Chapter Twenty Eight
Benji
For a while, Benji just paced back and forth throughout the living room and the kitchen.
He was nervous. Which was fascinating because there was never a time in his life when he was nervous to talk to his sister.
She was his best friend. But there was just that lingering thought in his mind of what wasn’t she telling him?
Was there more to everything than what he knew?
Why would she have to hide it from him? Was she hiding it from everyone?
And at that point, would she even tell him the truth if he asked?
He sure hoped that she would. He got kidnapped and tortured and kept her safe.
The very least she could tell was be an adult and tell him what the fuck was going on.
On top of that, their dad was also doing something that he had no idea about.
He wondered if she knew and was keeping that a secret too.
There were so many things he didn’t know and he was absolutely dreading finding out because the whole foundation of his life was going to be shattered.
Either his sister was doing something she shouldn’t or his father was.
And both of those options were terrible, if you asked him.
His heart was pounding out of his chest as he stared down at the burner phone in his hand.
Besides Jackson’s number, Andi’s was the other phone number he memorized.
He figured out of everyone, even his parents, she would be the person he would contact if something happened.
What if she didn’t answer? She didn’t usually answer mysterious phone numbers but perhaps something would tell her to answer.
Benji shook his hands out, took a deep breath and dialed Andi’s number before he chickened out. He brought the phone up to his ear, listening to it ring.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four times.
He was beginning to think she wasn’t going to answer and was about to hang up but her familiar voice came through the other end. “Benji?”
Just hearing her say his name was enough for him to sob.
Benji had no idea where it had come from but it must have been something he had been holding in for the past week or so.
He just didn’t think he’d ever actually hear her voice again.
Even if she was potentially hiding things from him, it was still so good to hear.
He stopped his pacing and plopped down in a chair at the kitchen table.
His hand covered his eyes and he nodded his head as if she could see him. “Yeah, it’s me.”
“Oh my God,” she sobbed, “Is it really?!”
“Yeah, Andi. I swear, it’s me.”
Sobbing was no longer an apt description for what she was doing. She was having a full blown breakdown. “Something just told me to answer this call,” she admitted. “Are you okay?! Where are you?!”
“I don’t know… I’m alive somehow,” he answered as sincerely as could. “I'm somewhere in New Jersey.”
“New Jersey?! Why are you there?”
He wiped at his eyes and shook his head. “It’s so fucked, Andi. The whole thing was a fucking set up, I think.”
“What? What was?”
“The mission that I went on.”
“What do you mean? What makes you think that?” He sighed. Benji didn’t really mean to bring the whole thing up so quickly but he supposed it was just something that needed to be said sooner than later. “Benji?”
“I need you to be one hundred percent truthful with me, okay? No bullshit. If you know something I don’t, you need to tell me because after what I just fucking went through, I deserve that.”
“Okay, of course. One hundred percent honest.”
Benji huffed and ran his fingers through his hair as he leaned back in his chair. “You saw what I said, right?”
“Yeah. Something didn’t feel right. That’s all I’ve been thinking about…”
“Well, I was right. When I was there, I was invaded by some…people. They didn’t give a shit about that hard drive. They wanted me. They took me and held me hostage in some fucking basement. But they thought that I was you.”
Andi fell silent. He could imagine her face at that moment. Her brows were probably scrunched together as she tried to figure out what that meant. “They thought you were me?” She repeated. “But…why? How?”
“They kept asking me about some guy. John Raymond. They said I, or you, were working with him. Does that ring a bell?”
“Yeah…it does. I worked with him. Dad and I did. It was a super quick job.”
“What was it?”
“Just a wire transfer.”
He nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I was told. You were supposed to transfer the money from John to another account, right?”
“Yeah, and I did.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m positive.”
“Well, something happened because they never got their money.”
She paused. “What?”
“That’s why they took me. They wanted to know where the money went.”
