Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Colin
S leep is for the weak.
Or at least that was what I kept telling myself as I walked into the G the nightmares were growing more viscous each night. In those, I went back but arrived too late. Her lifeless blue eyes would stare at me with accusations. Once again, I’d been too slow, too indecisive. I had failed her.
It wasn’t as if I was a stranger to waking up thrashing. I couldn’t even count the numbers of times the sound of Lincoln's voice was the only thing that helped me break free of the night terror. It was as if my new potential fuck up had joined with the demons of my past. No matter how many times I told myself the situations weren’t the same, that this wasn’t war and she wasn’t a helpless villager, my emotions refused to settle. The moment my subconscious took over my dreams, I was helpless.
I’d tried repeating over and over before sleep that what I’d overheard was just a normal argument with her boss. That even if she wasn’t happy, she wasn’t in danger. Zara was a grown woman who had turned down my offer of help. Unfortunately, emotions don't work like logic and were never synonymous in my world.
When I’d enlisted in the military, my brother had yelled at me for days. He said I was too reckless, too impulsive to follow orders. Determined to prove him wrong, I’d been the perfect soldier. Followed every rule, every order to the letter.
Because of my stubborn bid to prove him wrong, I’d ignored my gut and stayed quiet despite Lincoln’s arguments. I’d followed orders. As a result, women and children had died, and I’d almost lost my best friend. On my knees surrounded by the dead, I’d sworn that no rule or concern for my safety was worth the risk of failing someone. Yet, only a few years later, I’d hesitated with Zara. It was time to fix that.
Yula was sitting at her desk in the front office looking much too chipper for eight in the morning. When I’d first met her, she’d been a server at club Midgard, one of the BDSM clubs my friends and I owned. She’d given Astrid a run for her money, and the two had butted heads one too many times in their need to be in control. While Astrid was a domme, Yula was a switch with an incredible skill set that was being wasted at the club.
Gabe had seen the potential in Yula, and after clearing it with Erik, had offered her the job at G&H. Hiring her to be our receptionist was probably one of the best decisions we’d ever made. She could be sweet as sunshine, or as brutal as a thunderstorm depending on what the situation called for.
Not that she was perfect. Having her as a receptionist meant being subjected to a constant barrage of pictures of her monster of a dog, Bilbo. That animal was more spoiled than an only child and pampered like a cherished prince. Admittedly, it was a small price to pay.
“Morning, Colin. Did you know that Lincoln has been here all night?”
I chuckled at the way she shamelessly told on him out of concern. Of course I knew he was already here. We shared a condo and fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you looked at it, we had intimate knowledge of each other’s habits and schedules. When he hadn’t been around when I’d gotten ready, I assumed he’d come in early to work. It made sense as our impending flight on Jared’s mystery plane was coming up and we needed to have everything ready. But what had he been working on all night?
“We have an emergency case and will probably be taking off soon. I expect Gabe and Rose to be in soon as well.”
Yula smiled. “I’ll order up some breakfast then.”
“You’re an angel.” I gave her a smile before heading back to see what Lincoln had spent the night working on.
Walking into his office, I couldn’t help but feel a surge of amusement. Unlike my office, Lincoln's was a far cry from a typical professional setting. Instead, it resembled a hacker’s paradise with dim lighting barely glowing over the cluttered desks, each one buried under a mountain of wires, gadgets, and multiple computer monitors displaying streams of data that only made sense to him. There was always a low buzz of servers as if bees lived hidden somewhere in the mess.
The only decoration in the room was a picture of his sister. He interacted with the rest of his family as little as possible since they usually only reached out to him to complain. Lincoln had been adopted at the age of five as an African pity project, his words not mine, by a wealthy couple who immediately left him with the nannies to be raised.
Two years later, his adoptive mother had gotten pregnant, and with the addition of a biological child to their lives, gave up on even the pretense of caring for Lincoln. My friend had tried to bond with his brother but it had never happened. Now the man was a waste of space who’s only accomplishment was bottoming out the stipend from his trust fund every month and asking for more.
