The Protector

by Jodi Ellen Malpas

  metal keeping me prisoner, delaying me from finding her.

  I stride past the reception desk, where a gaggle of women are gossiping, and keep moving down the corridor to Logan’s office. The women’s high-pitched chatter soon dulls to silence before the panicked whispers start. But no one tries to stop me. The comfortable weight of my gun in my hand tells me why.

  As soon as I reach the door I turn the handle, but it doesn’t shift. I laugh wickedly and move back, bringing my knee up to my chest and throwing my foot into the wood. The crash doesn’t even penetrate my fog of fury.

  Logan jumps in his chair, his desk phone at his ear, and one of his minions staggers back in shock. “It’s fine,” Logan says down the line, obviously reassuring whoever’s called up to advise him of the madman on the loose. “Everything’s fine.” He hangs up slowly, his eyes wide and cautious.

  Fine? It’s far from fine. I lift my arm and aim for Logan’s head. “You have ten seconds to tell me what the fuck you’ve been hiding before I blow your brains out.” And he’d better not question my intention. I pull back the slide of my gun.

  “What are you talking about?” he asks, backing up in his chair like the pussy I know he is.

  “You’re wasting time, Logan.” My jaw tenses, the pulse riding up into my brain. “Seven seconds.”

  “Where’s Cami? What have you done with her?”

  “She’s been fucking taken!” I thunder forward, socking an elbow to Pete’s head when he tries to stop me. He drops to the floor with a crash, groaning.

  I round his desk and wedge the barrel of my gun against Logan’s temple, pushing it in as hard as I can. He whimpers, his shakes riding up the metal of my weapon and tickling my hand. God help him, my trigger finger is twitchy enough already. “Fucking talk!”

  “Okay, okay!” He cowers, his eyes clenching shut. “They’ve been blackmailing me for weeks! They asked for money. Said they’d expose me if I didn’t pay!”

  There we have it. Expose him. His something to hide. “Expose you how?”

  His frightened eyes flick from me to Pete, who’s currently peeling himself from the floor, rubbing at his head. “Leave us,” Logan says, low and serious.

  Pete doesn’t question him. He doesn’t even acknowledge the fact that I have a loaded weapon pointing at his boss’s head. He walks out swiftly, not looking back.

  The door closes and I jiggle my gun, my indication that he’d better hurry the fuck up and explain before I blow his head off. “They have photos,” he mumbles, breathing heavily, nervous as shit.

  “Of?” I push.

  “Me.”

  I grab the collar at his throat and yank. “And?”

  “A woman.” He swallows, forcing the flesh of his throat to protrude and brush against my knuckles at his neck. “Or a girl.”

  I exhale, disgusted, but most of all relieved that I seem to be getting somewhere. “How old?”

  His eyes close and he deflates before me, giving up. “Fifteen.”

  I drop him like the filth he is and relieve his temple of my gun, stepping back, repulsion invading my expression.

  “I didn’t know!” Logan squirms in his huge office chair, refusing to look at me. “She looked at least twenty. Tall. Blond. Well formed.”

  “You bastard.”

  “This can’t get out!” His eyes dart across his desk, frantic and panicked. “I’m an ambassador for a children’s charity, for Christ’s sake! My reputation…” He looks at me, pure dread in his smarmy eyes. “My wife.”

  My lip curls, and I take the greatest of pleasure from what I’m about to say. “Your wife’s leaving you, Logan. She filed for divorce yesterday.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “She’s been having an affair with your divorce lawyer.” I laugh under my breath, a laugh of utter disbelief. “She’s pregnant with his child.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about! She wouldn’t leave me!”

  “Do you think I give a fuck?” I slam the gun into the center of his forehead, quaking with anger. “You called off my protection knowing Cami wasn’t safe! What the fuck were you thinking?”

  “You were digging!” He pushes himself back in his chair, eyes wide. “When I got the first threat, they demanded money and gave bank account details. They said that if I didn’t pay, they would send the pictures to the newspapers. I told them to go to hell. I wasn’t about to bend to their will. Besides, I keep close council with all the editors of the papers. I scratch their backs, they scratch mine. They certainly wouldn’t benefit from the scandal and my ruin, trust me.”

  I balk at the immoral, egotistical twat, and he evades my eyes.

  “The pictures ended up on the desk of the editor at the Mirror,” he tells me quietly. “He called me and I made sure it would be worth his while to keep the pictures out of the papers.”

  “How much?”

  “A million and a very interesting story on a member of Parliament.”

  I snarl. The man is more ruthless than I ever gave him credit for. “How much did the ransom demand?”

  “Two million.” Logan eyes me warily as my nostrils flare, my anger building.

  “And the threat on Camille?”