Andi released a breath. “I just don’t…understand. How did they get my name? And why did they think you were me?”
Benj swallowed hard. He really didn’t want to get into the next part of the story but it needed to be said.
They had to figure out what the hell was going on.
“This guy, Sawyer, he’s been…helping me.
He worked where they were holding me and he went digging around.
He saw some email exchanges with Dad and the guy who didn’t get his money.
Sawyer said that Dad sent the guy an email and said that my son Andi was the reason the money didn’t get transferred. ”
“No fucking way,” she scoffed and almost laughed.
“I said the same thing but I don’t think he would lie to me about that.
Why would he? What would he get out of it?
” Pause. “Nothing. If anything, he put his ass on the line to snoop and tell me about it.” Benji trusted Sawyer implicitly.
While he still didn’t understand what was going on, he really did believe that he was just looking out for him and for that, he was appreciative.
Benji needed to know what was going on. He deserved to know.
“So, what? Dad set up the mission for you to get kidnapped?” She laughed out, clearly not convinced.“I mean, if the shoe fits.”
“Benji, come on. It’s Dad.”
“I know. And it’s fucked to think and talk about it but what if he did it because he's still pissed with me?” He sighed. “I went through fucking hell and made it out alive. I deserve some answers.”
Andi fell silent on the other end of the line but he heard the telltale sign of her keyboard. She was typing away about something. He gave her a minute or so of silence before he finally spoke up again. “What are you doing?”
“Looking at the records from that mission.”
“What do you remember about it?”
“I mean, nothing all that significant. It was a pretty easy job. Dad gave me the routing numbers and I just wired the money from one place to the other.”
“Do you still have the numbers?” He asked.
“I’m looking at that now.”
Benji let Andi do her thing while he just stared off at the wall in front of him.
It was still so very surreal to be speaking to his sister at that moment.
She seemed to believe what he said and was willing to look into it.
That was the good thing about the twins.
They trusted each other. That was their thing.
But if she didn’t believe him, then they had a whole different scenario to deal with considering Benji had nothing to lie about. He was just a victim of circumstance.
“Hm…” She hummed on the other end.
His brow raised. “What?”
“Well, okay. We’ve taken jobs from John in the past, it's just been a while. So, I reverse searched the account number for him and that popped up like I figured it would. The last job we took from John was a few months ago. I reverse searched the number attached to that job and it brought up a few different transactions to another account.”
“Wait. So, you took the money from John’s account and transferred it to a different account, right?”
“Yeah. And I figured that account was where it was supposed to go. I hadn’t seen it before.
But there’s another transaction from that account to another,” she released a shaky breath.
“I’m really, really trying not to freak out but that number looked familiar.
So I searched for it, and it’s Dad’s account. ”
“What?”
“It was sent to Dad.”
“The money from John Raymond was sent to Dad?!” It felt like his head was going to explode, his heart was going to give out or his stomach was going to fall out of his ass. He wasn’t sure which. Maybe all three. “Oh my God.”
“Benji…”
“I-I don’t know what to do with this information…”
“I don’t either…” She admitted and sighed. “I can’t believe this. Why would he do that?”
“Who fucking knows.”
Andi sighed. “I know why they would have my name. I did the initial transfer from John to that other account. But I didn’t do the other one, I swear to God, Benji. I didn’t touch it. I just did what Dad gave me.”
He nodded. He believed his sister. He really did.
She didn’t have a bad bone in her body. She wouldn’t swindle someone out of their money.
He knew she wouldn’t. It made him feel awful that for a few days, he thought that she would.
He just didn’t know why their dad would do it.
No matter who they were. He didn’t like to make enemies.
And stealing someone’s money was usually the easiest way to do that.
Benji just didn’t understand anything anymore…
“Are you going to be coming back?” She suddenly asked. She sounded like a kid again.
He sighed. “Yeah, of course I am.”
“When?”
“Soon. I just need a couple more days to…decompress.”
