An Unknown Place (18 page)

“Something on your mind, Logan?”

Logan had always been so even keeled, I had never seen a temper come out of him before, and now he looked like a bull, and I was the red cape.

“You can’t tell me who to be with. Bren and I have, we’ve – I don’t know what we are, but I won’t let you stand in my way.”

When I had chewed him and Bren out earlier, I had expected him to do something. Protect Bren, tell me to shut up,
something
but he stood there the whole time with his head down and his hands fisted. Then the cherry on top? He just walked out. Bren hadn’t deserved that.

“Are you going to treat her right?”

“Wh-what?”

Logan had stopped pacing and was standing in front of my desk, completely caught off guard.

“If you break her heart, I will fire you, then kill you. Are we clear?”

“I won’t hurt her. I’m more afraid for myself.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“So, I have your blessing?”

“I’m going to pretend it isn’t happening. We didn’t just have this conversation.”

Logan left without another word. I was getting soft.

I sat in my office until I looked at my watch and saw it was into the afternoon, close to three. I grabbed the keys to my car and my wallet out of the top drawer of my desk. I had given Mac enough time alone. My phone vibrated in my pocket. When I looked at the screen, I saw it was Ethan. I slid my finger across the screen.

“Listen, I’m still mad –”

“Cintas knows she’s here.”

“How?”

I felt my blood boiling and my steps speeding up.

“I don’t know. One of his buddies said he was drunk last night talking about his old girlfriend being in town and causing trouble. Said her name was Truck.”

Mac. Mac Truck. I hung up my phone and immediately pulled up my Dad’s number. There happened to be a pay phone on the corner of the street next to the brewery. I pulled fifty cents out of my pocket and dialed my dad.

“Son.”

“He knows she’s here,” I knew enough to not say too much on a phone. The Feds had our lines tapped for years. I never had to worry about it until right then.

“I heard.”

I didn’t want to push my father, but I was feeling reckless and worried.

“Is she going to be okay?”

“Of course she is, son.”

I didn’t know what his promise entailed, I just knew it was the promise of a father to a son, but even more than that, it was the promise of a man who had built an empire on his word.

“Thanks Pop.”

“Anything for you son. Always. I’ll be there in less than three hours.”

I heard the click on the other line and the dial tone. For the first time since I’d been a kid, I felt relief that my father was going to be there helping me. I shoved my phone in my pocket.

Instead of getting in my car to go home, I ran down the street. I needed to see Mac and make sure she was okay.

I took off at a dead run and shoved my keys in the front door of my house. The house was silent but I could hear birds chirping outside. As though a window was open. When I got into the kitchen, I saw my backdoor had been kicked in. The glass from my storm door was all over the kitchen floor. I went down to the garage. The garage door was shut, my car gone. Panic gripped me harder than I had ever felt it. I pulled my phone out of my pocket, my hands shaking so hard I could barely hold on to it.

I hit the button for Ethan’s speed dial, feeling lightheaded. If Cintas had her, he would probably kill her and it would be my fault. I heard the ring of the phone, and before Ethan could say anything I started talking.

“My house has been broken into. Car gone.”

“Anything missing?”

I knew he was asking if Mac was there. I dropped the phone and ran around the house yelling her name. Her things were still there, but no sign of her. I picked the phone up off the floor, feeling robotic.

“She’s gone.”

I fell to my knees. I hung up on Ethan and pulled up my father’s number. He answered on the first ring.

“Where is she?!” I was roaring and didn’t care to try and stop myself. I heard space stretch between us.

“I have my man picking up information. I’ll be there soon. Sit tight.”

The line clicked and I knew my father would be there as soon as he could. I didn’t know what he’d meant by having one of his men pick up information, but I hoped he was picking up guns. Either way, I owed my father. I would make amends with my family for being gone all of this time, as long as Mac made it through this. My chest clenched. If she didn’t make it, I wouldn’t either.

Mac

Bren and I had a great time together. We had been in Victoria’s Secret for an exorbitant amount of time and money, first buying things for me and then her. I hadn’t done something that frivolous since I’d lived with my carrier and sperm donor aka my biological mother and father. I’d never had the money to do those things once I’d left home. It was nice.

So by the time we got to lunch it was a quarter to two. I’d been waiting for my phone to ring, figuring Kellan would’ve gotten done with his errands and gone home at some point. I regretted not writing him a note telling him where I was going or shooting him a text to ask if I could use the car. But I hadn’t wanted to ruin the surprise, so I hadn’t.

