“What do you want me to do to prove to you that I won’t hurt her?” I held my palms up.
He shook his head. He was about to answer when the glass on the window smashed and a large rock came through landing on the floor.
My first instant was to dive onto Joe and protect him.
Doing that sent us both to the ground. Being cautious I waited for a few seconds before I moved, just to be safe. I didn’t know if this could be a repeat of the other week with the biker shooting up the place.
I moved to the rock and saw something was tied to it. It was a piece of paper.
“What is it?” Joe gasped.
I yanked out the piece of paper and growled.
“No! Nooo,” I cried.
It wasn’t just a piece of paper, it was a picture of Olivia unconscious with a bruise around her neck.
Chapter 17
Sam
* * *
I ran outside.
Joe followed behind with his gun in hand, panic all over his face.
God…
No.
No.
I couldn’t believe this was happening. They took her.
Fuck, they got me again. I was a fucking fool to allow her to leave by herself.
Fucking hell.
There was no sign of anybody. No car, nothing. Nothing at all.
Joe ran out to the street and looked around just as my phone started ringing.
I grabbed it and saw it was an unrecognized number.
“Hello Lieutenant,” said Xavier. His voice boomed across the line when I answered the phone.
“Fucking asshole, give her back to me!” I screamed.
Joe rushed back to me and tried to listen in.
“It’s simple give me back the chip.” He stated in a pointed manner. “ Give me the chip Sam and I’ll decide if I want to give her to you and what manner. Pretty girl. We may all have a turn with her.”
A tear ran down my cheek and I tried to keep from going insane. It killed me a million times to imagine anything like that happening to my Olivia. And, I knew they would do it. They would damn well do it. If he could say that to me, threatening me like that, I knew he would do it and there wouldn’t be a damn thing I could do about it either because they took her.
They took her to get to me and if they hurt her it would be my fault. Like everything else. Like every other fucking thing. What would anyone say to me if something happened to Olivia?
Same as Coop. It would be the very same thing.
Not your fault Sam…
Can’t blame yourself Sam…
Coop got himself in trouble, not you.
Fuck, if I didn’t taint the straight A student who had a bright future ahead of him he would still be here. And it was sure as fuck that if these guys didn’t know how much I loved Olivia, they wouldn’t have taken her. She’d be safe.
So what could I do?
“Please don’t touch her.” I shrieked. Begging. This … it was all I could do. Try to appeal to whatever humanity may have been left in Xavier. If there was any.
Joe covered his mouth quickly and started shaking his head.
“Sam, if I want to fuck her first before I kill her, there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.” His voice… vile, cold, vile … echoed throughout my body. It reminded me that he was in charge.
“Xavier, she has nothing to do with any of this. Please do not hurt her. Please. Let’s sort this out, man to man. Please.”
He laughed and I heard him pull in a deep exaggerated breath. “I’ll sleep on it. Chip first Sam. Six o’clock tomorrow evening. Meet me then.”
“No, now. I want to meet now. Xavier think about what the fuck it is you’re doing.”
“I know what I’m doing Sam. I always know and always knew,” he taunted.
“This isn’t the guy I worked with for the last few years. This is not you. What happened to you?” It was another attempt to reach the human inside him. Fruitless as it seemed.
“Don’t go all kum ba ya on me Sam. Don’t do that, I hate that shit. You know in our line of work we’re about the money. Don’t take the high road with me because you got paid the same as me. Just like me, I guess I just looked for more opportunities. The Ra offered that to me and damn did we ever play the game well. You weren’t supposed to get this far. I figured you’d do the job and head to Mexico, but you had to dig deeper. The good natured Captain America complex you have kicked in and you had to stick your nose in where it didn’t belong. I didn’t have a price, but you so kindly showed us from day one of this mission what was important to you. You were willing to sacrifice a mission that paid us each twenty grand for this here girl. I’m not like that.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you’re like. I don’t care. Give her back to me now.”
“Like I said, I’ll sleep on it. At six o’clock tomorrow you’ll meet me on the roof top of the warehouse you so effortlessly broke into last night. We were not amused by that little stunt. Impressed, but not amused. Bring the chip back. That’s all we want.”
He hung up.
Joe threw a punch in my face, stunning me. I staggered backwards almost falling because I didn’t see it coming. I looked back to him, his hands were shaking and tears were streaming down his cheeks.
“This was what I meant. THIS!” He barked balling his fists. “My girl, taken. Taken by these fucking psychos. My little girl.”
He grabbed me and I allowed him to shove me against the wall. We both knew I could take him but I wouldn’t if we were going to fight.
“Let me guess, they want the chip back. So, what are you going to do give it to them? You just gonna give them a chip that they were going to use to start a war? Really? For one girl, my girl.”
I nodded. “Yes.”
Of course I would. For my girl.
I didn’t know what choice I had.
Not now anyway.
