Dear God, I was going to die in this warehouse. Chaz Malone was as close to mafia as we got out here in the Glass City. We weren’t a big enough metropolis to have syndicates or anything, but we were right on the banks of Lake Erie, one of the five great lakes of the US of A. A lot of stuff came in and out of our harbor, and brought some nefarious shit around. One common denominator through all of that, though, was Chaz Malone. I only knew the name, not what he looked like. I had always pictured him as a tubby crime boss with a receding hairline and a mustache. This younger than middle-aged man in front of me with the expressionless eyes was somehow more terrifying.
“He was hurting her.” To be fair, Melody and her boyfriend, who I assume was working for Chaz, were having one hell of an argument in the alley, and it seemed like there was some equal opportunity slapping around going on, but still. I knew Melody from work. I didn’t know her know her, but she had always been nice to me. The only thing I knew about her boyfriend was his name. And that he had it out for me after I knocked him on his ass when he was going to take a swing at Melody. It wasn’t like I could act like I didn’t see them. I had just got done playing a gig. I would have to walk right through them and their bitch session to get to my car, carrying my equipment all the way.
“Ah, yes, a domestic altercation.” Chaz nodded thoughtfully. “See, here’s the thing, Angel, I don’t do domestic. It’s bad for business. You getting involved in domestic, is bad for my business. What exactly did you think was going on in that alley?”
It was a deceptively easy conversation, and I found myself forgetting to be on guard as I told my side of the story. No one had asked for what I saw, only assumed that I knew things that I didn’t know. The only reason that I knew there was money involved was that Melody’s boyfriend Ron screamed it at me as he chased after her. “Great job, you bitch!” he’d yelled as she’d gotten into her car and taken off at a breakneck pace. “She’s got all the money. Fuck. I’m a dead man. Fuck you, bitch, this is your fault.” I didn’t even know Melody was missing until she stopped showing up to work her shift at Nasta’s. Jesse had called me to see if I had heard from her. Apparently she no call no showed too many days in a row and got fired.
I guess if I skipped town with a bunch of cash I wouldn’t bother to call off work either, especially if I wasn’t planning on coming back. She must not have cared too much for her boyfriend, though, because she peeled out of that parking lot and left his ass in a cloud of dust. I told Chaz the whole story, thinking surely he would see the folly. I couldn’t have had anything to do with his missing money. I wasn’t even involved.
“All I did was break up a couple fighting in an alley. Anyone would have done the same,” I said as I finished my story. Chaz had been listening attentively, never interrupting me once. He waited until I was completely done talking before he spoke again.
“Maybe someone else might have, Angel, but that isn’t the case. You did, and the money that my associate was supposed to bring back to me is now gone. I want my money.”
“Then why don’t you ask Ron where she might have gone?” That seemed the obvious answer, and the question earned me another jab in the ribs from sexy lips on my left.
“You are a mouthy one, aren’t you?” Chaz asked with a grin. It wasn’t a nice grin, not friendly at all. It was an oily smile, a smile that said he was thinking bad things and couldn’t wait to tell me about them. “The truth is that Ron really is the one responsible for the loss of the money, but unfortunately, he is also missing now. He came back to tell me that she had taken the money and that it was your fault, and then he was gone. I never took him to be a flight risk, but I am assuming he skipped town to either A – be with his girlfriend or B – to avoid punishment. Regardless, he is not here. Do you even know what they were arguing about?”
I had no freaking clue. I just knew that there were swinging arms, and Ron was pulling on Melody, trying to drag a bag off her shoulder.
“Melody was trying to steal my money. Money from a deal Ron had carried out, and that was supposed to be brought directly to me. Instead, you interrupted that and enabled her to get away—with my five hundred thousand dollars.”
Holy fucking shit that was a lot of money.
“What the hell kind of business deal goes down that requires a bag full of that kind of cash?” I couldn’t take the question back. I wish I had never asked it. “Please don’t tell me,” I mumbled to myself and squeezed my eyes shut.
