Love.
Chapter
17
~Hammer~
I fucking knew it. I knew life wouldn’t let me keep something so good. The ache in my hip only reminds me more of how far I have come with Des. My mind races with thoughts of where she is and what is happening to her.
My phone rings.
“Tank,” I answer.
“Wellington cut Ricca loose. He’s on his own.”
“Shit,” I mutter, not liking the direction this is heading.
If Ricca has no one to answer to, then his reason for taking Des is clean up, plain and simple.
“Wellington is running something big in Chi-town. The place Suzie was working for was a front for his shit. From what we have gathered, Ricca was hired by Wellington to find out what Suzie knew. We suppose someone felt she was getting too close to what really went on in that pharmaceutical company. Ricca managed to lure Suzie in, make her think they were dating. Everything was fine until Suzie broke up with him and bugged out of the city the same day.”
“Did Wellington put out the hit on Suzie?”
“Don’t know, but we don’t think so. We think Ricca did it with his cousin so Wellington wouldn’t find out she got shot of him. Whatever Wellington thought Suzie might know about his pharmaceutical company was enough to make Ricca track her down when she ran.”
What the hell had Desirae’s sister stumbled onto at Wellington’s pharmaceutical front that sent her running from Chicago? This is going from bad to worse every minute. If Ricca acted on his own and Desirae witnessed it, then in his mind, taking her out solves all his problems.
“I sent your boy Screech a code. He can use that to follow the locator in Des’s watch.”
“What the fuck are you talkin’ about?” I growl.
“Look man, Hellions and Regulators don’t have a problem and don’t want there to be a problem, but bottom line, she’s ours. We watch what we claim.”
My heart thumps wildly as my brain races to one conclusion. She’s not his. She’s not theirs. She’s fucking mine. I know these are irrational thoughts, but fuck if I can help thinking them.
“We put a tracker inside the dive watch she always wears,” he continues.
I don’t bother responding. Instead, I click off the phone and look at Screech, who is already using the code to find her. I fucking asked them in the last call for help, and the asshole didn’t share then about a tracker in her watch. I have been here for the past hour and a half in the Regulators’ meeting room in the back of Alibi with Ice, Coal, and a handful of our brothers trying to figure out how to find Desirae, and this jackass has known where she is the entire time? Fucking unbelievable.
Screech has been searching every traffic light and surveillance camera he can hack into to try and find them, as well as simultaneously searching Ricca’s bank records for clues. Ice has been coordinating with the men under his command to go out and comb the streets for the van that took Desirae. Coal has been coordinating with other members, getting our comm. links, bulletproof vests, and hardware ready for us to roll out at a moment’s notice. I’m standing here, useless, doing nothing more than fighting my overwhelming urge to throw the phone in my hand in rage.
The woman who helped me heal from the inside out could be lying dead at the other end of that tracking signal, and the motherfucker in North Carolina has kept me from getting to her.
I have to be reasonable and not get lost to the moment. If it was the other way around, I wouldn’t have put all of our cards on the table yet either. As much as I hate Tank for holding out on us and losing precious time, I understand it too. I’m not about to tell him that though and when this is over, I’m going to make sure he feels my pain.
“Got her!”
“Where the fuck is she, Screech?”
“The tracker pinpoints her in a building in the downtown district. Hold on; I’m zooming in.” His fingers continue clicking away. “203 Savannah Street.”
Ice asks, “What sort of place are we looking at here?”
“Noted to be the old Russell Accounting Building. No current occupants listed, so it is empty. We are looking at a brick building that was built in the late 1800s. That takes out knocking down any walls. Two ground floor doors—front and back. Fire escape should be on the side of the building leading to the second and third floors. Windows look a little small, but you should be able to get through them. Good news is the two buildings on either side of the Russell building are abandoned, so you don’t have immediate neighbors. The bad news is there’s both a fire station and a police hub within two miles of the location. You’ll need to get in and out as quietly as possible.”