Vengeance Before Virtue

by Tyler Porter

  “He is not to be let anywhere near her,” Matt said as he pointed to Bran. “And I will know if that condition is violated. If it is, you get nothing.”

  “Deal.”

  “And I swear, God as my witness, if any harm comes to her... any harm whatsoever, and you’ll get no money. But I promise you that will be the least of your worries.”

  “Threats aren’t going to do you much good, Matt. I’m not Michael Vincent.” The group laughed in unison at their leader’s comment.

  “And I’m not a scared, shaking, eighteen-year-old boy anymore,” Matt responded immediately. “I’m not the kid who’d never taken a life. And I make an oath to you right now that if she is hurt on your watch, I will take your life next.” The laughter in the room stopped instantaneously. They all looked around at each other, and then to Cody who also was no longer smiling.

  Matt held his stare for a several seconds before turning and forcing his way through the bikers toward the exit. He walked calmly out of the bar, but broke into a sprint the moment his feet touched the sidewalk outside. He got into the Tahoe and closed the door so fast that he nearly slammed his leg in the door.

  He turned the key and sped out of Alta Vista driving toward the airport. He took backroads as he was sure there was a manhunt for him after he’d assaulted an officer of the law and stolen his back-up weapon. He called Chelsea, and without giving her much time to speak, he told her to dispatch the jet as soon as humanly possible and that he was at the airport waiting for it. He hung up and tried to call Andi again, and again it went straight to voicemail.

  Damnit, he thought. He’d told her so many times that she needed to carry a phone charger with her. It happened too often that her phone would die and he wouldn’t hear from her for hours at a time. He was certain the phone had either died, or that she had just forgotten to turn it back on after their flight back to Chicago. He flung his cell phone onto the passenger seat and gripped the wheel tight. He was trying hard to keep himself together. He was trying to push all of the thoughts that were flooding his mind, but he was having no luck.

  He couldn’t hold it all back. He couldn’t stop seeing his dad standing over his mother’s dead body, staring back at him with no remorse for what he’d done. He’d attacked Sheriff Demsey and left him knocked out on the side of the road. His sister was a captive of a biker gang that was capable of doing unthinkable things to her if Matt didn’t show up with the money. All of this on top of the lingering fac that he had not yet gotten ahold of Andi. It was common for her phone to die, but with everything going on he couldn’t keep from considering the worst.

  He got to the airport and waited for the jet. It was an hour and forty minute flight from Chicago to Council Grove, and it had been forty minutes since he’d given the order to dispatch the jet. Hopefully, the private airport in Chicago had had a pilot on standby and the jet was already in route. He sat in the SUV with his head on the steering wheel, trying to clear his mind. Trying to think of exactly nothing.

  It wasn’t long before he faded into sleep, and his dream was better described as a nightmare. He was back in his parents’ house, in the kitchen looking into the living room. His mother was dead on the floor and his sister, still in chains, was lying beside her, crying and pulling against the restraints trying to touch her. Bikers were standing all around, pointing and laughing. In the center of the room was his father, still holding the blank cold expression as he looked down at his wife. And standing beside him was Cody, smiling at Matt as he pulled his knife from behind him.

  Then Cody started walking toward Mariah, knife still in hand. She looked back at him and then looked back at Matt, wide-eyed and scared to death. Matt could not move; he could only watch the horror unfold. Cody grabbed a fistful of Mariah’s hair and ripped her head backwards. Her eyes never left Matt’s, even when the steel blade again touched the skin on her neck ever-so-softly. She didn’t cry. She looked calm, almost peaceful. Like she had accepted what was going to happen. He slowly dragged the knife across her neck, creating a straight, unbroken, dark red line across her throat. Tiny dribbles of crimson began working their way down her neck.

