by Anna Blakely
The quick, sideways glance the detective gave Derek’s brother made Mac wonder if Riley and Eric were more than mere colleagues.
“Thanks, Riley. I appreciate you guys coming out to help.”
“Any time. Although I’d love it if we could stop meeting like this.” Riley offered Mac a kind smile. “Keep me posted, yeah?”
“We will.”
Mac stood as Eric and Derek exchanged a half-handshake, half-hug. With goodbyes said and a final ‘good luck’ given, the two detectives left, ordering the other officers to head back to their normal patrol assignments
“What now?” Nauseated by fear, she looked up at Trevor and Derek. “It’s been over two hours since we left the hospital. He could be anywhere.”
“We approach this like any other op. One step at a time.” Trevor reminded them. “First step is getting this to Ryker so his people can tell us what the hell it is.”
“Should we call Jake?” Derek asked. “I know he just had a kid and all, but this is Coop. Boss is gonna want to know what’s going on.”
Trevor ran a hand over his strong jaw. “Yeah. You’re right. Damn, I hate going to him without more to go on. If I tell him, he and Liv will only worry.”
“He’ll be pissed if you don’t.”
Mac pulled out her phone to call their boss. “This happened because of me. I should be the one to tell him.”
“Damn it, Mac. For the umpteenth time, this isn’t your…”
Her work phone rang, the number not one she recognized. “It’s them.” Her eyes shot back up to the two men. “It has to be.”
“Put it on speaker,” Trevor ordered.
“Wait!” Derek pulled out his own phone, his fingers flying across the screen. “I installed a tracking system into my phone a while back. All I have to do is hack into your work phone to pinpoint where the call’s coming from.”
The phone continued to ring.
“Derek, I need to answer.”
“One…more…second…okay.” He huffed out a breath and nodded. “Go ahead. Keep them talking as long as you can.”
Mac answered the call and tapped the speaker icon so they all could hear. Not bothering with pleasantries, she answered with a curt, “Let me talk to Sean.”
The distorted voice laughed. “You’re not in the position to give orders, Abigail.”
Mac closed her eyes, the last strand of hope that this had nothing to do with her fucked-up past snapping in two. “I talk to Sean, or I hang up.”
“Hang up and your boyfriend dies.”
Barely controlling her overwhelming rage, Mac asked, “What do you want?”
“You know what I want.”
Yes, she did. She also needed to keep the bastard on the line as long as possible. “Pretend I don’t.”
“The two million dollars you stole.”
Mac hesitated before responding. “How do you know about that?”
“I know everything about you, Abigail. Where you were born, the apartment you lived in when you were a baby, how beautiful you looked when you took your first communion…how devastated you were when you learned of your parents’ untimely deaths.”
He was goading her. Pushing her to act out, which would only put Coop in more danger than he already was.
With a surprisingly steady voice, Mac said, “You’ve got three seconds to let me talk to Sean, or I swear to God, I’m hanging up. One…”
“You hang up, I’m putting a bullet in his brain.”
“Do that, you’ll never see a fucking dime.” Mac closed her eyes and stayed strong. They’d played this game before with more bastards than she could remember. They had to keep the upper hand, or else Coop would die. “Two…”
“I’m in charge here, not you!”
“But I’m the one with the money,” Mac reminded him. “Seems to me, you need it pretty badly.”
Her voice may sound like she was calm and collected, but inside, she felt sick to her soul. The odds were on their side, but the risk was greater than any she’d taken before.
Tears fell from her tightened eyelids as Mac held her breath and choked out, “Three.”
Moving her trembling thumb to the side of her phone, she started to end the call. She froze when she heard the robotic voice muffle a low curse.
“Fine. Here.”
Her breath stilled as she waited, praying her partner was okay. There was silence, followed by a shuffling sound. She could hear a mumbled voice and then Coop finally came on the line.
“Don’t do it, Mac!” he begged her. “Don’t give this bastard what he wants.”
Her knees nearly gave out from relief. His voice sounded strained like he was in pain, but he was still alive!
“Are you okay? How badly are you hurt?”
“I’m…good. It’s a trap, Mac. Need to stay…away.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“P-please.”
“Listen to me, Sean. I’m going to get you out of there, okay? Trevor and Derek are with me, and we are going to find you. I need you to hang on until we get there, okay?”
“Appreciate the thought, baby. But you and I both know…he’s going to kill me no matter what.”
“That’s not going to happen,” she vowed. “I promise. I need to know who took you.”
“That’s enough.” The robotic voice was back.
“No!” She swallowed her fear. “You son of a bitch. I don’t know who you are, but I swear to God if you lay another finger on him, it’ll be the last thing you do.”
“Walnut Creek,” the man cut her off. He began giving his instructions. “There’s an old ballfield there. Sign says Shady Grove Park. Take the dirt road directly across from it and drive all the way to the end. You’ll see a two-story brick building there, right on the water’s edge.”
“How do I know you’re really there?”
“We’ve been talking long enough. I’m sure your teammates have tracked the call by now.”
Mac’s pulse spiked. The man who took Coop was a lot smarter than she’d given him credit for.
