He isn’t giving me that vibe today. He looks a little undone, like his wish to kill isn’t as strong as mine. I get he’s a killer in every sense of the word, but we have to play the game as Rimi is requesting.
Once Audrey is returned, all bets will be off.
My decision has nothing to do with money. Despite my father’s many fuck-ups, I have plenty of it. The wholesale price in the industry is ten percent of its street value. There’s money to be made if you’re willing to get your hands dirty, but that isn’t what this is about. It’s the principle. If I let Rimi play me for a fool, I’ll take it up the ass from my competitors even more than my father has the past fifty-plus years.
My family name might not be what it once was, but it will take more than a weasel of a man like Rimi Castro to have me cowering from a fight. The older generation started the war, but it’s the younger generation fighting their battles.
I don’t mind. I was born to fight, and fight I will.
I battle to keep my anger on the down-low but fail when Clover places the ransom bag onto the entryway table. It’s brimming with the bundles of cash I withdrew at multiple locations earlier this week. I know federal agents are watching every deposit and withdrawal from my account, so I kept the transactions below ten thousand to ward off suspicion.
“Where’s Audrey?” Nothing but desperation is heard in my voice. Clover follows orders. He’s paid to do precisely that, so why the fuck did he go off script today? His facial expression reveals he drew blood, his itch to kill has been satisfied. That can only mean one thing—he went against direct orders. “You were to hand over the money, get Audrey out, then we were to make our move.”
“Plans changed when they handed me this.” He tosses a USB stick onto the round table housing a vase of Audrey’s favorite flowers. India, Audrey’s neighbor/best friend, thought they’d lessen Audrey’s anxiety once she was freed from captivity. She’s been at the mercy of a rogue crew for five days. If a hundred-dollar bunch of flowers would weaken the clutch they had on her, I was open to the suggestion.
“It was supposed to tell me Audrey’s location.” Clover locks his eyes with mine. They’re deadlier than ever. “It was nothing but a snuff film. Those fuckers are playing games, so I played back.”
I’m not surprised to spot a number of dismembered fingers when he yanks open the ransom bag. Clover’s proof of deaths always arrives with some sort of body part. “I got a majority of your money back, but a few bundles fell through the cracks.”
Falling through the cracks means he used the money to find marks. It isn’t a negotiation tactic he often uses, so the fact he needed it tonight exposes how dire things are.
After finding the object he’s seeking in the bag, Clover hands it to me. He doesn’t speak any words, he doesn’t need to. I recognize the ring on the mutilated index finger in my hand. It’s the same one in the bottom right-hand corner of the photo couriered to my office last week. That’s how we unearthed Audrey’s kidnappers’ identity. All Castro ‘family’ members wear the same trademark.
“Was there any indication Audrey was there?” I know Clover didn’t find her. If he had, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Clover would be holed up with some hookers and the best cocaine money can’t buy, celebrating his victory, and I’d be at the hospital with my wife, having her and our daughter checked over.
My jaw works through a hard grind when Clover shakes his head. “She had been there, though. The room the ransom photo was taken in was at the back of the compound, and I got DNA proof by the bucketloads.”
“What type of DNA?” I’m shocked I can talk. I’m so fucking angry, I am five seconds from blowing my top. If Clover’s switch-up of the rules has fucked me over, he will be fucked over. No fear.
“Blood,” Clover answers nonchalantly like his life isn’t in danger. “Lots of it.”
My blood boils over when he digs his cell phone out of his pocket to show me the photographs he took at the scene. Bodies litter almost every inch of the floor space, but my focus is on one thing and one thing only—the dingy, dirty mattress they had Audrey sit on when they snapped her picture for the ransom request.
Although she’s missing from Clover’s images, I can still see her ashen face and cracked lips with precise clearness. She has always been the quiet one. Softly spoken and happy for everyone else to steal the attention.
The last image I have of her isn’t close to any of those things. It’s one of pure fret. Like she didn’t believe I could get her out of this in one piece.
If the horrifying thoughts bombarding me now are anything to go by, she had reason to fret. The mattress is covered in blood. It isn’t formed how you’d expect from someone being fatally wounded by a knife or gun. There’s an outline of a body—a slim, you-wouldn’t-know-she’s-eight-months-along-if-you-were-looking-at-her-from-behind outline.
I snap my eyes shut, hopeful it will suffocate my wish to kill Clover when he announces, “Preacher did a quick swab of the mattress. Amniotic fluid was present.”
Confident I’m hearing him wrong, I shake my head before reopening my eyes. “She isn’t due for another four weeks. It’s too early—”
“Scalpel was also found…” He scrubs at his jaw before he pushes out, “And fetal matter.”
“Fetal matter? What the fuck do you mean fetal matter?” As my eyes bounce between his, horrifying notion after horrifying notion smack into me. “My daughter…” The rest of my question lodges in my throat when despair darts through Clover’s eyes. He doesn’t show emotion, not ever, but there’s no denying the sympathy in his eyes now.
Those fuckers didn’t just kidnap my wife.
They’ve taken my daughter.
Before he knows what’s hit him, I pin Clover to the entryway door of my suite, then press my gun against his temple. He’s almost three inches taller than me and nearly double my width, but that doesn’t mean shit since my fury is fueled by blackened hate.
“You killed her. You fucking killed her!” The spit off my roar sizzles on his cheeks. “If you had followed the plan, they would have let Audrey go, and my daughter would be safe.”
Some of my anger turns to vengeance when Clover shakes his head. “The fluid was almost dry to touch. This shit ain’t on me. Rimi has you played.”
The confidence in his tone should lower my agitation.
It doesn’t.
I’m seconds from ending his life as he had tried to do mine years earlier.
Arabian oil tycoons weren’t happy when they didn’t get what they paid for from my father. I’ve been making it up to them ever since.
Don’t feel sorry for me. They’re the reason all my bank accounts are in the eight-figure range. Whores, crack, guns, and unlimited entertainment are readily available in Bahrain, but you don’t enjoy it as much with your family breathing down your neck.
Rich dignitaries from the twenty-two Arab nations are invited into my home to discuss oil exchanges, money laundering, and weaponry distribution all ‘families’ are associated with. The above-mentioned is the icing on the cake, and the only reason I’m not fish food.