  Matt reached for her and screamed out. He could feel the incredible strain from the scream, but no sound came out. The only sound he could hear was the laughter from the bikers, Bran among them. He wanted to cry, but he could no more cry than he could move or scream. He could only watch his sister slowly die. Suddenly, someone else was there, standing in the front doorway. He couldn’t make out who it was, but there was no mistaking the object in his hand⸺a shotgun. He aimed it into the room, and although Matt could hear no gunshots, members of the biker club began to crumble where they stood.

  The figure took aim at Bran who immediately evaporated into the air as the shotgun kicked. Neither Cody nor his father noticed what was happening around them. They were both staring straight at Matt. The figure aimed at the two men, but as the gun kicked again, they were gone. Not evaporated like Bran, just gone, as if they had escaped somehow. The figure began walking closer, and just as he was coming into clear view, right as the identity of this lone warrior was about to be revealed, Matt was jolted out of sleep by a knock on the window.

  His head jumped off of the steering wheel and he turned rapidly to find an employee of the airport standing at his window. After rolling the window down, he was notified that his jet had arrived, been prepped, and was ready for takeoff at his convenience. He told the man he would be just a moment and rolled the window back up before rubbing both eyes hard. When his sight returned to him, he checked the clock and discovered he’d been asleep for almost three hours. Still groggy, he collected his bag from the back of the vehicle and made his way to the landing strip where he boarded the jet and disappeared into the small cabin at the back of the plane.

  It felt like he hadn’t slept in days, especially after his brief nap. He knew two things regarding the decision to sleep on the flight. One, he desperately needed it in order to be on top of his game, and with his sister’s life hanging in the balance, this was very important. Two, if he didn’t sleep, the alternative option would be to lay awake, staring at the ceiling and trying hard, but failing, to fight off the thoughts and flashbacks. He chose to fall back into slumber if only for an hour or two.

  The plane touching down in Chicago was the thing that woke him. This time around, if he did dream, he didn’t remember what it was, and he was grateful for that. Once the jet arrived in its space, he deboarded and was met at the bottom of the stairs by a petite woman holding a paper coffee cup and sporting a huge smile. He thanked her and received the warmest “good morning” he could recall ever getting. It was a nice way to start the day, and was almost as big a surprise as finding the Phantom waiting for him.

  The snow-white Rolls Royce Phantom⸺one of the very few material items that brought him any kind of pride or joy. This one was special. It had been on his vision board for years, and he remembered crying while driving it home the day he bought it. Something good, finally something decent to show for all of the shit he’d been through, all of the hard work he’d put in, all the asses he’d had to kiss, and all the intolerable things that he had found a way to tolerate.

  Sitting there in that moment as he got off of the plane, he was as appreciative as that very first day. He was also appreciative for a different reason: the Phantom was infinitely faster than any of his other vehicles, which meant he would be able to get to the bank that much faster. He pulled out and headed that way. His first thought was to go straight to the penthouse to see Andi and Riley, but he couldn’t spare a single moment. He just couldn’t stand the thought of Mariah being a prisoner. Being chained up amongst those animals.

  Matt tried calling Andi again, and the phone rang this time, but still no answer. It was, however, still somewhat early in the morning, so it was likely she was still fast asleep. He left her a quick voicemail explaining that he couldn’t tell her everything over the phone, but that he loved them both and that he would be ho
me very soon, he just didn’t know exactly when. He ended the message by firmly requesting that she call him as soon as she received the message. He let her know he was beginning to worry and he needed to hear her voice and know that they were safe.

  Back on streets he knew well and was used to taking, he was able to get through the city fairly quickly and get to the bank where he was able to withdraw the two million within a span of twenty minutes. At almost any other bank in the country, it would have taken days, maybe even weeks, to accomplish this. But his bank was not the average bank. This bank was for the mega-wealthy. For those who often felt the urge to blow millions of dollars on an impulse. It was quick, it was easy, and there were no questions as long as the numbers were in the account.

