Forever (30 page)

He was waiting for her in the shadows of the garage, hidden in the corner, and Amy, her head elsewhere, tired and wanting to rest her back, didn’t see him until she exited the car, locking the door behind her, giving herself no options. She actually smelled him, and felt him before she saw him. The stench of stale nicotine and
second-hand smoke permeated her nostrils, the bruising grip of his hand on her biceps telegraphing nefarious intent. Adrenaline kicked in and her brain went into overdrive, searching for a way out. The overhead door rattled to a close, sealing them inside together.

Turning, she squinted at Olsen. What the hell was he doing skulking in the garage? She’d told Dean the man was like a weasel.

Pushing her hard against the side of the van, foul breath fanning past her ear, Olsen spoke quietly, the determination in his voice unmistakable. “You fight me and I’ll hurt you, no contest, bitch. Mess you up. He told me to get you there, not the condition to deliver you in.”

Overcoming the shock of her bodyguard being one of the bad guys, Amy didn’t believe his threats. Olsen was taking reasonable care. He could have punched her, knocked her out. Whatever was planned for her wasn’t going to be at the hands of this pathetic excuse for a man. She could feel his erection pressing up against her and that scared her more than anything. He’d fuck her if he thought he could get away with it. Gone were the days when she could endure such a thing and somehow move on. She wanted one man only, forever

“I won’t fight you.” Did he know Dean’s secret? Her blood ran cold within her veins, her heart fighting to pump the suddenly sluggish fluid. She wasn’t worth much as a bargaining chip if Olsen’s boss knew—no one would side with Dean if they found out he wasn’t really a criminal, except maybe Randy, and he had a wife to consider. She decided not to believe the worst.

Her purse was yanked from her unresisting hand and she heard the rattle of keys as he withdrew them. The bag sailed into the far corner of the garage, her phone inside. Olsen pulled her arm forward, adjusting his grip, bruising her again, and slammed the keys on the roof of the van in order to take hold of her other arm. Handcuffs closed around either wrist. Amy pressed her hands against her abdomen in an involuntary gesture.

Olsen sneered at her, his yellowing teeth like a feral animal’s in the gloom. He gestured to her swollen belly. “Carrying his brat. Too bad.”

And her heart turned to ice.

Stabbing the keys into the lock, Olsen wrestled the side door open, racheting it back on its hinges. He shoved her inside. She fell sideways across the seat, pulling in her legs to check her forward motion as Olsen slammed shut the door.

Never get in the vehicle…

Squirming into a sitting position, she heard the child proof locks engage and winced at the irony. A mommy-van, complete with safety locks and attachments for car seats, room for lots of baby paraphernalia, and a dog. The inane thoughts tumbled through her head but couldn’t totally distract her from her plight. Tears pricked and her nose drew up. Amy fought it back and tried to think, prepare for anything. Olsen hit the remote and the garage door creaked upward. She prayed for it to take a huge amount of time. Maybe someone in the complex would be coming home, or going, and see Olsen driving her van, her behind him. That wouldn’t look right, even though they’d know Olsen was supposed to be watching her back.

The vehicle shot backwards, tires chirping on the concrete, and he executed a quick three point turn to screech off towards the freeway. She caught a glimpse of a green jeep veering toward the sidewalk before the other car was past and they were speeding away from all hope of an immediate rescue. She sucked in deep breaths and struggled against the nausea of despair, fear for her baby and for Dean.

****

Pulling his fist from the hole he’d punched in the sheetrock, Dean contemplated his split and bleeding knuckles, pulling the beast back inside, getting his temper under control. When he turned to face Randy and Enrico, he knew none of his terror showed, drawing hard on past experience not to give a hint of anything other than competence.
How long he could maintain his game face was anyone’s guess.

He was tormented by visions of Amy being brutalized, assaulted and held in a dank, filthy room somewhere, or bound and tossed into the trunk of a car. Cold sweat pooled at the base of his spine as he thought of their baby,
defenceless as its mother was subjected to what was meant for him. He was going to rip Olsen’s throat out.

“So it’s been Olsen all along.” Cold and efficient, the machine he could be when necessary, he slipped into the role of crime boss.
It took everything he had to remain calm, but finding Amy depended upon marshalling all of his talents, and losing it now wouldn’t help her.

Randy nodded. “It makes sense now. Always the hanger on, making himself available, doing all the scut work. Never missing an opportunity to ingratiate. I ran another, deeper background check and his wife’s step
-father’s name is Burnett. He never adopted her, so it didn’t show up earlier. Fuck.”

Dean gestured, his injured right hand vaguely aching.

Enrico abruptly turned and left the room, his cell at his ear.

“Water under the bridge.”
Dean lowered his voice. “What’s your take on Burnett knowing it all?”

“Who knows but you and me and Amy? You think your handler would…”

“No. He doesn’t even keep a file, nothing. He emails from a library or internet café, never the same place twice, and it’s nothing anyone would read anyhow. Hits my spam folder.” Dean didn’t share how he conveyed the information back. Randy didn’t need to know because it wouldn’t change anything. It wasn’t like his second in command could call for reinforcements if Dean went down. There was a price to pay for being so incognito.

“Then you got your answer. He took her to force you out, trade her for the business.” Dean fucking well hoped that was it. Teaching him a lesson, or even taking revenge on him were the other options—and neither bore thinking about.

Enrico came back into the room, carrying a first aid kit. Dean took a seat on the couch and allowed the young man to clean his hand, slap a bandage on the worst of the cuts. He nodded his thanks—no point in bleeding all over the office. The mundane would offset the adrenaline and let him think.

“I have called Sandra. I wish her to be safe. She will stay at the hospital. She is very upset and will want to know the news.” Enrico’s English became more stilted under pressure.

