Chapter 3
THREE
Lochlan
The thing about buying and selling people is somebody always ends up feeling like they got the short end of the stick.
That person usually being the one traded off for a large sum of money.
Chantal Banks proves no different as she stares at the man she once thought of as her boyfriend. She’s looking at him like he’s just come out as a serial killer—which, to be fair, isn’t too far off from what he’s actually done.
He has sold her off to a man who sees no value in her life or anybody else’s.
“Greg,” she croaks in disbelief, blinking slow and wide-eyed at him. “What are you talking about? This was you? These men are here because—”
“These men are here as part of a business transaction,” he interjects aloofly. “An offer was made, and I decided it was in my best interest to—”
“What?! Sell me?!”
“Everything has a price, Chantal. Even people.” The Italian hedge funder turns to me and the rest of the guys and pastes on his fake showman’s grin, his arms stretching out at his sides.
“Well, gentlemen, I take it I’ve served my use?
You have her in your custody, and I did my part.
I expect the deposit to hit my account by tomorrow morning. ”
He hardly spares his girlfriend another glance as he turns and strides out of the room.
Chantal watches him go with a trembling bottom lip and a little squeak of a cry.
Almost like a puppy would make, pitiful and whiny and a reminder of how this girl is completely blindsided.
Not that it matters.
Her only value comes from how we can use her against other people. A token in a greater war being waged far beyond her knowledge or comprehension.
Striking a deal with a smug suit like LaMalfa was pure business and nothing else. She just so happened to be the product up for sale.
Still, as he leaves and she’s left alone in a room of masked men, it seems to dawn on her that this is for real.
She’s fucked.
The grief lasts maybe four or five seconds, the hurt flickering in and out of her face. Then it gets steamrolled by a sudden burst of fury.
A fucking temper tantrum.
“Don’t you dare touch me!” she shrieks at the guy holding her. She resumes her fit of twisting and jerking in his arms, desperate for freedom.
The guy behind the ski mask is Robby Wójcik, the dirty NYPD cop on my payroll. He’s long and lanky and not much in terms of muscle, but you’d think he’d be able to handle a woman who barely scrapes five feet.
Instead, as he ever-increasingly struggles to hold her, she gives him a run for his money. She stamps on his foot and starts worming her way free.
“Do you know what you’re doing? You’ve messed with the wrong one! I’m not anybody to fuck with,” she screams hysterically. “My father is a United States senator with a direct line to the President! This is a national scandal! You know what kind of federal mess you’ve just brought yourself?”
She finally breaks free, impressively maneuvering out of his grasp and spinning around to claw at his neck.
“Argh!” Robby reels back, damn near knocked askew by the girl. Four red lines appear on his gangly throat, each beading with blood.
Chantal slowly backs away, doing her best to keep us within view.
“Stay away!” she gasps, chest heaving. “Don’t come anywhere near me!”
But we’ve boxed her into a corner with nowhere to run and damn sure nowhere to hide.
It’s just a matter of who makes the next move.
I catch the gaze of one of my other men—Aleksei Mashkov, a former Bratva enforcer the size of fucking King Kong himself—and nod, giving the go ahead.
He steps forward like the tank he is, looming over her by well over a foot. Just when I thought her eyes couldn’t get any bigger, they double in size as she peers up at him and yelps.
It’s a form of entertainment watching the fear unfold. Witnessing how she quakes on the spot and hovers between wanting to fight back and wanting to piss herself.
Considering Aleksei is as hardened and gritty as they come, it makes no difference to him. He hasn’t got an ounce of mercy in his body.
He lost an eye while in the Bratva, the organ taken from him when he was excommunicated by the pakhan. While Robby’s bemoaning the scratch marks to his throat, Aleksei closes in on her and snatches her up like she’s a toy to be played with.
“D-don’t you…” she stammers desperately. Dazedly like she’s about to pass out. “Don’t y-you get w-who I… I am…?”
A grin comes to my face behind the skeletal ski mask.
So far, I’ve remained silent. I’ve hung back and observed. First as that shithead LaMalfa got his little cocky speech in, then as Robby and Aleksei and the others have tried to subdue her.
But now it’s my turn. It’s time to take control of the moment and make it clear who’s really boss.
“Yes, you little brat,” I taunt, withdrawing the syringe I’ve kept on hand. I step right up to her and let droplets of the clear liquid drip from the needle’s point. “We know exactly who the fuck you are. We just don’t care.”
Her lips part in surprise, brows pushing together as I jam the needle in the side of her throat. All it takes is three seconds, and she’s wavering on the spot.
She goes limp in Aleksei’s arms, no longer able to hold herself up.
Blacked the fuck out.
I jut my chin at the others. “Alright, time to roll. Alek, you’ve got her. Wouldn’t want Robby to fuck up his precious good looks any more than he already has.”
Robby’s eyes narrow bitterly as Aleksei sets to obey the command, hoisting the girl up and tossing her over his broad, muscled back like a sack of potatoes.
We turn and head out of the villa like nothing’s abnormal. Like we haven’t just broken in and kidnapped a girl in plain sight.
And it is in plain sight—as we march out of the villa and head toward the seaplane, nobody dares utter a peep. The resort staff turn the other cheek, already handsomely paid off to pretend they didn’t see a thing.
The sun set almost an hour ago, the Maldives scenic and beautiful even in the dark. The kind of setting a superficial twit like this girl would love to snap photos of for the Gram.
Instead she’s found herself loaded onto a seaplane with a group of masked men. We fly from the resort to the main island where we then pick up a private chartered flight back to the United States.
Turbulence rocks the small plane as we cross somewhere over the Atlantic, the porthole windows showing us nothing but a black void.