* * *
Olivia
* * *
Where…
Where was I?
God, my head ached so much. It felt like it was going to explode when I moved it. it was like a host of mini explosions set off in every nerve.
I blinked and my eyes fluttered open to more darkness.
Darkness with a faint light in the corner of wherever I was.
I looked toward the light, tried to move but found my hands were tied behind me. So were my legs.
Shit.
I shuffled around and realized I was on the ground. The hard stone floor and the place smelled like bleach.
I wiggled around and tried to sit up. that was as much as I could do with my hands and legs bound together.
As I sat there, alone in the dark I remembered it all.
Hammond in my car. He took me. he took me to wherever this was. I’d always watched these movies and TV dramas of people being kidnapped and feared it as one of the things I would have hated to happen to me. I knew it wouldn’t be as elaborate as the movies and that it could actually be worse. So much worse, where victims could be killed.
What if that happened? It could. There was no reason why it shouldn’t. these men were animals and if they were working with terrorist then what was to stop them for doing whatever they felt like to me?
Nothing, that was what.
Did Sam know yet? Or, Dad?
Jesus, what if I never saw them again?
Tears ran down my cheeks and I couldn’t stop them from falling.
The sound of me sobbing must have attracted someone’s attention because the door opened and the lights overhead brightened.
Patrick came in with Oz. I started freaking out even before they reached me.
What were they going to do to me? I’d heard so many horror stories. Too
many, and they were all swirling around my mind now.
“Awww look at this.” Patrick said with a wide smile, placing his hands at his heart.
When he got up to me he crouched down and the smile became menacing. Oz continued to leer.<
br />
“Let me go, you bastards. I have nothing,” I wept.
“Aren’t you a lawyer? Surely you can figure out why you’re here, right?” Patrick chuckled.
“This is ridiculous, the whole thing is. Let me go.”
“Your boy has to deliver the chip back to us first. No funny business.” He laughed a crude sardonic laugh that worked its way into my insides and made me squirm.
When I first met Patrick, weeks ago, I had a bad feeling about him. I was absolutely right to go with my first instincts.
“He won’t. There’s too much risk.” Even as I said the words I knew it was a lie. We both knew it for a lie, although I wasn’t telling a lie. I was saying something I wanted him to believe, and saying it because I thought it was right.
That would be the right thing to do. For Sam to protect the chip instead of me. But… no. I knew he would never let anything happen to me. He wouldn’t place any value on risk.
He’d come for me. I knew he would.
Patrick for damn certain knew it too.
The smile on his face told me exactly that.
“I don’t think that requires an answer from me. We know that guy. He’s one of the good ones. I’m the opportunist in the group and Oz here…” he pointed to Oz standing next to him who smiled down at me and gave me a full sweep that made me feel sick. “Oz, is a mingle of everything. He killed Bradley, so that’s some contribution.”
I sucked in a sharp breath on hearing that. I was in the presence of a murderer. Someone who would just kill you, just like that and he was smiling about it.
Smiling, proudly like he’d just won some award.
“Sam was the heart.” Patrick continued. “The sap with a weak spot for you. He’ll bring the chip.”
Patrick stood and backed away.
“What are you guys going to do with me?”
It was a question that was answered with a series of laughs.
Laughter that made more tears run down my cheeks.
Desolation filled me, and fear.
Chapter 18
Sam
* * *
“I’m coming with you,” Joe insisted.
He’d come with me and the team that hung back on the road across from the warehouse.
It was ten to six. We’d been waiting here since before five.
“No, you can’t.” I shook my head.
Joe grimaced at me and went to grab me again like he did last night but I blocked him.
“Don’t you dare. Don’t tell me I can’t go with you,” Joe snapped.
It was my turn to get up in his face because the way he was behaving he was going to get all of us killed.
“I’m telling you exactly that Joe. This isn’t something you can deal with.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“I know, but they specifically told me to come alone.”
Come alone. Of course I would. I’d walk inside by myself but around me I had eyes, help who I hoped could help.
Joe’s team were here and I’d called in another favor from Agent Fox. A favor he did not like at all because in essence I was threatening to keep hold of the chip if they didn’t help me. And if they choose not to help me and kill me I threatened to hide the chip away where no one could find it. With me dead they’d have a hard time trying to figure out where I’d put it.
I didn’t have a plan for that because I was hoping they’d agree with my initial request.
Thankfully they did. So, they were around too and on my word they’d dive in whenever the time was right. I imagined he’d set up a team of snippers and other skilled guys.
I released Joe and backed away.
“You bring her back to me Sam.”
The hurt in his voice got to me. It really did. I nodded. Another promise I knew I couldn’t make, but here was me trying.
I left him and the team, and made my way to the warehouse. Attached to me was an intricate device Lark gave me that fit on the inside of my jacket. It had a camera and a microphone on it with a frequency he could tune into. So could the guys from the unit Agent Fox organized.