“Okay. I get it… I just…really miss you, Benji,” she sniffled, “It’s been so hard without you here.
I was so scared. When Spence came back without you, I just had to tell myself that you were still alive somewhere.
I was trying to find the time to try to locate you, but Dad just kept piling on jobs for me to do.
I didn't have any time and I feel so bad.”
“It’s okay. I-I imagine he did that on purpose. And I really miss you too. But we just need to lay low a bit longer.”
“We?” She asked.
“Y-Yeah… Me and Sawyer.”
“He’s with you?”
Benji nodded. “Yeah. He needed to leave too. It wasn’t safe for him there.”
“But you said he worked with them.”
“Yeah, he did but he didn’t want to. It was just…all he knew, I guess. It’s a family business type of thing. Kind of like us, just a different scenario.”
“Did he hurt you?”
He scoffed and shook his head. “No. Not once.”
“But the others did?” Benji didn’t answer that one. His silence was enough of an answer. “What did they do?”
“They did plenty. Beatings. Stabbing. Waterboarding. Teeth pulling. All that fun stuff.”
Andi gasped and sobbed again. “Benji…”
He shrugged. “It’s par for the course.”
“It’s really not,” she muttered.
“Well, it has to be. It helps make it less…fucked up.” He paused for a moment before he said, “Sawyer kept me alive. Several times. I have to help him too.”
She sighed. “I get it. Will I get to meet him?”
“Yeah. You will. He doesn’t have anywhere to go and…I don’t know. I kind of…think I want him to stick around.”
“You like like him?” She asked, clearly intrigued by this.
Benji rubbed at his eyes and wobbled his head back and forth. It was so immature to talk about it like that. He was thirty years old. But there was no easier way to say it, he supposed. “Yeah. I do like him.”
“I’m really excited to meet him then.” She said and it did sound like she was genuinely excited to.
Andi was always in Benji’s corner when it came to love.
She was lucky and had a high school sweetheart waiting for her at home.
He was a good guy who didn’t ask many questions.
He knew the basics of her job but she told him everything else was top secret and she was legally unable to speak more of it.
He accepted that, her weird work hours and weird life.
She was lucky and she always wanted that for her brother.
“I’ll let you know when we’re heading home.”
“Okay.”
“It was really good to talk to you…” He said as sincerely as he could.
“I’m just so happy you’re okay.”
“Yeah, I am now.”
“Good. And I’ll see you soon.”
“You will,” he paused. “And, Andi, don’t say anything to Dad.”
She sighed. “I won’t.”
“We’ll talk to him together about it.”
“Can I mention I talked to you at least? Spence and Travis would like that…”
He shook his head. “No, don’t. Dad set this up for a reason. He set me up and I don’t want him to…come up with some bullshit excuse.”
“Yeah, okay. I get it.”
“Just a few more days,” he said.
“A few more days,” she repeated and sighed. “I love you, Benji.”
“Love you too.” He responded and forced himself to hang up the phone.
They needed to save on the minutes. But he also knew that he could stay on the phone with Andi forever and that wasn’t going to be good for either of them.
He was just happy to know that she was okay and she didn’t have to worry about him for the time being.
Rubbing his eyes, he stood up and moseyed his way upstairs so he could find Sawyer.
It wasn’t hard to locate him, of course.
He was just laying on his bed, perusing the handful of TV channels there were.
However, when he spotted Benji, he immediately sat up in bed and turned off the TV. His head tilted a bit. “You okay?”
Benji shrugged and turned his gaze towards the ground. “I don’t know.”
Sawyer scooted himself over so he wasn’t in the middle of the bed anymore and patted the mattress.
For a moment, he just stood there, pondering if he should take further comfort from Sawyer but he eventually decided that, yeah, he should.
And he wanted to. Benji crawled onto the bed and laid down beside Sawyer.
Neither said anything. They just laid there with their fingers softly entwined with one another’s.