“Look at me, Angel,” he demanded, and gone was the quiet and icy demeanor. Now there was a fire-breathing dragon behind the desk. The careful mask of calm he had been wearing was cracking and the flames of his anger were heating up the air. I felt sweat start beading up on the back of my neck and trickling down my spine. Something bad was going to happen to me, I knew it.
“I am out an employee and my money, and there is no one here to take the blame but you,” he thundered, smashing his hand down on the desk in his first physical expression of anger. No one else in the room moved and I had nowhere to go, sandwiched between the two men on the sofa as I was.
“Now, I could just kill you as punishment because I am so very fucking angry,” Chaz continued, more calmly, now that he had let off some steam. “But that won’t get my money back. I could send out some men to track down Ron and Melody, and I am sure they could be found, but that could take days, and that means expending more resources for that payoff.” Chaz got up from the desk and walked in front of it, slowly making his way to stand in front of me. I pushed as far back into the cushions as I could go, but there was no escape. He reached up with one hand and grasped my chin, turning my head from side to side and gauging me like he was judging horseflesh.
“I don’t know why I should exert all that extra effort, when you are right here, Angel. I can get that money from you.” I didn’t know what he was talking about. I did okay for myself, but there was no way I could come up with that kind of cash.
“I don’t have that kind of money,” I whispered through lips as dry as a dessert. He still had a hold of my chin and I had no choice but to look him in the eye even though my entire body was screaming for me to look anywhere else but at him.
“Oh, I know you don’t.” He laughed like I had made a joke. “But your buyer will. I can make my money back in a minute with you. Did you know there is a whole fetish for your body type? Those curves will make my money back in no time.”
“Please don’t give me to that walking dead man in the hallway.” I didn’t care that I was begging, I couldn’t handle it if he put his foul hands on me again. I couldn’t.
“Bernard? He can’t afford you. Oh Angel, you are so funny. I wasn’t kidding when I said I want my money back. You will go to the highest bidder. There’s a market for your kind.”
Bile welled up in my throat and my stomach lurched at his words. He finally let go of my chin and stepped away. “Sell me to whom? For what? What would they do with me?” Panic was setting in and my words came out fast and high-pitched. Chaz didn’t even turn around.
“It isn’t my business what they do with you after I have my money. Transaction complete. Maybe they do snuff porn, sex torture, maybe you will be resold several times over. I don’t know and I don’t care.” Chaz pulled his phone out of his pocket and started walking towards the door. “Come with me, D, I have other things I want to discuss. Eddie, Gordon, tie her back up. Leave her here until I figure out where I want her moved to.”
I was frozen in fear, even as the redhead, who I assumed was Eddie, held my hands in front of me this time and wound more duct tape around my wrists. I didn’t fight him, I was too afraid. Then he got my ankles, but at least I was still sitting on the couch and not scrunched across laps in the backseat of the car, so thank goodness for small miracles. It wasn’t until the bag was placed over my head, and I heard D talking to Chaz as they walked out the door that I found my voice.
“I think I might know a buyer,” D said in that smooth and unaffected voice of his as the do
or was shut behind them.
Then the bag was placed over my head again and the lights were turned out. I heard the door shut again as Eddie and Gordon left the room and a lock clicked. That’s when I screamed. And screamed and screamed. There was no answer. I was truly alone.
6
Gabe
Anger flooded through me as I looked down at my phone. Dino had finally responded with some news, two hours after Jeanette and I started pinging his phones, and it was not good. Angel had inadvertently gotten mixed up with Chaz Malone, a real live bad guy. Chaz Malone was a sociopath, and he prided himself on being a good businessman. The problem was, Chaz’s “business” depended on his mood at the time. He made his money any way that seemed profitable, and a lot of that was on the fringes of what was legal. Hell, I don’t think the laws of man held much appeal to Chaz, mostly because he did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, to whomever he wanted.