I guess the one good thing I had was them. Xavier didn’t know that. They were who I placed my trust because they were skilled for these types of hostage situations.
The men at the warehouse entrance opened the large metal gates for me. Two men with machine guns came outside then.
“Hands up.” The more muscular one ordered.
I placed my hands up. While he kept his gun trained on me the other guy searched me for weapons and nodded his satisfaction at finding nothing.
“Empty your pockets,” he ordered.
“No, I won’t.” I stood firm and looked them both over. These were grunts. Men with muscle who thought they could scare people with their guns. They didn’t scare me though. “If I were carrying a knife you could tell by the being dead already, so don’t fuck with me. You know what I carry must be in my pocket, and I can assure you if either of you try to take it you’ll be dead on the floor before you could pull that trigger.”
Fucking pricks.
At least they didn’t test me to see if I could or would do what I threatened.
The big meat head cocked his head to the side and we started walking.
Once inside the facility we took the elevator that took us straight to the roof.
As the door opened my heart broke. I saw Olivia first. She had her hands tied in front of her and Hammond stood behind her with his gun pressed at her neck. She was crying. Tears ran from the massive blue and black bruise that had formed over her eye.
Someone had hit her.
One of them had touched her and hurt her. They would pay for that.
I wanted nothing more than to hold her and make it all better.
My gaze snapped to Norton and Xavier who were smiling at me, then to Patrick and Oz.
The five of them were all here. They all stood across the center of the roof about fifteen feet away from me.
“Come on let’s see it.” Norton ordered.
I reached into my pocket and took out the small envelope containing the chip. Reaching into that I took the chip out and held it up.
“Better be the actual chip and not some shit you put together to fool us.” Norton balked.
“Wouldn’t take a risk like that,” I answered.
Xavier laughed. “Course you wouldn’t. But we have to be sure. Hold it out.”
I did as he said and he shined a laser light on it. The little blue wire in the center reacted to the light and started shining on its own. I didn’t know it could do that.
“It’s legit.” Xavier announced and switched off the laser light.
“Bradley took very good care of his inventions. That’s his authentication insignia,” Norton explained. “The man truly was a genius.”
“A genius you had killed. Tell me, when did this little plan of yours come together. Bradley designed the chip for business purposes and it was secret stuff. He didn’t share it with anyone.”
“You’re a hacker Sam. You can get in and out of any system you want. The Ra had their plans for years and needed something that could fulfil that plan. They did several tests that failed. I’m a man who can work both sides very well, so while I worked an honest job with the Department of Defense I stole information, I knew stuff no one else knew. Bradley was at an inventions fair a few years back and he alluded to something in the works. Tech that could protect businesses from embezzlement. I simply kept an eye on him and peaked at his files. When I saw what the chip could do, I knew we hit a big one.”
Damn him. All of them.
“So you enlisted us to do the job. Me to be your butt monkey because I could get the chip.”
Norton shrugged. “Yeah, basically.”
“You know you won’t get away with this,” I threatened.
“I think we already have. You’re here with the chip. I’ll take it from you and carry out plans to kick start the next world war. This time society will not be able t
o rebuild itself.”
This guy was sick. He was a sick bastard who loved the sound of his own fucking voice.
Time for action though. It was time for action.
The signal for that would be when the snipers on the rooves surrounding us started shooting. That was what Agent Fox told me. They’d take down as many of these guys as they could. After that, fate was in my hands.
I had to keep talking until then. They’d only take that shot when they saw a clearing for Olivia to be safe.
“I want my girl back now,” I balled my fists.
“Chip first,” Xavier answered.
“You’re not getting shit if I don’t get her back.”
I looked over at Hammond holding Olivia. He did exactly what I wanted him to do by stepping backward and holding the gun out to her.
It was as if I was watching a scene play out before me that I’d seen before because I knew what would happen next. The second he did that a bullet took him out. It went straight in his head and he dropped to the ground. Olivia screamed.
Before the others could work out what happened, bullets took down Norton, Patrick, Oz and the two guys behind me that were mid-way readying their machine guns to fire. They didn’t get the chance.
Snipers. I was right, and thanked my lucky stars for Agent Fox’s set up.
The snipers took them down. That just left Xavier who’d thrown himself on the ground and took a bullet to his shoulder when he saw everyone going down.
I didn’t care about him. I shoved the chip in my pocket and went for Olivia.
I didn’t get to her though.
Shit! Him being closer to me was my downfall. He ran forward, launched himself forward as I tried to run past and knocked me to the ground.
He rammed into me and I went down hard.
This would have been the part where Joe’s team came in and they did. I heard police sirens sounding all around.
This part was on me though. With the others down, I had an advantage of just having Xavier to deal with. He rolled on top of me and sent several punches to my face.
Yours Truly Page 12
