Anya belongs to me and me alone.
I will go to the ends of the earth to find her and bring her back.
She had better be in one piece when I find her.
I chose to drive to Fort Worth. Easier to hide my movements that way. Even if the long drive there gave me nothing but more time to stew on this whole ordeal. Over and over again, I plotted just what I’m going to do to Alek when I have my hands on him again. The torture that he endured by my hand is going to seem like nothing. I guarantee that.
I timed everything perfectly.
They should have known better than to allow their child to attend public school. Their security is and always has been a joke. A quaint little place in a small outskirt of the town. Too many regular kids. If Daniel was smart, he would have a full-time security team on young Henry, especially given the war that we’re in. Really, he should have locked the kid up at home.
It was far too easy to get the kid into my car.
I had the same make and model as the one that usually picks him up. Done intentionally to confuse him. But, still reckless. He didn’t think twice about hopping into the wrong car. He lacks training., he ought to have known better. My father would have had me whipped for making such a stupid mistake. Didn’t think anything of the partition still being raised as he prattled on and on and on about his day while texting whoever it was on his phone. I let him do it, let him talk. No need for him to think that anything was wrong until the last possible moment.
I wonder where his mother is.
It burns me up that he and Helena were sitting around playing house. After what she did to me, to my family, she doesn’t get to have a happy ending. Why should she be allowed to have a family when she destroyed mine?
The child in the back doesn’t seem to notice that anything’s wrong until we’ve been driving for about thirty minutes. It’s about that time that I send the pulse through the back of the car to knock out his phone. I can’t have anybody tracking us or Henry doing something stupid like calling the cops.
“Sir?” Henry knocks softly on the partition.
I don’t answer him. I don’t need him back there freaking out and annoying me.
“Sir, do you know if it is going to be much longer?” Henry asks in his upper New York accent. I guess the move down here to Texas hasn’t quite knocked that out of him yet. “We’ve been driving for a long time…”
I glance back where his brow is knit as he tries and tries to make one phone call after another. I see the panic start to flicker over his face as he tries to roll down a tinted window to see out better and he can’t. It’s about then that he starts to realize that something is very, very wrong.
Slowly, silently, I trigger the gas to fill the back part of the car to lull the kid into a soft sleep. We have quite a long drive ahead of us. It’s best this way. I didn’t want kids before, and I certainly don’t want them now, but it’s not like he chose his father. Don’t need to scare him more than he needs to be… I’m not a monster.
Daniel answers on the first ring.
He doesn’t say a damned word. Good. At least he knows what’s happened and that he’s not stupid enough to take this lightly.
“No pleasantries? I’m hurt, Colombo.” I sneer through the phone as I ease back into my office chair.
I’ve had to totally replace my security because of him. The least that he could do is muster up some small talk. He’s lucky that I haven’t hurt the boy if I’m being perfectly honest. Nothing makes a kid grow up faster than a healthy dose of fear. Why, my father wouldn’t have sugarcoated anything for me either. So I told the kid what happened. He had the nerve to cry. Cry. My father would have… well, it doesn’t matter.
My father fed me to the wolves. Unwanted and a thorn in his side until I proved myself. This kid has been raised soft. It tells me everything that I really need to know about Daniel Colombo.
“Nothing still? That’s rude, Colombo, has nobody ever told you that?” I say again, taunting him. I can hear him breathing on the other end of the phone and that’s enough. “Here’s how this is going to go. We will make an exchange. The boy for my wife. A life for a life. No gimmicks, no games. I’ll send you the location.”
“I want proof of life.” Daniel answers finally, his voice tight like he’s talking through clenched teeth.
“Such little faith.”
“I know you well enough to know better.” Daniel spits.
I smile to myself. “Then you should have known better than to take my wife.”
Silence meets me on the other end of the line.
“I’ve told you time and time again, Colombo, you’re out of your depth, and I’m done fucking around.”
I hang up and wave my hand for Horus to send the location.
This war ends now, and I’m going to be the victor.