“You think you’ll survive?” I ask Robby a couple hours later. I’ve caught him checking his reflection more than a few times now in any surface that’s glass or made of steel.
A sulky expression twists onto his pale, pointy face. “She got me good.”
Aleksei grins from his seat beside the crooked cop. “She slapped the shit out of you,” he grunts in his Russian baritone. “Even drew blood.”
“Alright, alright,” he snarls. “I didn’t see you moving to grab her first. She took out all her ire on me!”
“She is a small woman.”
“As thick as she is? She ain’t that small.”
“She is maybe up to your elbow,” Aleksei points out.
I release a short chuckle, cocking a brow as the cabin jostles and I lean against the opposite row of seats, arms folded. “Alek’s got you there, Robby—the girl barely taps in at five fucking feet, no matter how thick you say she is.”
“What’s it matter her height when she’s thicker than a fucking Snicker? From the surveillance photos, I thought she’d be easier to handle.”
“Puny man,” Aleksei says simply, then goes back to looking out the window.
Robby opens his mouth only to think better of it, clamping his lips shut and reaching for the cocktail napkin he’s been nursing his battle wound with.
My attention redirects to the subject at hand: Chantal Banks passed out in a row to herself.
Restrained, of course.
She’s slumped in the seat, head touching her shoulder, eyes shut and face impassive, handcuffs snapped tightly around her wrists.
A few seconds go by with me studying her, this girl I’ve taken into custody like a fucking human trafficker.
In sleep, she actually looks sorta innocent. A lot less irritating.
She’s got round, cherubic features like plump cheeks and a nubian nose. Her lashes are naturally long, and she’s got a full mouth that never stops moving when she’s conscious, yapping away. Her skin is a deep mahogany shade that’s smooth and clear, and she’s currently done her hair in long braids.
Robby was right that she’s thick. Plus sized or whatever the fuck term you want to use for it. She’s got plenty of curves that, judging by the slinky little green cocktail dress she’s wearing, she’s not afraid to show off.
But even with the flirty outfit, she still looks harmless. Almost like she wouldn’t hurt a fly.
…unless you’re Robby Wójcik, then she scratches the fuck out of you. Which was pretty damn funny.
“So what’s the plan with LaMalfa?” Robby asks suddenly.
The question draws me from my thoughts, earning a glance over at him.
“Care to elaborate?”
Robby haphazardly shrugs. “I dunno. Figured we weren’t really being straight with him. Sure, Marco cut the deal, but he’s no friend of ours, you know?”
Robby’s talking about the transaction we’ve made with the Wall Street hedge funder. Another one of my guys, Marco Santamaria, worked out the details for the tradeoff. LaMalfa hands over the girl, and we pay him a cool five million in exchange.
I had Marco spearhead that part of the plan because one, few people are as obsessed with green as he is, and two, he’s Italian. Previously a capo in the now-defunct D’Amato crime family, Marco has a working relationship with LaMalfa.
They’re both Sicilian, to be exact, bonding over cannoli and shit.
But just because we’ve promised LaMalfa his payday doesn’t mean it’ll come. We’re all bad men, and there’s no honor among thieves, much less gangsters.
“We’ll see,” I answer cryptically. “Greg’ll find out when he finds out. All part of the game.”
We land miles outside the city minutes before dawn and drive the last stretch north. The estate comes up out of the tree line, a dark and gloomy structure in the gray early hours of morning.
Three stories high and built over a century ago, these days the place looks damn near haunted.
The wisteria and ivy cover the eastern wall in thick clusters, and the stone has deep fractures in it, like an eggshell that’s been cracked but hasn’t all the way broken apart yet.
You’d never take a look at the place and think anybody worth note lived here—certainly no former Irish mob heir hell bent on revenge.
Inside is what it always is.
Dark hallways, groaning pipes embedded within the walls, and the thick, settled smell of dust. After some work, we’ve finally been able to get electricity back, but reliable running water is a whole different battle altogether.
Aleksei and Robby carry an unconscious Chantal upstairs between them, her long braids trailing over Aleksei’s arm. For each step the pair takes, the old staircase creaks under their feet. I stand at the bottom, watching them travel up and then down the hall to the room we’ve set aside for her.
Nothing like the fancy accommodations she’s used to.
The door locks from the outside, and the window’s are barred. The bed is one level above a cot, and pretty sure I saw a dead mouse behind the dresser.
But it’s still better than most kidnapped victims get. Most of them end up six feet under.
I’m only alone in the foyer for a moment before Akio appears. He’s the youngest in my crew, a twenty-one-year-old college dropout of Japanese descent. He’s quiet, observant, and too much of a genius for any institution of higher learning.
Kids like Akio do better on their own, when their true intellect is harnessed for good (or evil in our case).
He’s the one behind a lot of what I’ve gotten done, from the surveillance tech to the finer details of our kidnapping scheme.
“Final version,” he says with no preamble. He hands me a single printed sheet, his messy dark hair in his eyes. “Ready to send on your word.”
I take it and give it a once over.
Senator Banks,
Your daughter, Chantal, has been taken.
She is alive and unharmed and will remain that way, provided you follow instructions. Any attempt to contact the NYPD, FBI, or any other law-enforcement agency will result in significant consequences for your daughter that are not reversible.
You will receive further communication within 48 hours with the specific terms of her return.
I fold it in half and hand it back.
“Send it,” I say.
Akio nods, then he’s gone from my side, disappearing down the ground floor hall. I remain where I am, turning my gaze to the long window by the front door, where the pre-dawn light slips through.
In a few short hours, Keith Banks will have the message we’ve sent him. He’ll know his precious baby girl’s been taken and he must play by our rules if he’s ever to see her again.
We’ll find out just what lengths he—and the others like my dear baby brother and his wife—are willing to go to in order to save her pretty little head.