To make things worse for a reason no one could explain eight years ago at the age of sixty-five, Lincoln’s parents had adopted another child. This time an eight year old girl. The poor thing had no love around her so Linc did his best to be there as much as he could. Unfortunately the sweet child was gone replaced by a bitter sixteen year old.
Lincoln was able to escape his parents’ control because of his gift for computers. He’d shocked them when he’d bucked their Ivy League plans and attended the college he wanted by earning a full academic scholarship. Later they’d been privately horrified but publicly supportive when he joined the service after graduating near the top of his class.
I always wondered what they’d thought after our discharge. Officially we’d been injured in the line of duty, but nothing that would’ve meant leaving the service if it wasn’t for the PTSD. I’m not sure even that would have been enough if it hadn’t been for the need to cover up what we’d experienced. The minute we’d returned to civilian life, Linc focused every minute he had on computers and everything digital. I often thought he preferred the virtual world over the real one.
So finding him sitting in the middle of the electronic chaos still wearing the same clothes from the previous evening wasn’t strange. Had he slept at all?
“Did you spend all night here?” I called out as I stepped further into the organized chaos.
He looked up briefly, the frustration on his face evident. “That depends on your definition of all night.” His voice cracked, probably hoarse from hours of silence.
I shook my head, both touched and concerned. “Thank you for getting to work on this right away but you should have gotten some rest. You're going to burn out at this rate.”
Lincoln waved his hand dismissively. He’d heard but we both knew wouldn’t heed my advice.
“Is Gabriel here?”
“Not yet,” I replied, “I think we should tackle our flight plan before anything else. Jared said his pilot is on standby and only requires two hours’ notice, but we should let him know ASAP. I expect Gabe and Rose to arrive any minute so we can get that out of the way and gather our gear while the pilot gets organized.”
Lincoln stopped what he was doing and gave me a look that I didn’t like. “I’m not sure we should get on a plane today. I found out a couple things that we need to look into before heading across the world and into potential danger.”
“What the hell do you mean?” He knew what it would do to me if our delay made us too late to help. Hell, I was already kicking myself for waiting a week before saying anything.
Lincoln raised his hands as if to placate me but the gesture did nothing to lower my racing pulse. “Most important reason to wait is I don’t know if she is even in Albania anymore.”
Not in Albania! What the hell had he found out? Were we already too late or has she saved herself? Had her danger been a figment of my imagination?
“Start at the beginning.” My teeth were clenched with the effort to hold back my impatience. We both looked up at a knock on the door.
“Hey, guys, I’m getting us set up in the conference room if you’d like to join us?” Rose peeked around the doorway, her flame-red hair done up in a sleek ponytail.
I glared at Lincoln but headed out before I said something I would regret. The five minutes it took for him to hook up his laptop to the projectors grated on the last of my nerves. I didn’t like the almost pitying looks my friends were shooting in my direction.
“We don’t have many contacts that I trust in that area of the world, but there are a few. As Albania is six hours ahead of us, I was able to start calls to our people earlier. What I found in that short time frustrated me.” Linc stared at Gabe, anger obvious in his glare. “Nayan needs to be at least chewed out for his lack of diligence.”
Nayan was the man responsible for running most of our new client background checks. From Linc’s ominous tone, whatever he was about to share next might get our employee more than chewed out. If he had missed something bad enough he would be demoted or terminated. Gabriel lacked empathy when it came to the safety of his people and our organization.
“The Aziz group is a legitimate business, but only in the strictest sense of the word. Mihal Aziz is the nephew of the head of one of the largest mafia families in Albania. His mother married out of the family and apparently he has been trying to get into the inner circle from the moment he became an adult. Obfuscated by their surface business, his telecommunication company launders money and works as a cover for weapons and drug smuggling.”
“Shit.” I knew I hadn’t liked the guy but honestly hadn’t thought he could be that dirty.