  “That came when they figured the pictures weren’t going to get them the money they wanted. I thought I could take care of it. I couldn’t let you see the real threat on Camille that I received. It talked about the photographs! The threat I showed you was printed by me. I just needed to protect Camille, and you’re the best! I knew she’d be safe with you! Then you started digging. It was only a matter of time before you found something. You cared too much!”

  “Because I fucking love your daughter! I couldn’t give two fucks about you and your reputation. All I cared about was her safety, which is more than I can say for you! Her own fucking father!”

  “You can’t tell!” he says on a rush, sitting forward in his chair beseechingly, still only concerned for his fucking public status. “I’m not just worried about my business and reputation. I don’t want my daughter to hate me!”

  I scoff, truly amused by the deluded prick. “It’s too fucking late, Logan.” I shove my gun to his temple again and put some more weight behind it, forcing him to collapse back into his chair. His brow is a sweaty mess, his hands up in front of him like his pathetic, fat limbs can serve as some kind of protection. Nothing could protect him from me right now.

  “You have a wife,” he mumbles pathetically.

  “She’s fucking dead!”

  “You still lied to my daughter! You still pretended to be someone you’re not!”

  “Don’t make me fucking kill you before I have all the information I need to find her!” I lean in, sure I’m going to pierce his head with my gun to save me the bother of shooting him. “Your concern over me and your daughter is irrelevant right now.”

  He closes one eye, trying to lean back and escape my gun. It’s a fruitless endeavor. “Please help me find her,” he begs.

  I relieve his temple of my Heckler and stalk around his desk, putting myself on the other side of him. He follows my every pace until I come to a stop. I aim, watch his eyes widen and his hands come up, and I fire.

  The sound of shattering glass ricochets around his office, and he curls into a ball in his chair, making himself as small as possible. “I’m already planning on breaking your legs for putting her through this. But I swear, Logan.” I load my lungs with air and let it stream out on my lethal vow. “If she has one scratch on her when I get her back from whoever’s taken her, I won’t aim past you next time.”

  He uncurls himself from the chair, shaking and sweating, his terrified eyes glassy.

  “Nod!” I yell. “Give me something that tells me you fully comprehend what I’m telling you!”

  He starts nodding frenziedly, sniffling like the spineless arsehole he is.

  I search for the calm I need to function to my fullest and sit in the chair opposite him, laying my gun calmly on
the table, while Logan hangs on nervously for me to speak.

  He can wait while I talk myself down. He’s a desperate man. A stupid man, thinking he could handle this alone. The only credit I can give him is calling me in to protect Camille. Then he fucked that up and called me off.

  I remind myself that kidnappers rarely take their victim with the intention of hurting them. The sole purpose is to extort money from someone.

  “Who could know what you’ve been getting up to in your spare time?” I ask, watching him closely. “Who could have taken those pictures of you and the minor?”

  “I don’t know!” he cries, waving frantic hands around his head. “I’ve looked into every possibility and come up with nothing! I can’t ask my IT department to look into the e-mails! I can’t show anyone!”

  “Show me,” I demand curtly.

  “I deleted them.”

  I fly forward, my hand on my gun. “Don’t push me, Logan.”

  He goes straight to his pocket and pulls out his keys before pointing to the wall across his office. “They’re in the safe.”

  “Get them.”

  He gets up from his chair, struggling like an old man, and walks backward, his eyes dancing between my gun and me. His hands shake as he swivels the dial, left and right, and left again, before he takes the key to the lock and struggles with it for a few moments.

  His whole body folds in on itself when he reaches inside, pulling out a blue file. Fingering it with nervous fingers, he brings it to me. I snatch it and fling it open, not treating the offending papers with the same care as Logan. I’m hit with a vivid image of his naked, hairy arse and the euphoric face of a young girl. Wincing, I go to the next sheet, not needing to see the debasing evidence that has thrown my world into anarchy. I force myself to breathe deeply before I retrieve my gun and relieve my twitching trigger finger.

  Logan remains standing, nervous and quiet at my side as I flick through, finding an e-mail dated two days ago with all the incriminating pictures and more pictures of Cami. “I tried looking into the bank details listed,” Logan murmurs, not needing to go on. I note the details. It’s a Swiss bank. He’ll get nowhere searching on basic search engines.

  I get out my phone and type the digits into a message, but before I can click send, it rings in my hand. I answer quickly. “Luce?”

  “Get online. Go to the London by Night website.”

  The name is familiar. “The magazine?” I’ve perused the glossy weekly a few times since I’ve been shadowing Cami.

  “Yes. Do it.” She sounds urgent, and I’m not about to argue.

