I Won't Give Up (19 page)

“Alright let me try and call her. I’ll call you right back.”

“Thanks.” I
hung up and
sat down
on the front steps. I
started running my hands through my hair like I normally did when I was stressed out about something
my mom used to tell me it was going to make me bald
.

Shit, where are you Fiona? The minutes were ticking my like hours before Luke finally called back.

“Cooper.”
Luke said, just the way he said my name made my blood pressure rise.
“Did you find her?”

“No but
y
ou need to get back here.
Now.
”
His voice thick with worry.

“What
the fuck
happened?”
I practically shouted.

“She’s been taken.”

“
Taken?
What do you mean she’s been taken?”
I felt like I had s
ucker punched, all the air left my lungs.
My worse fear has now become reality.

“
As soon as we hung up the police showed up here.
We don’t know much.
They’re demanding money. Lots of money. Seems like
whoever it is
has
been
in contact with my dad,
he called
the police and they’re looking into it but this type of thing doesn’t happen in Prescott
. Cooper this
is my sister we’re talking about here
I’m not just going to sit here, you in
?
”

“
Definitely.
I’m going to look around here, is there a spare key?”

“They’re used to be one under the turtle rock in the backyard. I don’t know if it’s still there.”

“I’ll let you know what I find.”

“Be careful there could still be someone there.”

“I have a couple tricks up my sleeve if that happens. Actually I hope it’s the case if they can help find Fiona. I’ll get back to you.” I practically ran to the back of the house and frantically searched for a turtle rock. I finally found it and turned it over, luckily the key was there. I ran
back
to the front and unlocked the door, everything seemed to be in order until I walked into the kitchen
it looked like a
bit of a struggle occurred
.
I walked to the counter
, there were
chopped vegetabl
es on a cutting board, I spotted
a dishrag by the breakfast bar that looked like it had a little bit of blood on it.
I grabbed the dish-gloves from the sink before
I picked it up to get a closer look, definitely some dried blood which meant it must have been there for more than a couple hours and it smelled
sweet
.
It must have been
doused
in chloroform, I knew the s
mell because my dad is a dentist
and they used it there on
very
occasion
s
. My heart started pounding out of my chest, I picked up the phone and called Luke back.

“Luke.
Not good, t
here’s a rag here, there’s some dried blood and I think it has
chloroform on it.”

“Shit! You’re sure?”

“Almost positive
. Any news?”

“No nothing. I don’t even know where to start looking man.”
He sounded frantic.
“I do. She was dating this guy Garrett from Delaney.”

“What? She wasn’t dating anyone, I would have known.
She’s been moping around about you for the last month.
”
“She told me earlier. We had a fight about it. I
basically
professed my love for her, ended up breaking up with Riley.
It’s a mess dude.
Garrett’s
big
trouble man.”

“Alright so what do we do?”

I quickly formulated a plan.
“Let’s meet at the Quik Stop right outside Delaney on the I-5
.
I’ll ride with you since he knows my bike. I’m leaving now.”

“Alight I’m going to call my dad and he can have the cops go to the
lake
house. I’m leaving now too.”

I
ran out of
the house and left the front door unlocked. I put my helmet on and gunned my bike to life.
I started to trip towards Delaney praying that she was okay; the thought of her scared and alone was almost too much to bare. I was going so fast everything was a blur, my life wasn’t important right now. I beat Luke to the Quik Stop
. I
was having a hard time waiting for him to get there, part of me just wanted to keep going but I knew it was best just to wait. After what seemed like and eternity Luke finally pulled up and I immediately hopped in the Range Rover.

“
Any
word?” I asked closing the door behind me.

“Not much. They want ten million cash in a two black duffle bags dropped off at Cherry and Mackerly by ten a.m. tomorrow. The police in Lake Winona aren’t capable of handling this investigation so the Sheriff’s department will be handling it and the FBI has been called in due to the ransom and my family’s profile.”

“I wish I knew tha
t she was seeing Garrett sooner
, maybe I could have done something to stop this from happening.”
“Don’t beat yourself up man, you know how stubborn she is. Now where should we start looking?”

“I think we should start with the obvious, Garrett’s house, then we’ll go from there. He drives a supped up
black Chevy Tahoe so eyes peeled.”

He
pulled
out in
to
traffic towards Delaney. I gave him directions towards Garrett’s house and we did a drive by but there was no one home so I told him to head over towards his best friend Eli’s house. Bingo! There was his truck like a sitting duck. If anything they were not genius’ they probably though that their plan was fool proof by avoiding G
arrett’s. The main
problem
now
was that Eli’s house was mo
re like the White House in size
almost the size of Fiona’s but not quite
. H
is dad was ex-mafia from Brooklyn. I’d only been there once or twice and knew that it boasted 15 bedrooms and around
twenty thousand
square feet, so now the question was w
here would they be hiding Fiona.