“Bring the money to me within the hour, or your partner dies.”
An hour was nowhere near enough time to put a solid rescue plan together.
“I need at least three.”
“You’ve got one.”
Mac forced a laugh. “You’re delusional if you think I can get two million dollars in cash put together that quickly. It’ll take me an hour just to get to you from where I am.”
Closer to thirty minutes, but the asshole may not know that.
“If anyone can pull this off, it’s you.”
Mac ground her teeth and kept trying. “It’s eleven o’clock at night. The banks are closed.”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Abigail,” the mechanical voice sounded agitated. “Remember, I know you better than that. I know you have the cash stored away someplace safe. I’m tired of this little dance. I’ll give you an hour and a half, not a minute longer. Bring the two million in cash, or you say goodbye to your partner.”
Sean wasn’t only her partner. He was the man she loved. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do to save him, including giving herself up so he could live.
With no other option, she said, “Fine. I’ll be there. But I want a picture of Sean before we hang up. That way I know what sort of condition he’s in right now. If he’s hurt any more than he already is by the time I get there, you won’t see a fucking dime.”
The man laughed. “You always were strong-willed. Good to see some things never change.”
Within seconds, her phone dinged and she knew he’d sent the picture.
“There. Remember, ninety minutes. A second longer, he’s dead.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Oh, and Abigail. In case it wasn’t implied, you’re to come alone. I even suspect there’s anyone else there with you, this plan will be dead in the water…along with you and your boyfriend.”
The man ended the call. Dizzy with unthinkab
le fear, Mac opened the picture of Coop. She nearly collapsed.
Oh, god.
Sean was sitting in a chair, his hands bound behind his back. It was clear he’d been beaten, for no other reason than to make her suffer.
Mac showed the picture to her two teammates. “We need to get that money, now.”
Both men let loose with several, low curses.
“Bastard was tellin’ the truth.” Derek showed them the map on his screen. “The call came from the location he gave.”
“Let’s go.” Mac headed for Coop’s truck. “I’ll take this. You two can follow. Derek, you should ride with Trevor so you can do your thing on the ride there.”
“My thing?”
“Figure out the building’s layout, possible blind spots, all that stuff.”
Trevor caught up to her. “Mac, wait.”
She didn’t. “I’ll get the money, and then I’m going in and getting Coop the hell out of there.”
“Whoa. Hold up a second.” Derek’s drawl was thicker than normal. “There’s no way we’re lettin’ you go in there by yourself.”
“We don’t have a choice. You heard what he said.” Mac reached for the driver’s door handle. “He sees anyone else, Coop’s dead.”
“You go in alone, you’re both dead, and you know it.”
“It’s a chance I’m willing to take.”
Derek’s voice became stern. “Well, we’re not.”
She started to open the door. “Not your decision.”
“Damn it, Mac.” Trevor held her wrist in a firm yet non-painful way. “Stop!”
“We don’t have time to stop, Trevor!” She whipped her head around. “Sean’s life is at stake.”
“You think we don’t know that? D and I want him out of that fucker’s hands as much as you do, but we cannot go storming in there without some sort of plan. We do that, there’s a good chance we’ll all end up dead.”
Mac’s gaze bounced back and forth between Trevor’s and Derek’s. “He’s there because of me. I have to make this right. Sean’s not just my partner, he’s”—she swallowed the painful lump in her throat—“he’s my everything.”
“I know.” Trevor’s eyes softened. He glanced over his shoulder at Derek and back to her. “We both do. And we’ve both been standing exactly where you are, now. So trust us with this, McKenna. Trust us to help you get our boy back.”
“Trev’s right, Mac.” Derek took a step closer. “You were there when I needed help with Charlie. You, Grant…the whole team. None of y’all would’ve let me take off alone to go after the prick who took her, and we damn sure aren’t lettin’ you do this without us.”
Mac took precious seconds to try to think. To decide what the best course of action would be for the most important mission of her life.
Staring back at the two men she loved like brothers, she realized they loved her just as much. They also loved Coop, and he was who mattered most.
She glanced at Derek before sliding her focus back to Trevor. “Okay.” Mac nodded. “Call Grant. Tell him to get his ass in gear and be ready because we’re getting my partner back.”
15
Hatred filled every cell in Coop’s bruised and bloodied body as he stared up at the man who’d orchestrated this entire thing. His heart ached for Mac, the damn thing breaking all over again because he knew this was going to destroy her.
“Why are you doing this?”
Anthony Moretti smiled down at him. “Why does anyone do anything? Money.”
Mac’s uncle was much older than Coop, but the body hidden beneath a plain t-shirt and jeans was still strong and fit. He was also very much alive.
“Nah.” Coop started to shake his head but stopped when a wave of dizziness hit. At least his voice was getting a little stronger. “There’s more to it than that, Tony. You had plenty of money. A shit ton of it, from what I read.”
“You’re right, Mr. Cooper.” The man’s heavy Jersey accent made Coop’s last name sound more like ‘Coopa’. “I did. Until the Federal government froze all my fucking accounts.”