  Bank employees loaded three bulky cash bags into his trunk before he sped off back toward the airport. He had already given the airport instructions to re-prep the plane and that he was planning on taking off again within an hour. As he drove, though, he began to change his mind about seeing his girls while he was there. He needed something good, even if just for a quick second. Setting aside the fact that there was also no guarantee of what was going to happen when he returned to Kansas. He wanted to think that he could just hand over the cash, they would release Mariah, and they all would be able to live happily ever after. But life experience had taught him many times that the happily-ever-after thing was something made up in fairy tales.

  If the story ended with him spitting up blood in the back room of The Wet Bar, he wanted it to happen knowing he had seen Riley and Andi one more time. He arrived at his condo building and parked in the garage before hurrying inside and stopping at the front desk.

  The general manager was a large, black man named Draymond. He stood six feet eight inches tall and weighed in⸺Matt guessed by his hulking size and bulging, muscular frame⸺at around 350 pounds. Matt had always liked him and had spent more time talking to him, he was sure, than to any other tenant. Through their conversations together, Draymond had told his story about how he had been a top NFL prospect while playing college football, but one wrong tackle during one of the last games of his junior year had changed everything.

  Draymond had fallen into a deep depression, and after a few too many years of getting beaten down by life, he’d made the decision to change it. He started as a part-time doorman at the building because he’d dropped out of school after the injury. Within a couple of years, he worked his way from the very bottom to the very top, reporting only to the owner of the building.

  Matt related to Draymond. He understood what that was like. To have life up and change, flip upside down, in an instant. Then having to start from nothing and change it. They had gotten along from the first day they’d met, and that was the only reason Matt had trusted only him to ensure security guards at his door once the girls arrived. As he arrived at desk, Draymond appeared from the back, a giant smile on his face.

  “Mr. O’Bannon! So good to see you! It seems like it’s been forever.”

  “Draymond, come on drop the ‘Mr. O’Bannon’ crap. How many times have I told you it’s ‘Matt?’”

  “Yeah, I know. But the owner has been in town, so I gotta follow policy. You wanna get me fired?”

  “Not yet,” Matt said with a chuckle. “How have things been with the girls? No problems, right? No issues reported from security?”

  Draymond looked confused first, and then the confusion turned to concern.

  “They haven’t been in yet. I thought maybe y’all changed your minds and they stayed back with you.”

  “What? They haven’t been in? You mean they haven’t shown up here?” The urgency in his voice was getting higher with every word that he spoke. “Why haven’t you called me!?”

  “No, no. They haven’t been in. I tried the cell number you gave me for Andi, but she didn’t answer. I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have assumed; I just figured she was with you.”

  Matt didn’t respond. He just turned and ran to the elevator. He considered taking the stairs, but it would have taken longer to run up all those flights than it would to take the elevator. As the steel box carried him up, he paced impatiently, his worst thoughts getting the better of him. Suddenly, the fact that she hadn’t answered any calls or called back was making more sense in the worst way.

  The doors slid open on his floor and he ran to his door so fast that he had trouble slowing down to put the key in to unlock it. He burst into the condo and began searching, screaming at the top of his lungs for Andi or Riley. He searched every bedroom, every bathroom, the laundry room, and even the emergency staircase at the back of the condo.

  The place was exactly the same way that he’d left it. Not so much as a couch pillow out of place. There was no sign of anyone being there since he’d departed for Kansas. As he double-checked each room, he called Andi’s cell over and over, every time getting no answer. He was breathing heavy and beginning to sweat. He could perhaps understand Draymond not giving him a heads-up that they had not arrived, but there was very little chance that Chelsea would not have reported that the jet returned with no passengers.

  They had to have landed in Chicago. He’d told Andi specifically to go straight to the condo, and that there would be security outside the door, along with plenty of food to keep them until he was able to return. Why would she deviate from that plan? He could think of no good reason why she would do that. He called Chelsea to confirm, and sure enough, she had a flight report stating that two passengers, both female, one adult and one child, had landed safely in Chicago.