“Shit man, this isn’t good.” I said.

“What’s the matter? We found her.”
“This kid Eli, his dad is ex-mob. The house is huge, I’m sure there’s even panic rooms and shit in there so we need to narrow down her location better and we won’t be able to just get in. We need to be smart about this. I say we come back after it get’s dark.” I could tell it was killing him. I was dying inside too but needed to keep my cool for now.

“I guess we don’t have any other option do we?” I shook my head.
“How do you know this kid Cooper?”

“
I promise
I’ll ex
plain everything later
but
now is not the time.” I didn’t want him to think di
fferently of me once I told him but Luke was a good guy and I’m sure he’d understand at least I’d hoped.

I had an idea
of how we could clear the house
and I just had to hope that it worked.

“Are you okay with doing
anything
? If not I need to know right now because what I
’m about to do is
serious
, like land our asses in jail serious
and I’m going to do it with or without you
.”
“
Let’s
hear it.”
I could tell he was game.
“Eli’s family owns a factory downtown, it’s closed down for the night and it’s about to go up in flames
. T
hat will draw them out of the house then we will have our chance to sneak in and find Fiona. I need to make some stops first”

I go
t the supplies to make Mo
lotov
Cocktails and
we
headed to the factory. Luke and I snuck around the rear of the factory and I lined up a row of Molotov Cocktails for e
ach of us. I
handed him a lighter and got to work. We were done within three minutes
. W
e headed back towards Eli’s house but not before phoning in an
anonymous
tip to police about the building being ablaze.
We actually passed Eli and his father on the way back to the house, exactly what I was hoping for. The only car left in the driveway was Garrett’s and he was no match for me on a normal day
,
let alone when he had the love of my life holed up like some
fucking
prisoner.

“I’m going in. I need you to stay here incase he tries to escape with her. I’ll call you if I need backup.” He nodded though seemed reluctant. I hopped out of the car and tried to be as inconspicuous as possible making my way to the side door. I slowly turned the handle and it opened.
Bingo.
I was in the
mudroom
but at least I was inside the house. I slowly crept around a couple of the rooms in the downstairs knowing that the chance of her being in any of them was slim but better safe than sorry. I head
ed up the stairs and felt like I had a target on my back
. I finally made it to the top and stopped outside each door on the way listening for any noise, none. I headed up to the third floor and did the same thing. Finally when I came to the end of the hallway I noticed a panel that looked like the rest of the wall but obviously when Eli left he didn’t put it back
all the way
, thankfully for me because I don’t think there’s anyway I would have found it otherwise. I knew I
needed to be fast
and use the element of surprise to my advantage. I pulled my phone out and sent a quick text to Luke that I thought I found her when I heard her start screaming, all inhi
bitions went to the wayside,
I
pulled the panel back and charged through
the
door. There he was with his pants around his ankles
, Fiona was secured to a bedpost with rope
screaming
.
He was so intent
trying to rape her
that he didn’t even notice me
come in
.

I stood there in shock
for a split second
as I searched my surroundings quickly to see any other possible entrances/exits before I went and punched Garrett right in the back of the head
before he could see it coming
. I hoped it would be enough to knock him out
,
it wasn’t.

Back when I lived in Delaney I would
have maybe called him an acquaintance
but not one that I was happy to have
. It was a
round my sixteenth birthday when
my mom found out she had br
east cancer.
O
bviously
I was
very
angry
and scared. I
was searching
for an outlet
, anything
. One day I was leaving the mall when someone tried to jump me, it
ended up being
Eli and Garrett.
I channeled
all of my aggression and anger on them and
managed to beat the shit out of both of them, apparently one of the goon’s that worked for Eli’s dad was watching
,
this was some sort of initiation for them.
After the fight h
e ended up propositioning me to do some underground fight matches
,
he thought I had a lot of potential.
I spent the next few months being trained by some of the top MMA (mixed-martial arts) fighters in the country and before too long I was competing
in underground fights
and winning
, it was the outlet I was looking for
, they didn’t care how old I was, what my problems were.
Garrett and Eli trained beside me but they just didn’t have the passion and pent up aggression that I harbored. My mom was growing
sicker
and I was
falling into a deeper depression
knowing what the end outcome was going to be.
Somehow s
he found out what I was doing and pleaded with me
(her dying wish)
to give it up, I agreed.
Of course the goon’s
were not happy to hear that I wanted out
since I was one of the best they had but
I spoke to Giovanni, Eli’s dad and he understood the circumstances and reluctantly agreed to let me out as long as I did one last fight
.
I did and I won making him
a lot
of money
and we parted amicably
.
Funny how looking back I never saw any of that money, what a stupid sixteen year old I was!