The words private auction zipped across my phone screen, twisting my guts and making my blood run cold. That bastard was going to sell Angel. I had gotten a lot of information from Dino in the last twenty minutes, and it scared the shit out of me. Not because it was something I couldn’t handle. I could. But because it was happening to Angel, and what could happen to her if I wasn’t around or didn’t get my ass in gear in enough time. She wasn’t even in the state anymore, and I had a few different stops to make before I could even go get her. I didn’t have time to change my clothes, but that was ok, my suit would work just fine. It was a business suit, and if there was anything Chaz would show respect to in this world, it was another businessman.
I blasted out of my office, still looking down at my phone to find Jeannette in the corner behind her desk. She was crouched on the ground in front of the safe, and I only knew that because I could see the top of her hair from behind the desk as she punched in the code and used the fingerprint scan to open the door. The familiar beep of recognition sounded before the click of the safe lock unlatching. She was already pulling money out in stacks before I could even cross the room.
“Jeannette.” It was all I could get out before she interrupted me. She was in those text messages too. She knew what I needed to do.
“There isn’t enough in here. There’s only three hundred thousand in the office safe. Banks are closed, and I don’t know where you can get that kind of cash on short notice. I doubt Chaz Malone takes credit cards or trades in gold bars.” She was all business but her hands were shaking a little bit. She was a good girl, Jeanette, and a damn good assistant. I was lucky to have her and thought maybe I would tell her so with a raise, later, after I rescued Angel from being shanghaied.
“Jeannette, my dad was a master of money. Now, investing isn’t really my thing as far as a profession goes, but I know a thing or two about handling cash. One thing Dad taught me was, never have all your cash in one place. This isn’t all of it, I just need to make a couple of stops is all.” I just need to hurry, I thought to myself. It would be over an hour drive just to get to her.
“She’s important to you, right?” Jeannette asked, worry etched on her young face. “You wouldn’t be doing this for anyone else you didn’t think of as family, would you? Normally you would just call the police, right?”
The police? Not in this situation. I call the police and they would show up to an empty warehouse. Empty except for her dead body lying in one of the rooms, a statement that you don’t fuck with Chaz Malone, or what he considers the most important thing in the world, his money. No, I wouldn’t take that chance with Angel. Not her. She was once extremely precious to me, and I was realizing, seeing her again after so long, that some of those feelings hadn’t disappeared. I would save her the fastest way possible, and if that way required money, well bully for me because I had a lot of it. Fuck that paper, he could have it, give me Angel back.
“Yeah, Jeannette, she’s pretty fucking important. Do me a favor, keep in contact with Dino, I have to go.”
“Go save the princess, Boss,” Jeannette yelled after me as I left the office and took the stairs down to the first floor two at a time. I didn’t answer her, talking would have only slowed me down.
I maxed out the ATM withdrawal at four different banks where I had accounts, then I went home and cleared my personal safe of all cash. I still had tons of money tied up, but none that could be liquidated quickly. Jeannette had joked about gold bars, but I had a stash of that, too. Precious stones and metals all accumulated value at a different rate, it was best to have a cache of all of them. The money I had, the time, I didn’t. I didn’t know how long it would be before they moved Angel from the location Dino had given me, and I had to hurry. I hit the highway and punched the button that would auto dial Dino. I was not surprised when he didn’t answer.
Shit piss hell damn. I hated texting while I was driving, and I would be slowed down if a cop pulled me over for doing it, but desperate times. With my eyes glued to the road, I pressed the keys and hoped I made sense.
Let him know there is a buyer. I’m coming now.
I made it in forty-five minutes, and thank fuck there were no cops around as I got off the interstate at the Detroit exit and made my way into the warehouse district. The whole city was like a warehouse district, actually, crumbling and dark. Fucking haunted houses everywhere with rotten porches and boarded up windows. I finally made my way down into a clean and well-lit section. The navigation beeped and let me know, “destination is on your right,” and I pulled my car through the open gates and parked by a door, directly under a spotlight. No sense in acting out a scene from a horror movie—no parking in the shadows for me, thank you very much.
