“Your threats mean nothing to me. It falls on deaf ears. Water on a ducks back. Anyhow, like I said, this is a courtesy call. Something in the way of wrapping things up.”
“Bastard…” I could have breathed fire. I squeezed the phone so hard I thought I might possibly break it. I couldn’t believe the treachery.
Fuck, what an asshole. He was working both sides all along and none of us could see it. Even Jack had known him from way back when.
“Yes, I am exactly that Xander. I’m a fucking bastard. Anyway, much as I’d love to chat, I have to go. This is really goodbye. My advice to you is to let sleeping dogs lie. You weren’t supposed to get involved. Maybe you should back away now.”
“Back away, are you kidding me?”
“Goodbye old friend.” He hung up.
Just like that, he hung up.
He fucking hung up and there was no damn number to call or trace. That was it, a bid of farewell to tell me shit about giving up.
I looked to Jack again but then I spotted a black Sedan approaching the driveway.
Jack ran inside and grabbed two guns. One for him, one for me.
Whoever this motherfucker was, they certainly had a death wish.
They seriously thought they could park up on the drive and come for us again?
No fucking way.
Jack and I walked down the steps guns ready to fire.
The Sedan stopped and I pulled the trigger back.
Who I saw step out of the car shocked me to shit.
Giovanni.
He’d driven.
He was driving the car and there was no one else with him. He looked like hell. Like he’d been on a bender.
He reached into the car and from the passenger seat he pulled out the all too familiar to me tube that contained the blueprints.
The fucking blueprints.
The thing this whole saga was about.
He held them up in the air, pulled his gun from his back pocket and tossed it on the ground.
The man shocked me further by walking up to us and holding out the prints for me to take.
The last time I was this close to him he’d been torturing me. He’d dropped a queen of hearts playing card on the floor before me and told me it was Jia.
Yes, he was right. She was the queen of both our hearts.
Now he was staring me down, and looked me deep in the eye.
“They have my little girl.” He spoke and his eyes clouded. “They want the prints in exchange for her, but I know how this works. I won’t get her back alive. I need you to help me get her back because you’re the only person in this world who loves her as much as me.”
A tear ran down his cheek and the Vegas king pulled the queen of hearts from his jacket pocket and held it before me.
I lowered my gun.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Jia
My head…
Why the hell did it feel like it was going to explode?
Fall off, and explode.
I had the distinct memory of being back at college at that frat party. Maybe I was still there.
Billy Taylor put something in my drink. I was sure of it. We were playing poker at the frat house and he’d been trying to get me to go out with him for weeks, but I was more interested in Jake Harvey, the Sigma Kappa vice president. I’d had my eye on him for weeks, but he didn’t know that.
He also didn’t know that I was only at that party to check him out.
My plan backfired though when I’d started feeling sick and the room started spinning. Billy took me to his room and started taking my clothes off. Then Jake came and stopped him.
I remembered it, and remembered it happen. I also remembered that I ended up in hospital because whatever the fuck he’d given me made me so sick I was down for weeks.
When I got back to college I was told he’d just disappeared. No one had seen or heard of him again.
That was the workings of Pa…
My eyes fluttered open and the bright light pierced into them like the bright rays of the sun, far too bright and it wasn’t sunlight.
Where was I?
Where the hell was I?
This wasn’t college. That already happened, and Pa had told me I wouldn’t have to worry about Billy anymore.
No one ever saw or heard from him again. The thought twisted my insides because I didn’t know what happened to him. Was he dead or alive? Pa never told me. He wouldn’t.
It tore at my insides for years.
It tore at me even as I thought about it now.
Pa did something to him.
It wasn’t, however, something I could worry about now or any other time, that was eight years ago. And I was here, wherever this place was and the memories of what had happened to me were starting to filter into my mind.
Balthazar Kane had captured me. I’d tried to save myself. I remembered all the horrible things he said to me and tried to save myself, then someone grabbed me from behind and covered my mouth with a cloth that contained something strong and pungent. Some kind of knock out solution like chloroform.
It felt like I’d been out cold for days.
I squinted against the light and pried my eyes open again. I lifted my head and looked around me at the four white walls that greeted me. The place looked like one of those cells you’d see in a psychiatric hospital minus the bed. Instead of the bed was the chair I was sitting on, with my hands tied to my back.
That was as much as I knew.
The door creaked and the round handle turned.
I shuffled up straight so I could see who was coming in and tried not to look so helpless.
The sight of the man who came in made me gasp.
That was… his name was Ethan. He wore a black patch over his eye. I remembered him from the warehouse back in Vegas where I’d seen Xander. That was when I first found out who Xander was. This man was talking to him, giving him orders. He’d told him he might have to kill me.
What was going on?
I thought the Ra guys had taken me. Balthazar…
So why was he here?
“You look like you know me.” He observed, looking me over.
“I don’t know you. We’ve never met. Let me go now!” I demanded.
He laughed. He looked at me and laughed like I’d actually said something funny.
“That’s not how this works, Miss Marchesi. You see, my people need you. Your father has something we need and you’re the way we’ll be getting it.”
I saw it now.
I understood.
He wasn’t who people thought he was. So many players in this game wearing masks. He’d double crossed Xander. I was sure of it.
“You’re part of the Ra and part of the team Xander works for. Didn’t think you could do both.”
He smiled. “Thought you didn’t know me. I wonder when it was you found out about a mission that should have been secret. He told you, didn’t he?”
“He didn’t tell me anything. I saw for myself and kept the secret. How could you do this? Those prints are for nukes. The Ra are terrorists.”
“You say that like you think I’m under some kind of spell. As one of the Ra leaders I’m very aware of what they represent.”
My mouth fell open. He was one of The Ra leaders. Jesus. We were all doomed from the beginning.
He laughed when he saw my reaction, moved closer and resumed his speech. “Terrorist is such a strong word, watch how you use it. Put simply, we go where the money is. We enable. We make the unimaginable possible and force leaders to bend to our will. It’s not always by the gun that you get people to listen to you. Science. That is power.” He tapped the side of his head. “Science and knowledge are formidable when combined. You have the key, you can open the door then anything can happen. Anything you want if you make it possible. That is what we do, we’re just ruthless bastards.”