“Tell us again what happened,” Vincent says.
Vera has been sitting in her chair sobbing for the last two hours. I rushed home to check the place out and everyone met me here.
Me, Vincent and Georgiou are in the living room with Vera trying to go over what happened. Salvatore is in the other room on the phone. Nick and Gabe are rallying the men to search. Gibbs is doing what he can.
So far all we’ve managed to find is Lilly’s phone in a dumpster by the subway in town. And Lilly’s abandoned car about a mile away from where the phone was found.
That’s all I was able to find out. Nothing more, just a confirmation of trouble.
I’m just not sure what kind yet.
We think Rosie was taken and it’s looking the same way for Lilly.
Lilly is the kind of woman who knows where her child is twenty four-seven. She wouldn’t just go anywhere without telling anyone and all the evidence points to something sinister.
“Maybe we missed something,” Vincent adds with a nod, cutting into my thoughts.
“Vincent, I told you everything,” Vera stutters, wiping away fresh tears with the heel of her hand. “We went to the park with the playgroup and the kids were playing. Rosie couldn’t have just wondered off. There were three of us watching the kids from the group. I just don’t know … I don’t know what happened, or how.”
Vincent sighs. I can see the worry rippling off him in waves. It’s a taste of what I feel. I glance at Georgiou who hasn’t said much since he got here. That means he feels bad for me. I’m looking at him and he’s giving me another secret message. This one though was one I saw one time only.
It was just before Amelia died. We were looking for her and he knew to prepare for the worse. My brother was the only person I confided in at the time because I needed him to help me find Amelia. The look he’s giving me now is the very same, telling me to prep for the worse and be careful. He looks away and I bite the inside of my lip.
“I’m so sorry, I blame myself,” Vera states focusing on me.
I force myself to calm the fuck down. I know she feels terrible. Vera looks like she’s added another hundred years to her sixty. Guilt has consumed her but I’m still enraged. I’m pissed. There were guards who would have been with her who didn’t see shit, and she didn’t see shit either.
Fuck. I’m fucking pissed at myself. When I got in and saw the guards I’m had to restrain myself from popping a fucking bullet in someone. The three guards looked on at me in fear knowing messing up like this could only mean death. I would have doled out death too but their saving grace was that the three of them had worked for me for years, and I might need them .
“We’ll keep looking,” I say to her. My voice sounds nothing like it usually does. I’m nothing close to the controlled man I normally am.
Both Rosie and Lilly have been missing for hours now and I’m going crazy with worry. We got nothing to work with, no lead to follow and what we have leads nowhere. I don’t know what to do.
Vincent straightens up and looks at me. “Christian it’s clear they were both taken,” Vincent says. It’s harsh truth I have to accept. “Everything points to the fact that they were both taken by someone.”
Who though?
Who the fuck would do this?
The first person I thought of was Lev. That he might have done this shit by way of retaliation for killing his men and screwing with his business. It’s enough motive for sure, but Lev is small time. He was told to stay away from Lilly. He wouldn’t go against a warning from a boss like Vincent. It would mean death for him.
So who is it then?
I’m about to say something when Gibbs walks through the door. A solemn expression is on his face. A tell that he’s got something I’m not gonna like.
“What did you find?” I ask.
He pulls a picture from the inside of his jacket and hands it to me.
My damn mouth falls open and my breath seizes right up in my chest when I look at the man on the image sitting in the back of a black Sedan. I recognize him.
It’s Miguel Diaz.
Lilly’s supposedly dead husband.
He’s not dead.
Vincent takes the image from me and looks at it.
“Want to fill me in on who this fucker is?” Vincent says.
“Miguel Diaz, Cartel leader,” Gibbs answers shifting his weight from one leg to the other. “Died last year in a police shootout in Columbia leaving behind a wife and a child. Except that picture shows he’s very much alive.”
“Where did you get it Gibbs?” I rasp.
“One of my hackers scanned over the area where Lilly’s car was parked. She saw that. The Sedan looked out of place in the parking lot. We ran facial recognition and found out who he was, and who he was to Lilly,” Gibbs explains. “Obviously he took her and took the kid too.”
Fuck.
Jesus Christ. This isn’t happening. And damn it Miguel got to them both when they were open for attack. The park and parking lot.
The man isn’t dead and he took his family back.
He has them, and what do I think is gonna happen to them in his care?
Lilly told me enough. I can’t allow him to keep them.
“What now boss?” Gibbs asks Vincent.
Fuck, Vincent isn’t gonna want shit on his head with the fucking Columbian cartel. The mystery is solved. The man took his family back. it’s just me who’s going to feel like they weren’t his to take.
They were mine.
Vincent looks to me hesitant.
“I’ll get her back, don’t put anyone in danger for me. Don’t do it,” I tell him and I look at each of them. Vincent, Georgiou, Gibbs.
“Christian—" Vincent starts but I cut him off.
“He’ll kill her, or she’ll die from some shit he’ll do to her. Fuck knows what he’ll do to the baby. I can’t let my girl and my kid go through that,” I state my case and Vincent and Georgiou exchange shocked glances.
I grab my jacket and Vincent grabs me. I don’t have time for a fight of shit, but if I have to fight I will.
“Stand down, capo,” Vincent shouts. “Fuck. Did I say we wouldn’t help? When has it ever come to that?”
He loosens his grip on me and I stare back feeling my nerves scatter all over the fucking place. I’m at a loss here and I don’t know where to start looking, or where to go. I just know I have to get Lilly and back.
Vincent looks over my shoulder at Gibbs.
“Report this to the police so they can alert border control and other officials in case they try to leave the country. If he’s here though he got in somehow and how he’ll get out,” Vincent says to Gibbs.
“Got it. I’m on it now,” Gibbs replies. “I’ll get the hackers to try and track the Sedan if we can.”
“Thanks Gibbs,” Vincent answers and Gibbs leaves. Vincent fixes his attention on me. “I’ll get everyone on the case. More eyes less work, more chance of someone finding them.”
“Thank you,” I tell him meaning that because I know I can’t do this by myself. No matter what skills I personally have, it’s not going to help me now if I don’t know where Miguel took Rosie and Lilly.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Christian.”