  He sprinted back to the elevator and frantically pushed the LOBBY button. The only other place that they would have gone would have been her apartment, although he still could not come up with a reason why. He ran through the lobby and passed Draymond who began to say something but stopped when Matt ran past him shouting instructions.

  “If they show up, you call me immediately!” he yelled as he burst through the tenant doors that led to the parking garage.

  The Phantom was barely even in gear when he stomped the gas pedal resulting in an acceleration that was more like a pounce. He squealed through the garage and partially drifted into the street racing toward Andi’s apartment complex. He couldn’t keep his hands still; the nerves were overwhelming. He transitioned back and forth between drumming on the steering wheel and gripping it so tight that his knuckles turned entirely white.

  His tunnel vision kicked in and all he could see was the road directly in front of him and his route to them. He paid no attention to anything beside him or behind him. Throughout the drive he hit a trash can, two construction cones, ran over a squirrel, and nearly t-boned a minivan when he ran a stop sign. He couldn’t afford to stop. He had to get there; he had to find out what was going on. He didn’t know what, but he had a terrible feeling that something was very wrong.

  He slammed on the brakes and squeaked to a stop in front of her building. He got out and began running to it so fast that he forgot to shut off the engine, grab the keys, or even shut the driver side door. He bolted up the steps to the second floor, arrived at her door, and began banging over and over again. No answer came. He had no idea whether they were inside or not, but he had no other ideas, so he planned to make sure that his search was thorough.

  After several more attempts to knock and no answer, he took a big step back and then a big step forward, driving his foot into the door close to where the lock would be sitting in the wooden frame. The sounds of crackling wood and bending hinges filled the small isolated area and echoed off of the swimming pool below. He moved through the now open doorway and searched the apartment.

  Her place was the same as his⸺no sign that anyone had been staying there: no laundry in the baskets, no dishes in the sink... and no blanket on the couch, which was never the case as the two girls loved cuddling up so much in the evenings to watch TV that they just left it there. That struck him as odd once he noticed it, neatly folded under the coffee table. Why would Andi put that blanket up? Since
the first time he’d stepped foot in her apartment, even the first night that she cooked dinner for him and he met Riley, that blanket had been crumpled up on the couch. It was the one thing out of place in an otherwise spotless apartment.

  Matt walked up to the coffee table, bent down, and retrieved the blanket, letting it unfold in his hands. He held it and thought hard, trying to put all of these random puzzle pieces together. He paced between the kitchen and the living room, waiting for some brilliant realization to hit him, but none did. He set the blanket down on the couch and was about to leave when he noticed it, perfectly placed in the center of the kitchen table. How had he missed it the first time? There were two items out of place, it turned out: the blanket and the envelope.

  On the front of it was Andi’s address, but it was Matt’s name that appeared above it. He quickly opened it, just careful enough not to rip whatever was inside. Once he retrieved what turned out to be a letter, he wished he would have never opened it, but being that he had, he had a better idea of what might have happened to his girls. The letter, to his disbelief, was from his ex-executive assistant. The woman who had stalked him, killed multiple people⸺including Andi’s ex-husband⸺and tried to kill Andi in the end. The letter was from Claire.

  Chapter 15: Ghosts of the Past

  Matthew,

  It’s been so very long. I miss you more than words can speak, my love. I know that you’ve missed me. I know that you lay awake at night thinking about me and wishing that the sad excuse for a woman asleep beside you was me. I know you wish that we could start all of this over, and that this was all just a big mistake.

  I wait for the day when you ride in on your white horse to save me. To take me into your arms and make love to me like a brilliant warrior returning home from battle. To release inside of me over and over and conceive our son. The one who would grow up to be just like his father. I’ve had a lot of time to think about how we would raise him. I have all of the colors picked out for his bedroom. I know that he would bring us even closer together, which we would have earlier thought to be impossible.