Lincoln nodded. “I’m not going to lie, I don't have any good news for anyone. I had one of my contacts call over and ask to speak to Zara. I figured if she was actively in danger I could have someone extract her while we were on the flight over.”
“What did she say?”
Linc glared at my interruption. “She wasn’t there. I was told she was no longer employed by the company.”
The news was like a physical blow. Had she left? Was she safe? Lincoln would have started with that information if he knew it. He wouldn’t hold back knowing how badly my previous indecision was eating at me.
Rose leaned forward. “Where was she staying? Did she have an apartment or was she living at a hotel?”
Lincoln hit a key on the computer and a list of transactions was projected onto the wall. “According to her credit card receipts, I think she’d been staying at the Tirana International. No room charges but she ate at the restaurant enough times that it would make sense if the company was paying for the room. I called them but all they would say was that there was no guest currently checked in by that name.”
Rose pulled out her cell phone. “I have a friend who works the concierge desk there who may be able to give me more information.”
My mind was whirling with all the possibilities of Zara’s potential location. It was a form of torture waiting while Rose spoke in another language to someone on the phone. The tone was friendly and too casual for my taste. I knew she was working her magic, but I wanted her to hurry. Every slow tick of the clock was another minute spent in torment.
Rose ended her call and turned back to face us. “She was there for a few months, but the day after you left the country, some men came and packed up her stuff. That can’t be good.”
“So you think she’s being held against her will?” Or had been sold off. The thought made me sick to my stomach.
“Maybe.” Lincoln hesitated.
“Maybe what?”
“Look I haven’t had a lot of time yet to do too much creative computing, but I was able to find that someone using her passport got on a red eye flight to Greece. I think she took a train from there and headed west but it is going to take some time to track it down since whoever is using the passport is paying in cash.”
“So you don’t think it’s her?” I wasn’t sure what I wanted to be true at this point.
“It could be or it could be someone covering their tracks. I need more time to figure it out.”
I punched the table, pissed at myself for not going with my gut in the first place. Not knowing if she had gotten out or if she was being held prisoner was going to eat at my sanity. I closed my eyes and the image of her resigned gaze filled my imagination.
“There are some things you should know about your girl as well.”
Why the fuck was he calling her my girl? My throat was too tight to give him the reply I wanted to hurl at him, so I just nodded. The screen on the wall switched to display three pictures surrounded by what looked to be criminal records. I didn’t recognize the two on the left but the one on the right looked like a very young version of Zara.
“Zara Foster was born Sue-Ann Thomas to Lucy and Mark Thomas. By the time she was sixteen she had over thirty arrests for shoplifting, larceny, and vandalism. Her parents’ rap sheets read like a standard con man resume. They are currently seven years into a ten-year sentence down in Georgia. At eighteen Zara filed for a name change and got her juvenile records expunged so that she could attend college.”
“If she got them expunged how do you know about them?” Rose looked confused.
Gabe kissed her on the cheek. “That’s what Lincoln means when he says creative computing. If we don’t ask then we can’t get in trouble for it.”
“Oh. So she’s a con woman?” Rose asked.
Lincoln shut off the display. “I don’t know if she is one or not. From what I’ve been able to tell so far, she has spent the last six years on the legitimate side of the law. But that could just mean she is good enough not to get caught. She was a known accomplice in many of her parents’ crimes and it’s suspected she took the fall as a juvenile for them on multiple occasions. But once they got locked up and she ended up in the foster-care system I can’t see any signs of her following in her parents’ footsteps. She managed to graduate high school at nineteen and got a four-year degree on scholarship in business.”
Writing her off because of what we had learned would be easy, but I didn’t think I could do that. Thing was how much time and effort would my friends be willing to do for someone they didn’t know, who may or may not be involved with the Albanian mafia, but at the very least, had a criminal record. For myself, I knew I wouldn’t be able to rest until there was proof she was okay.
Rose looked around at all of us. “So what do we do now?”