Chapter 26 #2
That explains why Antonio is so protective over her.
I thought that he was maybe an ex or someone trying to catch her attention.
I was so infuriated with how close she seemed to be with him and the trust I saw in her eyes as never ending.
I envied what I observed they had in those few minutes and now I feel absolutely stupid.
He looks like he may be holding on by a thread as much as I am.
He’s quiet, finally taking a seat at the head of the table, stiff as a board.
“Your suspect was indeed here tonight. That was the whole point of this event. We didn’t set it up just to throw another party, we wanted him to show face.
He took one of ours and Celeste didn’t take that very lightly.
She allowed you to be here, I’m still not understanding why but we didn’t argue.
The performance she gave, unfortunately, wasn’t for you, but to piss him off enough to come after her,” Larson begins explaining.
I’m confused why Celeste would want him to come after her. She knew we were there for him and she just let the unsub take her willingly?
“Why would she do that? She knew we were onto him and we had our agents all over this place. Why would she make herself a target?” Beckett asks with his face scrunched in confusion.
My knee begins to bounce under the table and my hands begin to sweat.
She seemed off tonight and I should have known she was up to something.
I stay quiet, taking in all the information they give us.
I have the same questions he has but at this moment I can’t voice them because if I do, I might just lose it.
It’s taking everything inside me not to flip this damn table upside down and walk out of here to go search for her.
But clearly, there’s more to it that I need to know.
“The plan was for her to get captured by him. We’d injected a tracker in her arm so we could follow and get them both out.
After her performance, she came back up here and changed and we went over the plans once more.
She slipped out into the alley and disappeared around the corner.
We watched her on the cameras until she was out of view but we were able to keep tabs on her with the tracker.
Your partner, Monroe, had made her way to the bathroom but seemed to get out of your sight and slipped out after her.
We weren’t too worried about her as we figured that Celeste was already taken before she caught up to her.
“We kept tabs on the tracker and were going to make our move to follow until we noticed that it stayed in that location for too long. We knew something went wrong and that’s when we knew that the plans were altered. We rushed out and you know the rest,” Larson finishes while he cracks his knuckles.
She came up with this whole damn plan and never once asked for my help.
I’m the one person who could have either talked her out of it or helped her plan to be prepared for any possible scenario.
They injected her with a tracker but he was two steps ahead and removed it so we couldn't find her. It dawns on me, though, that maybe I don’t know her as much as I thought.
Clearly, as she kept a tad bit of information secret about her being head of the Mafia.
Would that have changed anything for me, though?
Maybe, but something inside of me begs to differ.
There’s my professional side that screams that this could never work, but the darkest part of me says to hell with it.
She’s mine and I’ll be damned if I let anyone or anything take her away from me.
The primal rage boils with the thought of her being taken and tortured.
She might be powerful, skilled, and strong-hearted, but she’s not ready for this type of person and his mental state.
“So you thought it was a smart idea to let her get kidnapped by a psychotic maniac without any clue what he’s capable of?
You handed her over on a silver platter to her own death.
” I lose it, absolutely lose it. “She better still be breathing, because so help me, I’ll end every person in this damn room. ”
“What are you going to do? Lock us up as you try to find her? You can’t even find Samantha.
You think I was okay with my cousin signing over her death certificate?
I lost my shit when she brought up the idea.
I didn’t want any of this to happen. When Celeste has her mind set on something, she does not budge.
She’ll make it happen with or without us!
” Antonio raises his voice to match mine.
They let her do it. How grown-ass men twice her size cower down to her demands.
She had no care in the world who she left behind.
She set this all up thinking that she could get Samantha back.
She didn’t trust us enough to let us close in on him tonight and knew more about this guy than she led on.
She came over to my house and saw those documents, pretending to know nothing about the case but really she knew it all.
The moment Samantha was taken, a part of her had changed.
She’d warned me there was darkness inside her and she tried to let me go, but I wouldn’t let her.