  I reach across the desk and pull Logan’s iMac across, hitting Google and holding my phone to my ear while I type in what’s been ordered of me. “Done,” I tell her, seeing nothing but adverts and a few irrelevant shots of various celebs.

  “The search bar at the top. Type in Camille’s name.”

  I follow through on her order and hit search, immediately being presented with endless shots of Cami, the latest being me and her outside that café after her shoot. I’m holding her hand across the table.

  “The first shot. Of you and Cami,” Lucinda says.

  “What about it?”

  “Look behind you. Top left-hand corner.”

  My eyes dart up and locate exactly what Lucinda’s talking about. “Motherfucker,” I breathe. There’s a shop window behind me in the picture, and clear as day in the reflection is the image of a white van tucked away in the alley opposite. There’s an outline of a face through the windscreen. It’s blurred, but nothing the right technology can’t fix. “Run a face check.”

  “Already done. I’ve sent the picture to your phone. His name’s Michael Scott, thirty-six. Been inside for drug running, armed robbery, and…” She pauses, and I swear I hear her swallow.

  “And what, Luce?” My phone dings and I open the message, seeing a clear image of the man I’m going to hunt down and slice into pieces. I breathe in and take my phone back to my ear.

  “Jake, it’s…” Lucinda’s voice drops to nothing, and I tense from head to toe.

  “What?”

  “Rape.”

  My blood freezes in my veins, and I look across the desk at Logan, his face a sea of questions. It’s a high possibility that my heart is going to jump from my chest and land on Logan’s desk. It’s hammering that hard.

  “Jake?”

  I can’t speak. Can’t think.

  “Jake, the van was stolen last week. The plates have been changed.” She reels off the fake plate numbers. “I’ve run a check on Scott’s address. He’s supposedly in a halfway house in Bethnal Green being taken through rehabilitation.” Lucinda gives me the address and it imprints to my brain, along with the fake plate numbers of the white van. “Someone must be paying him to hold her but I can’t trace any phones to his name. Probably using a disposable. I have no more than that. I’m sorry.”

  I stand and drink in air, placing my hand on the desk to hold me up. “Bank details. Swiss.” I fumble for the file Logan handed to me and push the papers about haphazardly until I find what I’m looking for.

  Then I reel off the bank account number and fill her in on everything I’ve just learned from Logan—the girl, the photo of his hairy arse, everything; hearing Lucinda inhaling shocked breaths, seeing Logan squirm on the other side of the desk. “Look into that account.”

  “I’m on it,” she says, her voice drenched with compassion that I just can’t handle.

  I go to hang up, but she calls my name and I bring the phone back to my ear, lost in a haze of desolation. I give no indication that she has my attention. “Be careful,” she says softly, showing rare concern. “Please.”

  I hang up and slide my gun from the table slowly, slipping it into the back of my trousers.

  “What is it?” Logan asks. “Who was that?”

  I look up at him, immune to the terror and anxiety on his face. “Do you know this man?” I ask, holding up my phone to Logan.

  He looks, frowning. “No, I’ve never seen him before. Who is he?”

  “He’s the man someone hired to take your daughter. Pray she’s unharmed, Logan. Pray real hard.”

  I turn and stride out of his office, sweating murder.

  Chapter 32

  CAMI

  I play dead. It’s easy when you pretty much feel it. I’ve been moved, carried by two men, from the van to somewhere else. I know it’s two men. They were sure to keep quiet, but I felt two pairs of hands holding me. All I can think about is what Jake will do to them if he finds them. Will he find them? Can I be found?

  I don’t know where they’ve put me. It smells damp and dirty, and it’s chilly. The floor is hard and cold, and I’m being kept in my darkness¸ the blindfold pulled too tightly. The gag is dry. My mouth is dry. I couldn’t scream if I wanted to.

  They left silently after binding my hands behind my back and sitting me up against a brick wall. It’s funny. If I was ever to imagine myself in a situation like this, I’m sure I would have imagined myself crying and freaked.

  The initial ten minutes were exactly like that. The following…however long it’s been…I’ve been limp and unresponsive.

  I’m not sure why I’ve chosen this way. Preservation of energy? I don’t know. All I have to cling to is hope. Hope that if I think about him hard enough, he’ll find me.

  Chapter 33

  JAKE

  I’m a trained killer. It’s a skill that earned me a formidable reputation in the war against terror. People feared me. The unknown, unseen threat. I never broke a sweat. I never let anger possess me. For a long time I never let my personal struggles infiltrate my mission. I missed my wife. I missed watching her baby bump blossom and the first kick. I missed the scans, the parenting classes, and the birth of my child. I missed the first few months of my baby’s life. But none of those private battles affected my missions. My aim and balance were never compromised.