Chapter 20 – Mari
Knowing the only way we could keep our advantage was to bring Cameron to us, I used makeup to enhance Aislynn’s bruises from the attack, making it look worse than it was before we took her to a random apartment in the Celestine, careful not to let anyone see us.
The room had to look as unidentifiable as possible, so we chose an empty unit and stuck her in the closet, tying her up before we took a ton of pictures.
After we snuck Ash into the shower at our place and back to her apartment with a warning that we would keep one of our closest people nearby if she needed help, we waited. It took a few days to find the right place for the showdown. The night before, we pulled a silent, angry Ash out of the house for an “all-nighter at work” and set the first leg of the trap.
The second happened the next day. We waited to send the text until we were in place, making sure there was no possible way Cameron could ambush us.
I stared down at the clone of Cash’s phone, the picture of a wide-eyed Ash making me anxious, even knowing it wasn’t real. “Are we sure this is a good idea?”
“It’s what Cash would do,” Nate promised.
I knew that. I really did. Maybe a part of me was still rebelling against the idea that someone I trusted could have betrayed me like this, or the reality that I’d put Ash in harm’s way. Either way, I felt uneasy about the whole situation, but as with everything else Cash started, I knew the only way it ended was if I finished it.
So, I clicked send.
And we waited.
Not for the first time since this godforsaken war had started, I found myself praying. Please reach out. Call me. Tell me she’s missing. Ask for my help. Please don’t let this be how we end.
As the minutes dragged on, the silence of my phone was too much, my heartbeat too loud. Call me. Call me. Call me.
When the phone finally buzzed, it wasn’t mine. It was Cameron.
I’ll be there. If she’s hurt, I’m going to make you pay, Cash.
The confirmation that he knew the number killed me. But what was worse? My phone never went off.
Every minute felt like torture as we waited. But as each one passed, something in me shifted. This trap wasn’t to convince me anymore. The moment he decided not to let me in on his plans was the moment I realized he’d really done it.
This was for Aislynn.
My men and I were spread out across the warehouse, covering all the exits, while Tennessee and Moore watched from a nearby rooftop. We’d been in the building all day, but I didn’t want to be caught off guard.
When the sound of tires on gravel hit my ears, I checked my phone before turning it off. No texts from the security team meant he’d come alone, no bombs that they could see. Guns and knives, we could handle. Anything else would be a problem in this small of a space.
A door slammed open, the echo ricocheting around the warehouse. Then my cousin’s voice followed, wrecking me all over again. “I want my wife.” When no one responded, Cameron growled. “Did you hear me, Cash? I want my wife!”
Again, silence, and I felt his rage grow. “Where are you, motherfucker? Come and face me. Unless you’re too much of a coward. Is that why you took my woman? Because you’re afraid?
“I can assure you I’m no coward,” I said, finally stepping into the light.
Cameron’s eyes widened, a flash of fear taking over before he schooled his expression. “I’m so glad you got my message. Have you found Aislynn yet?”
He sounded so sincere, but we both knew there were no messages, no texts, no calls, no carrier pigeons. Just lies upon lies leaking between us to spread on the floor.
“Mari, have you seen Ash? Cash has her.”
“He doesn’t,” I promised.
“I don’t understand. Did he text you too?” Again, he faltered, and at his uneven gait, I looked down to see the cane in his hand. I hadn’t even realized he’d walked in with it.
The fire had been weeks ago, but because of his injuries, his healing had been slow. For weeks, I’d been killing myself over it all, but now I was glad. This would’ve been much harder if he was in fighting form.
“No, I didn’t text her.” Nate stepped out from behind his pillar, hands casually in his pockets.
Cameron’s eyes narrowed as he looked between us. “What the hell, Mari? Did your boyfriend take my wife?”
“Thought you said Cash did that?” I asked easily.
My cousin’s face froze as he tried to figure out how to get out of the mess he’d made. “I mean, that’s who I assumed.”
“You seemed pretty positive when you walked in shouting his name. How’d you know it was Cash who took her in the first place?”
For a split second he hesitated, motionless, as if he realized he’d let slip something he shouldn’t have. “Who else would it have been?”
“Who else, indeed? Can I see the message?”
Cameron dug the phone out of his pocket and held it out to me. With every step closer, I felt my men getting tenser and tenser. I could practically feel the trigger beneath my finger as they kept him in their sights, but I didn’t flinch. There was nothing my cousin could do to hurt me anymore.
Taking the phone, I didn’t look at the message. Instead, I nodded to Nate. “Call him.”