Dean doubted Amy’s friend was in any danger, but who knew how Burnett’s mind worked? He nodded. “You can keep her informed, ’Rico. Tell the rest of the crew to button up their women. You too, Randy. Have them go visit their mothers or something. And then set up a place to meet. Not here.”

Striding into the den, he opened a cupboard set into the wall. The gun safe combination was stored nowhere but in his brain and he had the safe open and his favorite weapons out in a few smooth moves. Then he took the time to send his handler an email, taking the chance, the circumstances warranting the breach of protocol.
It was the only time he’d spare to alert the man, because for Dean, shadow man was no longer the priority.

If Enrico hadn’t seen the van, Olsen driving and nearly sideswiping him, they might never have known who had taken her, or maybe even that she
had
been taken. He would have worked himself up into a lather because she was late, probably never checking the surveillance tapes. At least not right away. A bout of uncontrollable shivering overtook him and he fumbled for the back of the chair, using the support to stay on his feet.
Amy.

With a monumental effort, he composed himself, drywashing his face and p
ushing his abject terror away yet again. Dean headed back to the living room. Randy was still on his phone, Enrico shutting his.

“We have reached everyone, boss. And we set the meet at Grand Masters. Burnett will never think we’d use a legitimate business.”

The complex was now eerily silent, and he knew the other men had moved their women, or shouted out to them, and then had scattered. Dean had faith they would make their way to Masters without being tailed. Mike was going to be in the fallback position, the most vulnerable one. Dean knew the other man had turned Amy over as per the usual procedure but everyone wondered if Mike could have headed this off, if he’d only gone inside the garage with Amy… But Dean could accept it would have only forced Olsen to either act out against Mike and put Amy in the line of fire, literally, or just caused Olsen to take a few more minutes to make his play. And then, Enrico wouldn’t have seen the kidnapping. Mike wanted to make amends though, so took fallback, and Dean allowed it.

Dean had to have additional faith Olsen was the only bad apple. He was going to kill the man, right after he killed Burnett
.

****

“We’ve identified a couple of places where they might be holding Amy.” Randy laid the city map flat on the table in one of the back rooms of Grand Masters. It was low tech, but they had cobbled this together quickly, and the paper map was the only way they could all get the lay of the land. The decadently decorated room, shades of red predominating, was a strange back drop to their task. There was no hint of sex and passion, but rather the lust for revenge and payback—his crew took Amy’s kidnapping personally. Dean was struck, not for the first time, at the loyalty and familial atmosphere evidenced by his crew. They huddled around to view the two small Xs marked in red on the map.

“Got a tip that someone closely resembling Burnett was here.” He stabbed the X to the north with his pen, the ink making little blots across the paper. Dean thought they looked like blood drops and
sweat popped out on his brow and his hands fisted as he again fought the fear, fear that would cripple his decision making. He thought hard.

“Any chance he’s decoying?”

“Could be.” Randy didn’t say it—he didn’t have to. It was what they had.

Enrico spoke up. “The other place.
He would stand out like a sore thumb there. It is primarily a Hispanic neighborhood and there is no word that a white man is moving in to assume our action. I would have heard.”

The youngest member of his crew was turning out to be priceless, Dean mused. He nodded. “Do we know if it’s Burnett for sure and not some other usurper?”

“He became known after the thing with Amy, boss. Those pictures kinda blew his cover and they were circulated—not of Amy, just him. We provide protection for two businesses in that area, and the woman who owns one of them saw him. She doesn’t miss much.”

It pained Dean to think about how part of those businesses’ profits went to pay his crew’s salaries. He made certain to divert much of it back into the communities it came from, kind of like taxes for infrastructure, but it still rankled. That was the price of business, however, and he took some comfort in knowing he was a far kinder and benevolent crime boss than his predecessor.

“And no sign of any influx of soldiers.”

Randy shook his head. “Nothing.
A really low profile. If the competition is who we anticipate, then that’s probably the best plan. If it was Unez, there would be movement and noise on the street.”

And Amy would probably be dead
. He couldn’t quite stifle the shudder that ran through him. At least he was dealing with a professional—teaching lessons and retribution weren’t likely to be high on the agenda, although he’d initially fallen prey to imagining those very things perpetrated against his wife and unborn child. Shadow-man wanted his business, but wasn’t yet willing to cause a bloodbath to get it, although Dean had no doubt he would if ransoming didn’t work. Well, that unnamed man would drown in blood today. Dean was taking the war right to the fucker’s doorstep.
Keep your shit together. Cool, calm and collected is going to get her back.

For a moment he wondered if his crew would willingly trade their “jobs” for Amy, then dismissed the question. It didn’t matter. He didn’t have time to think about that now, or test each of them on varying degrees of loyalty. He was going to get Amy back. Then he and Randy could take their women and work the legal side of the business
, or move and set up elsewhere. Dean had no call to spend a penny of his legitimate salary, living large on the money the business garnered, keeping up his image. So his investments had built up very nicely over the years and he was pretty comfortable. Randy was no slouch in that regard, either. And Dean had a flair for running a variety of businesses or putting people in place to do it in his stead. Regardless, he was out of this as soon as Amy came home.

Dropping his head, he took a deep breath through his nose, closing his eyes to focus. Even if shadow
-man wasn’t caught, he was out of this. Enough. Amy deserved better. Randy caught his eyes as they opened, and the message was clear—Randy was out, too. Dean nodded, a quick and silent agreement. Now they just had to deal.

The plan was solid after a few tweaks and considerable discussion. His crew slipped out the various exits and went to take their positions. If he was wrong
, and Amy was being held elsewhere, they were fucked. But he felt in his gut that his luck was going to hold this time around. It had to.

“Dean?” Randy was folding up the map, ramming it into the pocket of his jacket.