I just wanted to show him how much he meant to me. When I didn’t hear from him by 2:30, I was worried. Bren had a few too many drinks by the time we were done with our meals at three, so I texted Logan to come and pick her up. He responded he’d been trying to get a hold of her for hours and said he’d be there in a few minutes.

He wasn’t lying. I could tell when Logan had walked in by the look on Bren’s face, it was dreamy and hungry. He strolled to the table looking like sin on toast. He had his longish blonde hair pulled back into a low pony tail, was wearing a white button down shirt and dark jeans. He looked good.

“Mac, good to see you.”

Logan had said it to me but never moved his eyes off Bren. The way he felt about her was plainly written on his face. I hoped they made it.

“Well, I’ve got to get going.”

I grabbed the three giant Victoria’s Secret bags and my purse. I was at the front door when I turned to look back at them. Logan had taken my seat and Bren’s face was red. She wasn’t yelling or crying so I didn’t feel I needed to go back and break it up.

I turned to leave the restaurant and ran into a wall of a person, dropping my purse.

I leaned down to pick it up and the man’s hand met mine, grabbing my wrist. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and my head started screaming at me to run. I looked up and found the black dead eyes of Richard Cintas looking at me.

“Don’t scream. Stand up and we are going to mosey out of here like we’re long lost friends. Which we are, aren’t we
Mac
?” He was whispering for my ears only. I nodded my head in agreement, in terror. I picked up my purse, keeping Kellan’s keys in my hand.

Something in his eyes was telling me I wouldn’t like where this little meeting was going. I was close to throwing up. I could feel my lunch at the back of my throat, or maybe it was my heart. I couldn’t be sure. I grabbed my purse, bags still around my arm, and walked with him next to me, holding my elbow.

I was hoping someone in the mall would say something to him with the way we were walking. Who held someone’s elbow, guiding them around the mall? Not two adults. But no one said, saw or made any comments to us.

“I looked for you after you left. The pair that own that shit bar filed a report with me. I never filed it but figured I didn’t have anything to worry about since you’d disappeared without another word. I appreciated that.”

We had reached the entry doors. When we walked out into the lot, I hoped Richard had parked close enough to where I’d parked Kellan’s car so the alarm would go off. I just kept pressing the red panic button the key fob as we walked. I finally heard the blare of the alarm.

I knew that no one would figure something was up until later, people set their alarms off on accident all the time, but maybe someone would see him on the security cameras and figure out what had happened to me…eventually.

Richard searched the parking lot, he spun me around, saw the keys in my hand and smacked them to the ground.

“You fucking whore. No one will care what happened to you, not even Kellan Freemont.” He pulled a black handgun out from the back of his pants. “You seem to love danger.”All I could see was the gun as it came up under my chin. “I went and saw Kellan’s house, nice place. Luckily I found your computer open to Victoria’s Secret here at the mall. I just followed you until I had a chance to say hello.”

He pushed the gun deeper into my skin.

“You pull anything else, and I’ll just put a bullet in your brain,” He promised.

Images of what he had planned, since it obviously wasn’t a bullet in the brain, surged through my mind making me panic. I considered screaming and letting the cards fall where they may, but I wasn’t ready to give up yet. I was going to fight to the end. So I just kept my mouth shut and moved as he pulled me forward via the gun under my chin.

“You will now walk to that white car right over there.”

He pulled the gun away from my face and motioned over to a white Tesla. It looked like the same one I had seen pull away from Freemont’s, Kellan’s ex-girlfriend-drugger behind the wheel aka Denise. What were the chances?

I walked to the trunk area of the car and stopped, looking over my shoulder at Richard and the gun he had pointed at me. I searched around us and there was no one around, or maybe they’d seen the gun and were hiding.

“You don’t happen to know Denise, do you?”

Of course this would be the first thing I’d said to him since he’d kidnapped me. His face turned an alarming shade of red. I wondered if he was going to have a heart attack. One could only hope. It was the last thought I had before the gun came down, knocking me out.

Kellan

My phone buzzed. It was Ethan. I slid my finger and put it on speaker. There was a knock at the door. I swung the door open and my father was standing there. He followed me into the house, shutting the door behind him.

“Call came in. Man with a gun in the parking lot matching Cintas’ description. He was at the mall. I’m headed over there now.”

“Time frame?”

“Happened about twenty minutes ago.”

Twenty minutes? What had the shit for brains mall cops been doing that it took twenty minutes to call it in?

“Keep me posted.” I hung up and turned to my father. “What’d you got?”

“Gin has a good lead. He’s only a few minutes behind me.”

“What kind of lead?”