Cameron’s eyes darted between us as I moved back, putting space between us again. “What? The message is right there. You just have to?—”
I held up a hand, cutting him off. “Call it, Nate.”
He slipped the clone phone out and hit a few buttons until ringing echoed around us. There was nothing but the sound of it for a second, until my cousin’s phone went off in my hand. I didn’t bother answering, just held it up for him to see.
He went pale, but he stayed where he was, even when I continued. “You knew it was Cash texting because you’ve worked with them before.”
“I haven’t.” When I rolled my angry eyes, he doubled down. “Seriously, Mari. Look at my phone. You won’t find any messages. No phone calls either.”
“I have no doubt you covered your tracks, but you forgot about one important thing.”
“What?”
“Not a what, a who.” When I flicked my gaze to him, Nate grinned, and Cameron’s fists clenched.
“Are you telling me you believe that backstabbing asshole over me, your cousin?”
This time, I laughed in his face, and he jerked like I’d smacked him. “You would too if you’d seen the proof I have, cousin.”
“What proof?”
“Messages and phone logs. Videos, voice memos. You name it.”
After we’d taken the pictures, Ash had gone to our guest room to rest, and I had finally asked Nate to show me everything. He had so much evidence, there was no way to refute it. I only wished I’d been brave enough to ask sooner.
Cameron swallowed, but he still fought to convince me. “They were all faked. Every single one of them.”
A grim smile split my lips. “Of course they were.”
I tossed Cameron’s phone to Greyson and watched as he slipped it into his pocket. Whether it truly had anything on it or not, we’d find out later, but for now, I had more important things to focus on.
Behind Cameron, his wife peered out from behind her own pillar. We kept her closest to the door so she could run if there was a problem, but I hated that I’d get a front-row view of the devastation to come.
“Why did you come here?” I asked, knowing she needed the answer.
“I came for my wife.” Ash’s relief was palpable, even as Cameron relaxed where he stood. Now that his secret was out, it was obvious he wasn’t going to fight us. He wasn’t the type to go down swinging with his fists. Not when he had more than enough ammo in his head for a kill shot. “Did he even have her, or was this some trick to get me out in the open?”
Her, not Ash. Interesting.
“Would it have mattered if he had?”
He shrugged. “It’s hard to get people to trust in you when you can’t even keep your own wife safe.”
“So you’re not here because you love her.”
Aislynn jerked with his disbelieving huff. Anger made my limbs tremble, and I watched the boy I grew up with, the man I thought I’d known, take off the mask he’d obviously been wearing.
“Of course not. You’re the only one stupid enough to fall in love with your spouse. They’re bargaining chips, Mari. Tools to get us where we want to go. That’s all.”
I got a firsthand view of the unfathomable sorrow on Aislynn’s face, and even though I hated myself for it, I knew this was only the beginning. The worst was yet to come.
Nodding slightly to Nate, I kept my eyes on my cousin as Nate crept up on Cameron’s other side. Before he could react, my man pistol-whipped him, sending him to the floor unconscious.
Ash gasped, her hands covering her mouth in shock. Even from afar, I could see how they trembled, and I hated that for her. Hated that I’d been a part of damaging her like this.
Stepping closer, I tried not to let the way she stumbled back affect me. “Are you all right?”
It didn’t take a genius to see she was destroyed. Her lips trembled and her knuckles were tight as she twisted her hands together. She looked down at my cousin with love and loathing mixed in her eyes. Then she wiped it all away, hidden beneath her own mask. She was distant and aloof, beautiful even as she fractured. This was the Ash who’d been a mafia princess. This ice queen was O’Bannon’s spawn, and it broke my heart that she was hurt enough to fall back into that person again.
Clearing her throat, Ash wiped the tears off her face. “He doesn’t love me. He never loved me. He kept me close because it was easier to keep me safe if I was sitting happily at his feet. I was nothing but property to him, just like my father.”
She ghosted a hand over her belly, and I wondered if she felt as sick as I did at just how wrong we had been about Cameron.
Even though I agreed, part of me had to try to reason with her. “We don’t know that.”
“I do,” she said firmly. “I’ve grown up with men like him my whole life. He’s just exceptionally good at hiding himself, but now that I know, I can see the rot.” She stared down at him for a moment longer before stiffening. “I need to go. Do whatever you want to him. I don’t care.”
As she turned away, hustling out the door to her car outside, I realized I was no closer to figuring out what to do with Cameron, and that was a big problem.