“Come on. You know people.” Coop’s tongue ran across a split in his bottom lip. “Surely you could’ve gotten money from someone else.”
“You think I should’ve borrowed money? Be like all those idiots I helped out over the years?”
Moretti laughed. Actually turned his nose up to the idea, despite the fact he’d made a killing—literally—on loaning money to who knows how many poor, desperate bastards.
“Why not?”
“Why should I have to borrow money when I can get my hands on two million that already belongs to me?”
Coop shrugged, or at least he tried to. Kind of hard with his hands cuffed behind his fucking back.
“Better than going through all this. Letting your pride get the best of you to the point you had to fake your own death.”
“I didn’t have a choice!” The man got angry. “The feds were closing in. I was going to go to prison. You know what happens to guys like me in prison?”
“You’d become someone’s bitch?”
The bastard slammed his fist into Coop’s gut. Thankfully, he saw the blow coming and was able to flex his abs to help protect his internal organs. That shit still hurt like a bitch, though.
Coughing through the pain, he looked up at Moretti. “I take it that wasn’t the answer you were looking for?”
The man sneered. “I’d be dead in less than a week if I went upstate. Too many enemies still upright and breathing. Too many family members of enemies waiting for their chance to get even.”
“Not to mention orange really isn’t your color.” Coop smirked. “Black and white stripes might work, as long as they’re vertical. Horizontal stripes do nothing to flatter the waistline.”
His flippant comments earned him another punch to the jaw. Damn. For a man of his age, Moretti had one hell of a right hook.
“Keep running your mouth, tough guy.” The asshole stared him down. “We’ll see how hard you laugh when my niece gets here.”
Coop’s spine stiffened, all traces of humor vanishing. With a level of fury he’d never experienced before, he clenched his jaw and locked his cold eyes on Moretti’s.
“You lay a fucking finger on her, and I swear to God I will kill you.”
“Tough words from a man bound to a chair.” Mac’s uncle leaned closer. “I’ve tortured people, Mr. Cooper. Broken bones, severed fingers. Given so many bruises you couldn’t tell where one ended and another began.”
“Do you have a point, or are you simply reciting your resume for the fun of it?”
“My point, asshole, is that I’ve done all those things and more to people who owed me less than ten grand. So what do you think I’ll do to someone who betrayed the family name? My flesh and blood niece, who I took in after my brother and his wife passed, had the nerve to not only steal from me, she then ran away like a fucking coward.”
“She ran away because she couldn’t stand to be around a murdering douchebag like you.”
Moretti backhanded him, the move more surprising than painful.
“Her reasons don’t matter, Mr. Cooper. All that matters is that she brings me my money. Which she will, because my Abigail isn’t only a thief. She’s a fucking fool.”
Moretti walked away, mumbling something about how Mac was too much like her father. When he was gone, Coop was alone in the room with nothing to do but think about how the hell he was going to get out of this.
So far, the only person he’d seen was Moretti, but he knew there were at least two other men in the building. He’d heard them all talking outside the closed door earlier.
After trying—and failing—to come up with a realistic escape plan, Coop’s thoughts turned to Mac and what her uncle had said about her.
The son of a bitch was wrong. She wasn’t a fucking fool. And her reasons did matter.
The why always matters.
Coop had been replaying his last conversation with her, over and o
ver again. Ever since he left that damn hospital, and when he wasn’t getting the shit knocked out of him here, he’d been kicking his own ass for pushing her away like he had.
Mac wasn’t like other women he’d dated. She was strong, brilliant, and complicated. Her past was about as fucked as a person’s could be, and she didn’t know shit about letting people get close to her.
But she was learning.
He’d witnessed it first-hand this past week on the farm. She’d laughed more than he’d ever seen her, and though she hadn’t actually said the words out loud, Mac had loved more than ever, too.
And like a dumbass, it hadn’t been enough.
He’d gone off half-cocked, rushing into a proposal she wasn’t ready for. When she’d tried telling him that, he’d let his stubborn-ass pride get in the way.
Rather than listening to what Mac was saying, or at least giving her the time she needed to get used to the idea, Coop got pissed. Demanded she tell him why, and when she couldn’t, he’d left her standing in that parking lot, hurt and alone.
Despite all that, she’d still agreed to come here. Was willing to risk her life to save his, no matter the pain he’d caused her mere hours before.
Actions spoke louder than fucking words, and everything Mac had done from the moment Moretti’s plan was put into place proved she loved him.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Coop knew that, now. To his soul he knew it.
He only prayed that same love didn’t end up getting her killed.
“I don’t like this.”
Mac looked over at Grant, who was standing with his feet shoulder width apart, arms crossed in front of his broad chest. She, Trevor, Derek, and Grant were all gathered in Trevor’s office at R.I.S.C.’s downtown headquarters, discussing the plan for Coop’s rescue.
“I don’t either,” Mac responded. “But it’s what has to happen.”
“Not like this, it doesn’t.” The big guy shook his head, his deep voice rolling through the room. “There has to be another way.”
“Yeah,” Derek agreed from his spot next to Grant. “Like somethin’ that doesn’t involve sendin’ you in there by yourself.”
