Chapter 16
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Andrea woke to Hayden’s voice against her ear, saying, “Get up.” She came awake, bolting into a sitting position, clutching the sheet as she looked up at him, blinking owlishly. “What’s the matter?”
“We just heard from your father.”
“What? Who called?”
“He’s been taken.”
She stared at him in shock. “What?”
“Yeah, and they want to see you.”
“Me?” She was still in a haze.
“It’s an exchange, you for him. On the phone, your father said, Don’t bother. Then he took a hit. But we need to do this, and we need to do it now.”
“Oh my God.” She snatched up her clothes from the other room, quickly dressed and followed him to the front door. “Have you told the others?”
“Oh yeah.” Hayden nodded. “My team is ready, and we also have an address, plus I’m sending two other team members to scout it out first.”
“I can’t keep track of all your team members.”
“No problem. Our team will grow as needed.”
“Good God,” she muttered, “this is unbelievable.”
“It is unbelievable, but it’s also what we have to deal with. So, let’s go.” As soon as they got in the vehicle, he patted her hand. “I’m going in with you.”
“No, no, no,” she cried out. “They’ll shoot you right off the bat.”
He smiled. “They might, but then there’s a good chance that they’ve already done that to Jerome.”
She stared at him, her eyes wide. “Oh my God. They might just do that to me too.”
“I know,” he said. “So I’m going in with you because they won’t necessarily expect that. And my team will already be there, ready to assist as soon as I assess what’s going on. We’ll make as quick of an exit as possible.”
“They’ll be there though with full firepower,” she said, staring at him, her heart slamming against her chest. “Do you think they’ve already killed my father?”
“No, not yet. Besides, Amir Galanis is a man worth a hell of a lot more when alive. And he’s hoping for a plan presumably, in order to get out of this.”
“But if they’ve already taken out Jerome—”
“Which is mere speculation at this point, as we just don’t know enough,” he told her, trying to reassure her. “Honest to God, I suspect Amir’s hoping I’ll come through.”
She stared at him and shook her head. “That’s hardly fair,” she whispered.
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s fair or not. He’s also got his own problems right now. And that’s to stay alive. He knows it, and I know it. So, we’ll do what we have to do.”
She didn’t say anything, but she clenched her hands tightly, knowing she would have to walk into the devil’s den with people who wanted to shoot her on the spot. “And what’ll stop them from killing us?”
“Check the back seat. See the bulletproof vest? We’ll get that on you in a few minutes.
I’m just pulling up to a location where we’ll rendezvous with some of my team.
” As soon as he spoke, he made a series of turns, and then suddenly pulled off to the side of the road. “Now we’ll get out for a minute.”
She got out and stood here in the early morning dawn, shivering. Just then another vehicle approached and stopped right behind them.
She watched as Trent and Oakley both got out and raced toward her, just as Hayden handed her the bulletproof vest, helped her put it on, and then put a jacket over it. He did the same.
It was thinner than she’d expected and fit fairly well. She commented on it, and the men just nodded.
Trent shared, “We have them in all sizes.”
“Thank God,” she muttered, “but it’s still beyond upsetting to think I’ll have to go in there.”
“Which is why Hayden’s going in with you,” Oakley pointed out.
“But I don’t want him to go in there with me,” she cried out. “He’ll just get shot right off the bat.”
“He suspects—”
Oakley supplied, “Thinks—”
“Yeah, he thinks he can talk his way out of it,” Trent explained. “And nobody’s letting you go in alone.”
She groaned, looked over at Hayden, and snapped, “If you die, I’ll never forgive you.”
“Understood,” he stated, but his serious tone allowed absolutely no argument. “No way I’m sending you in there alone, so it doesn’t matter.”
She glared at him, then glared at the others, and asked, “Are you all this stubborn?”
“Pretty much,” Trent said, with a smile, “and we don’t take orders well.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” she muttered. Finally, once everything was in place, she asked, “Where is this warehouse?”
“We’ll drive around the corner,” Hayden told her. “It’s only a few blocks away. We wanted to get you prepped and ready first.”
“Great,” she muttered. She got back into the vehicle, her heart slamming against her chest. As he drove the short little bit, she knew that Oakley and Trent had gone on foot, hopefully meeting up with the other team members.
As she and Hayden got out and walked toward the warehouse entrance, she had to try to stop Hayden. “I can’t believe you’re coming in here with me. Didn’t they tell you that I had to go alone?”