I was met at my car door by a guy with salt and pepper hair and a green sweater, and I recognized him as one of the guys who had grabbed Angel. Definitely not someone I would expect out in this neighborhood, and certainly not someone I would be expecting to make a hostage exchange. I did notice the gun in his hand, though, and I guess it doesn’t matter what someone is wearing or what they look like when they can kill you with a trigger squeeze.
“You got here relatively quickly, considering you came from Toledo,” the older man said, his voice pleasant and mild. I didn’t like it. He was confusing. Bad guys should look like bad guys. This guy looked like the person ringing the donation bell outside the grocery store at Christmas. He didn’t match the profile of a hired gun—but he was one all the same.
“I thought it was important to hurry,” I replied. I didn’t really want to exchange small talk with this man. I wanted to give my money to Chaz Malone and get the hell out of there, either by walking out with Angel, or carrying her over my shoulder. I hoped she was fine to walk out of there. I would burn the place to the ground if she wasn’t.
“The girl is unharmed,” the older man said, reading my mind. “I trust you have the money?”
“I would rather give the money to Chaz myself,” I said. “Didn’t this whole situation come about because someone had his money and wasn’t supposed to?” I wasn’t trying to be funny, but the older man laughed anyway, loud and long.
“Touché, young man. And a smart move, too. Chaz is waiting inside. Your girl has been kept isolated in a room. One of the men got a little squirrely, and we thought it best to keep them separated.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, and I wanted to ask what squirrely meant in this instance, but he was already opening the door and walking inside the building, and I had no choice but to follow him. I had my own gun and several other forms of aggressive protection on my person, but it wouldn’t be smart to show my hand. With any luck, this would be a simple business transaction and I could get the hell out of there without having to break any faces. I mean, I would break faces, I was just really hoping I wouldn’t have to. I didn’t want to do anything that would encourage police involvement. Well, besides rescuing a hostage and paying off a crime lord. That was just unavoidable.
I don’t know what I expected. I had infiltrated other “hideouts” in my line of work and
they were all different. I didn’t expect this one to be so...normal. It was legitimately a warehouse, with concrete floors and floor to ceiling shelving filled with boxes all stacked neatly in rows. We walked through several open rooms that looked identical to each other until we came to a small carpeted hallway that led to offices. Four men were standing at the entrance to the hallway, three standing and one sitting in a chair bent over, arms folded across his stomach. He looked rough. Actually, he looked beyond rough. I remembered him as guy number two that had thrown Angel in the back of the car with the old man. He looked like he had just gotten his ass kicked, sitting in the chair like it was the only thing holding him up and keeping him from face-planting on the floor. The second man was Dino, who was staring at me with a blank expression showing zero recognition. The other two I had never seen before, but the red head wore his pistol holster on the outside of his clothes, he was definitely protection. The fourth guy had to be Chaz Malone.
“Is this the guy, D?” the man I assumed was Chaz Malone asked Dino.
“I’ve never met him, Boss,” Dino said flatly. “I just know a guy who knows a guy that said he knew someone who was into some hard stuff that involved chubby chicks with big tits. I assume if he’s got the money in that fancy briefcase, though, then he’s the guy.”
Oh, I knew he was playing a part, but fuck me if his words didn’t ignite a fire of rage in my belly. I didn’t know what the hell he was doing being a hired goon for a crook like Malone, but I imagined he had his reasons, and I should just be grateful to have an in at the moment. Hearing someone say that shit about Angel, though, pissed me right off. Angel wasn’t chubby, she was beautiful, and it was petty to think it, but those were fighting words to me. I narrowed my eyes and glared hard at Dino, silently letting him know what I thought of what he had just said. His face remained impassive.
“I’m the guy, all right, and there is definitely money in this briefcase. How much of it I give you depends on what condition the merchandise is in.”
Gabe (Glass City Hearts Book 1) Page 4
