Chapter thirty-five
The Level Boardroom
Russell
The boardroom is buzzing with a mixture of adrenaline, fear, and vengeance.
No one sits—every person here is standing or moving around impatiently as we search for my brother, my best friend on this earth.
The man who has stood by me through thick and thin, from our days of being beaten by our father until now, when we’re the men distributing the retribution.
Damon and Hunter are standing by the large screen running through the CCTV footage from near the bar where Connor’s phones were found.
With so many people, it’s hard to zone in on anyone in particular.
According to the tracker, Connor left the office at 5:24 p.m., and his phones were placed in the toilet cistern seventy-two minutes later.
So, somewhere between 5:24 p.m. and 6:36 p.m., he was waylaid.
Harrison and Emma are watching a second screen, this one nearer the river, where Connor’s phone paused for a while before being taken to the pub. If someone snatched him, it most likely happened there.
“Have you found anything?” Damon asks. He walks up behind his new partner and trails his fingers across her shoulders. She glances up at him, her eyes concerned.
“Not yet,” she replies.
“Ma-ma,” the voice of a small child calls, and their daughter, Annie, wanders over to her, arms wide from where Samantha and Violet were taking care of the two children. Evie, my niece, crawls around the floor, grabbing the legs of furniture and people’s feet.
“There’s my girl,” Emma coos, lifting Annie onto her knee before returning to look at the screen.
“There,” Hunter shouts, pointing at the video. He gestures to a man walking through the crowd fast, dressed smartly and clearly out of place. “That’s the bastard.”
“How do you know?” Sam asks as she walks up to stand beside him. She stares intently as they replay the video, then zooms in on the man’s face. Her eyes screw up, focusing in on the grainy footage. “He just looks like a normal guy.”
“I know a nasty bastard when I see one, and someone who is working under instruction,” he tells her. “I’ve taken many off the streets. That isn’t a man going to the pub for an after-work beer. Do you think your old friends in the force could run facial recognition on that, McKinney?”
Damon looks up on hearing his name from being crouched beside Emma. “Sure, it’s not as if I’ve asked too many favors already.” He rolls his eyes, but his mobile is already at his ear.
My sister comes to my side as I pace up and down the windows that look out to the city below.
“Where is he?” I mumble, and Violet slips her hand into mine.
“Fuck, we can’t lose him.” She squeezes my palm, but the devastation is written all over her features.
She’s losing hope alongside me. Our family has lost so much and taken dozens of blows; the chances of us coming out of another attack with us all unscathed are minuscule.
“Russ, look at this,” Harrison calls, and we move to his shoulder. He focuses the screen on a group of businessmen standing in a circle. Another man in a suit with a briefcase joins them. “That’s him. That’s Connor,” he says. “Come on, where did you go? And why the fuck did you stop?”
Samantha appears on my opposite side. She grips my hand. I stand and watch my brother disappear from view, my sister on one side and the woman I love on the other. Just then, a phone beeps. Samantha pulls her handset from her back pocket.
“It’s Bryan,” she whispers, her voice cracking. “He’s sent a…”
“What did he say?” I snap, plucking the phone from her fingers. Samantha mentioned recently that Bryan has been less available. She wasn’t meant to be talking to him at all. My brother and I weren’t amused when she ignored our instruction to cut contact.
They used to talk a lot at work and by message, but she hasn’t heard from him as often lately.
A lot of the time her communication is being left on “read” with no response.
She put it down to his complex family situation and having more important shit to worry about.
To me, this is all too coincidental not to be connected. I didn’t like him anyway.
“Nothing.”
When I look at the message, there are no words, only a map location pin.
I click the link, which zooms into an address outside the city.
Flipping to street view, the screen shows an old sandstone building with black gates chained closed.
The property information box shows co-ordinates rather than any address.
“Where is that?” I mutter.
Harrison appears behind us with his daughter, whom he collected from the floor moments ago. He passes her to Violet, then reaches for the screen in my hands. His eyes widen a fraction as he looks at the information.
“Fuck, I know where that is,” he says, his words sullen. “I remember it, but I wish I didn’t.”
“What is it? Where is it? We need to go.” He places a hand on my arm as the girls retake and tighten their grip on my fingers. Both panic and adrenaline burst in my veins; we have an address where Connor could be. What is everyone waiting for?
“Corvendale Sick Asylum,” he says, bringing me up short.
I’ve heard the horror stories of the patients who stayed there.