“We don’t talk about things like that over the phone, you know that.”

I paced my floor. I wasn’t incapable of sitting still, trying to stomp the terror out of my body. I had never been this scared in my life. I had been afraid for my brother and his health when I’d found out he had Chrons – but this was different.

I knew Cintas wouldn’t have abducted her at gunpoint for a friendly chat. This was life or death, hers and mine. I hadn’t realized what my life was missing until Mac had waltzed in and changed everything. I guess waltzed was a bit nice, we both stumbled and bumbled our way but we’d done it together. There was no place on earth I would be able to escape the pain or loss if Mac didn’t live.

I was head over heels, shot through the heart, wanted to walk to the end of the road with, my heart and soul would forever be hers, in love with Mackayla Montgomery. If she hadn’t been kidnapped by Officer Dick Cintas it would’ve taken me much longer to realize. I felt tears prick the backs of my eyes. I was about to breakdown and that was always the time in which I embraced my anger best.

“Where the fuck is Gin?”

“Take a breath son. You won’t do Mackayla any good acting like a lunatic.”

I knew he was right, but I wanted to pick a fight and I didn’t want to think about what Cintas might be doing to Mac.

I faced my dad and pulled up to my full height. He saw it coming from a mile away. Carmine Freemont hadn’t made it as far as he had without seeing the signs of flying fists, and probably guns for that matter. My fist flew at his head and he leaned back just in time, my fist glancing off his shoulder. He grabbed my wrist and locked my elbow. It was sheer pain. Enough to make me realize I was acting like an idiot.

“And there’s the boy that left all those years ago,” My dad had said it so quietly I had almost missed it.

“You’re a mobster! I had to leave to make it.”

My dad threw me on the couch and sat down in my recliner.

“It’s all I knew growing up! I never involved you kids. I don’t want my boys to live the life I have!”

“What about Tonio? My baby brother’s involved!”

“You’ll have to talk to him about that.” My dad took a breath and sat back, he looked beaten down. It was the first time I’d realized the kind of toll his lifestyle had taken on him. “I tried my best to get him to go away to college, but he insisted on staying. I don’t think he wanted to leave your Ma. But I’ve done my best to protect him and your Ma…even you.”

This was one of the most honest conversations I’d had with my father. It felt good.

“I’m sorry. I’m just worried –”

“Nothing to apologize to me for.”

I rubbed my elbow.

“You’re going to have to teach me that ninja move.”

My dad nodded.

“It’s saved my life more than once.”

My front door opened and I shot to my feet. Gin threw the door shut behind him and went straight to my dad’s side.

Gin was my dad’s guy and probably saved his life more than once, for the first time I realized that not everything in life is black and white. I was so far into the grey with Mac I wondered if we’d know white when we found it.

“You’re girl was taken by Richard Cintas,” Gin looked down to his wrist at the diamond studded Rolex there, “twenty seven and a half minutes ago. They were going north on I-95.” Gin looked shiftily to my dad and then back to me. “Toward the water.”

“Let’s go.”

I was halfway to the front door when I felt a hand on my elbow, again. I turned and saw my father’s concerned face.

“We can’t go off half-cocked, kiddo. We need to do some research and find out where he might be taking her.”

I didn’t want to agree with him, but he was right, if I didn’t slow down I might get us all killed.

“What do you need me to do?”

“I never thought I’d say this…” I raised my eyebrows. It wasn’t often I saw my father speechless. “Call Officer Bean.”

“Boss!” Gin protested.

All it took was a look from Carmine Freemont to silence Gin. Gin pulled out his phone, tapped it a couple of times, and then simply said “talk to me”. I could hear the person on the other line start talking in a low murmur.

“Go on son. Call him. Don’t tell him I’m here, but we need his help. We’re looking for buildings on the bay related to this asshole.”

I pulled out my phone and dialed Ethan.

“What’s wrong?” Ethan was upset, I was upset, everyone was feeling the strain of the situation.

“I need you to do some research for me.”

“Shoot.”

I hoped I wouldn’t have to, but if it came down to it, I would kill for Mackayla.

“I need you to research anyone or anything that might have a connection to Richard Cintas and buildings in the bay.”

“What kinds of buildings?”

“Any standing structure close to I-95 and the water. Start with the bay area.”

Gin tapped me on the shoulder.

“Hold on a second.” I turned my head to Gin covering my phone at the same time.

“Cintas has friends in the shipping business. A lot of noises, a lot of warehouses,” Gin whispered. I uncovered my phone and pressed it to my ear.

“Scratch that, any link to shipping companies on the bay.”