Darkness recognizes darkness and she wasn’t going to just get her back, she was going to end him.
Every emotion, every moment started to make sense. I don’t believe she was with me solely to get information out of me. Her feelings were real but once she knew I was on this case, I was of use to her. Instead of asking me for help, she let me play the game.
“Why didn’t you tie her down and keep her here? You’re both twice her size and a lot stronger than her. You just let her walk out that door and now we’re standing here while he has three women doing who knows what.”
“You think we could defy her? We answer to her, not the other way around. Her word is law at the end of the day. As you may have figured out, she’s the heiress of the most deadly Mafia.
To answer your question I’m sure you’re about to ask, yes, she took over her father’s position.
She may be small but I can promise you, she can make any male bend the knee.
This isn’t the first time she’s been kidnapped.
She’s trained and more lethal than the one who’s playing God right now.
” Larson picks at his nails with a knife as if nothing happened and this is just another day.
I hear Beckett curse under his breath at the confession of who she really is.
The darkness finally comes to light and there’s nothing inside me that wants to pull away from it.
Even if she is as lethal as she claims, she isn’t prepared for what she’s up against and we need to get to her before the plan gets alerted once again.
He carved the tracker out of her, already two steps ahead.
Whether they like it or not, we have to bring the agency in.
We would have more resources than they would.
“We have to report this. Our agent was taken and they would know something is wrong if she doesn’t show up to work after the event.
We can only come up with enough excuses until they became suspicious.
We report that both Celeste and Monroe disappeared.
We’ll withhold what we learned tonight and use both sides to find them.
” Clearly Beckett can read minds because he spews out the exact thing I was thinking.
I’m taken back, though, that he’s willing to withhold information. That’s not like him. Apparently, everyone is full of surprises tonight.
“What makes you think that we can trust you? Just because Celeste has taken a liking of you? How do we know you won’t turn your back on her once this is all over and come after her because of what she is?
We aren’t saints, far from it. Your badge won’t protect you from what we are,” Antonio finally speaks up with every ounce of distrust.
He has every right to question my loyalty. He doesn’t know me, only that I work for the law. He doesn’t know that my feelings for his cousin are real and the depths I would go for her. Realization hits me at that thought. I chose her.
“I will end this world and go to hell if anything happens to her. Fuck the badge. She wants me to step away from it? Done. So instead of arguing back and forth if you can trust me or not, we have three women in the hands of the killer. You don’t have to trust me but we’re wasting time,” I level with him.
“We need to shut this place down. One of your girls needs to report her absence to us and we’ll report Monroe’s disappearance.
We’ll go back to the station and see if we can gain access to the nearby buildings for any cameras as well as yours from the outside.
We’ll be in contact and meet somewhere more private to go over the findings.
We work together to get what's ours back.”
After another half hour of planning we make our way back down to the main floor.
I haven’t had time to really grasp what just happened and what was just revealed.
All I can think about are the photos of the victims who were tortured and left for us to find.
The faces morph into her face and hot acid begins to boil in my throat.
I haven’t felt fear in a long time, not since I was on my first mission as a SEAL.
The thought of losing her makes me want to tear this whole place down and shred the bastard from limb to limb.
The music cuts and the lights turn on signaling the end of the night.
Melodie approaches one of the undercovers as if trying to shoo him out the door but gives a code word indicating that there’s trouble.
They pull her to the side and she reports the absence of Celeste.
She had stepped outside and found her phone smashed in the alley.
Beckett switches the channel to our earpieces so it’s connected to everyone and asks if anyone has seen Monroe.
About twenty minutes later Special Agents police, and my director show just as expected and the investigation is launched into full swing.
Once the questioning has come to an end for the night, those who are here are sent home and I’m sitting on the couch finally alone with my thoughts, nothing but the moonlight shining through the window.
The dark is where my demons like to hide and I bask in them, allowing them to flood in and take over my very being.