The ones who survived, anyway. “It’s closed down, but it’s the abandoned mental health hospital. I used to have to visit my mother there when she was unwell before she died.”
My friend lost his mother as a child brutally before he met us.
He was eight years old. He visibly shivers at the thought. “It’s an evil place. Why there?”
“I don’t care. Let’s go and get Connor,” I say, moving for the door. The girls still hold my hands. I try to pull them away, but they hold on tight.
“Wait,” Damon interrupts. “Don’t jump the gun. What if this is a trap? Why this hospital? We need to know what we’re walking into. What if this Bryan guy is part of all this?”
“No,” Sam says firmly. “Bryan wouldn’t do anything to risk his kids. He’s trying to help. He’s my friend. I trust him.”
“He could be being threatened,” Damon counters. “You’ve not known him that long. There are too many connections between the hospital and Connor going missing. This guy pops up every time.”
“Whatever is going on, we need to go and find out,” I snap, pulling my hands away and striding to the exit. “I’ll be in the garage in ten minutes; whoever is coming, meet me there. We can make a plan on the way.” As I slam the door closed, I hear Hunter’s voice carry across the room.
“Yes, boys! Let's go bleed some arseholes of their last breath.”
***
Corvendale Sick Asylum, London
“It’s like a fucking family day out,” I mutter as we all sit in cars parked opposite the old hospital. It took two vehicles to get us all here as everyone insisted on coming.
“Women with guns are sexy, and can’t believe we have one on the team,” Hunter says over the speaker. Damon and him are in the large SUV behind. Harrison and Violet sit in my back seat while Sam is beside me. Emma stayed at home to look after the children.
“I wasn’t staying at the boardroom waiting to hear what the fuck was going on,” Samantha tells me. “I told you, I can fire a gun.” She taps the handgun strapped to her thigh below the shorts she is wearing. “Champion shooter at my Girl Scouts camp, four years running.”
“There is a big difference between a static target and a man trying to kill you. I wish you had stayed back, Trouble.” She glances at me blankly, then returns to staring straight ahead. “I couldn’t survive if you get hurt because of all this.”
“We’ll stay in the car as discussed. Won’t we, Sam?”
Violet pipes up from the rear seat. “The gun is purely for our protection when you all go inside and save Connor.”
The tone of my sister’s voice indicates she doesn’t believe Sam will sit in her seat either.
One hint of her needing to get involved, and she’ll be bursting into the center of the fiasco, gun poised.
“Isn’t that right, Samantha? We will stay here,” Violet prompts, and her friend mumbles something that resembles agreement.
“You will stay in the car, Vi,” Harrison adds.
I glance around and see that he’s handing her a can of pepper spray.
“If you put yourself in danger, you won't sit down for a week. It isn’t our enemy you’ll have to worry about.”
She flushes a soft pink, but her eyes dance with happiness.
The pair of them can be insufferable when they get all gooey over each other.
“Does that promise go for me too, Waite? I bet you’re handy with a belt,” Hunter interjects. It’s easy to forget he’s there listening.
Damon doesn’t speak. Undoubtedly, he will be brooding over everything that could go wrong today.
Harrison completely ignores the comment, unflustered; he leans across and kisses Violet's cheek.
“I love you,” he whispers.
“You too,” she says, turning to him and planting a kiss on his lips. She pulls back, pauses, then takes his hand and places it on her stomach. Tears fill her eyes instantly, and my friend's respond by popping wide. “Come back safe…for your family.”
Harrison’s jaw drops a fraction as he searches her face, his mind running so fast I can almost hear it. “Fuck, Vi. Are you? Are we?” he stutters.
“Yes, baby. You’re going to be a daddy again.”
Her hand lifts to his cheek, and he closes his eyes.
I know Harrison has been desperate for Violet to get pregnant.
Even though he treats Evie as his own child, they’ve both been keen to add to their family.
“You need to come home for our children,” she tells him fiercely.
“I will.” He leans in and kisses her again; Samantha and I turn away to give them as much privacy as we can in the car.
It hits hard that the older we get, and as more people enter our lives, the stakes get higher each time we face danger.
Every day, our lives grow, but with that, so does what we can lose.
Samantha reaches for my hand, our fingers interlinking.
She sits them on my knee. We both look out of the windshield our minds whirling with what may happen in the coming minutes and hours.
Since she told me she loved Connor, I’ve flitted between determination to bring him back, hurt, and jealousy.
I wonder if she would feel the same if it were me who was missing; would my removal make her want me more?