He smiled. “I’m wearing a vest, remember? Plus, they called me, not you. So, let’s go.” He opened the door and stepped inside, calling out, “We’re here. Where’s Galanis?”
At that, big powerful lights turned on, and Andrea saw the silhouette of two men standing off to the side, with her father in a chair, tied up, a visible cut over his eye, one cheek puffy and bleeding. She wanted to run to him, but Hayden held her back.
She turned and glared at Hayden. “My father is hurt.”
“Your father will get a whole lot more hurt,” one of the men snapped, “if you don’t get over here and leave your boyfriend behind.”
She looked over at Hayden, and he nodded. “Go join your father.”
“That’s smart of you.” One of the men laughed.
Hayden walked closer and demanded, “So, are you the asshole behind all the kidnappings and murders?”
He shrugged and admitted, “It was a good deal until it wasn’t.”
“Like everything,” Hayden agreed with a nod, “everything is a good deal until it’s not. Presumably you came to the understanding that this is no longer working for you.”
“It’s not that it’s not working for us, but this location is no longer suitable,” he explained. “That doesn’t mean we won’t set up shop somewhere else. It’s not as if you’ll inform the world.”
“Certainly a lot of people are very aware of these dangers,” Hayden noted, with a shrug.
“So, I’ve been told, but we don’t really give a shit about that.”
“Right,” he replied. “So, what do you give a shit about?”
“People identifying us,” he stated, with an eerie smile.
Andrea looked at him and protested, “But I never saw you before.”
His eyebrows shot up, and he challenged her, “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” she insisted. “I mean, obviously the Hulk was the guy you left me with, and the two others who had been with him were taken down already. Those were the only three men I saw that night.”
The man doing the talking shuttered his expressions, as he pondered that. “I guess it’s really bad that I had to do all that, and you don’t even remember,” he mused, then chuckled. “Still—I can’t take that chance.”
She frowned. “What do you mean? I never saw you before.”
“But you have seen me now,” he countered. “So that is no longer a valid argument.”
She blinked and raised her hands. “So, because you made a mistake, I’m now in trouble?”
“Yes,” he confirmed animatedly, “exactly that. I made a mistake, and now you’re in trouble.”
She glared at him, standing up straight, now beside her father. “He’s injured. You can let him go now.”
“I’m not letting him go at all,” he declared.
“And you do realize who he is?” she asked.
“I don’t care who he is because right now he can identify us as well. So, it doesn’t matter. He’s shit out of luck too.” With that, he pulled out a small handgun, but it was packing a very efficient-looking silencer.
She glanced at it and stood between the gunman and her father. She shrugged. “Guns don’t scare me,” she stated.
“Oh, and what does scare you?” he asked in a mocking tone. “I mean, you walked into the lion’s den, and you aren’t scared?”
“Sure, I did,” she replied, “because you don’t scare me either.”
Her father’s eyes widened. She glanced down at him, patted him on the shoulder, and added, “And I trust the people I came with.”
“You mean your little boyfriend over there? He’s dead meat too,” he sneered, as he lifted the gun, and pointed it in Hayden’s direction.
She gasped. “So, you’ll kill him too?”
He frowned at her and snapped, “Of course. What do you not understand about people being able to identify us?”
He turned back to Hayden, held up the gun, and quipped, “Sorry, dude.”
Before he fired a shot, she saw him hiccup, and then a small red circle appeared in the center of his forehead, and he slowly collapsed.
Hayden fired at the second man, who was already raising his gun to point and shoot, but dropped him in his place. And just like that, she walked over to the second man and told him, “You really need better friends.”
He stared up at her, holding his knee, which had been shot out by Hayden.
“Now you’ll go to jail for a very long time for all the nasty things you’ve done,” she promised, staring at him, “and nobody’ll give a crap.”
He swore. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“But I do,” she corrected. “We’ve already gathered quite a few records, but some of it we don’t really understand yet because it’s in a different language.”
“I can help with that.”
“Maybe you can,” she acknowledged, “but don’t expect to get off scot-free. They might make your life a little easier, but because of this guy, … there’s no way.” Then she turned, looked at the dead guy, and asked, “Was he the boss?”
“Yes, he was. Other teams are all around Europe,” he admitted, “but I don’t know those teams, nor their bosses. And, honest to God, this racket has been going on for a very long time.”
She nodded. “At least this chapter ends now.” She turned to look back at Hayden, who stood over the dead man, removing all his weapons and his IDs. Yet Hayden’s gaze continued to look for something. “What’s the matter?” she asked him.
“I don’t see Jerome.”