DAMON
The sun shone down as Madden and I sat in the rental car across from Sun Sing Chinese Restaurant. We’d arrived twenty minutes early in order to coordinate with two more of our teams. With what little we had to go on, I had increased the tail on Alexander Ducane. It seemed that now Paige was no longer a ‘threat’ to him, he'd become more relaxed. It had only been three days but the douchebag had ventured out more in those three days than he had in the last 3 weeks.
Jonah had been able to hack his phone, even though it had taken a bit we were now able access everything without being detected. It had proved helpful to us and I was grateful for it. Jonah was really proving his worth with this.
From that we had learned Alexander had appointments scheduled all day today, of those the one that stood out was with the organizers of the fight. The little information that we had on them, Jonah was right. Something was off about Blaze’s history. Through background checks that Killian did, we were able to deduce that Blaze’s past had either been concealed and reinvented or he was working for someone else and that meant there may be more people at play that we hadn’t met yet.
So here we were waiting for our chance, staring out the window watching. Around us the tree lined streets had begun to give way to Autumn, the maple tree leaves had started to change from green to hues of reds, yellows and oranges, and despite the sun high in the sky, the air had started to cool.
The street was busy with execs and business people out on their breaks, either eating lunch or taking the time to shop. We went unnoticed, somewhat faded into the background of the normal hustle and bustle.
The conversation with Killian went down as I’d expected. Like a fucking lead balloon. He had not been pleased with the turn of events but thankfully he’d agreed with my plans and was sending down five of his best fighters to help rig this twisted tournament if it came to that.
On top of that he was sending down some more of his people to aid in the search. It was established that the tournament going ahead needed to be avoided, but in the event that Paige hadn’t been found it wouldn’t get past the first round.
From the terms of the tournament, it was ascertained that she would be in attendance, made to watch as it went down. That gave us a way to get her out at some point if it came to that, and we’d make sure the audience was flooded with both my guys and Killian’s to do so. It also gave us a firm timeline beforehand to try and get her out—two weeks.
I needed a way in, and Blaze was that way. The little dossier that sat on my lap burned to be played and that was exactly what I was going to do when he emerged. They had been in there for the last forty minutes, our team on the inside had been recording everything and passing on the important stuff as it happened. Some of which made my blood boil and it had taken everything I had not to storm in there and put a bullet between Eric’s eyes. Never mind, though. It was just another name to add to my list.
“Showtime Prez,” Madden said as he opened his door. “They’re on the move.”
Sure enough as I looked up and there they were, exiting the restaurant. After the exchanged pleasantries, we watched as Alexander jumped into the back of a town car with Eric (something I made a mental note of, maybe I could get a guy on the inside there) and Blaze took off down the street towards the main shopping drag.
Madden and I both jumped out of the hire car and started to follow him, when he neared an alley we pounced, dragging him into the alley and behind a dumpster.
“Don’t make a sound.” I warned my voice was rough, I had the muzzle of my gun pressed against his back as we pushed him further down, making sure we weren’t followed and were out of sight from prying eyes. “You’re a hard man to get alone Mr Hammond.”
“And you’re making a grave mistake if you think I’ll let this slide,” Blaze retorted. The fucker was cocky, stupid but cocky.
“You’ve got a secret Blaze, I can call you Blaze can’t I, even if I believe it’s not your real name,” I said as I pushed him towards the red brick wall. Both Madden and I had our side arms drawn and trained on him, there was nothing for him to do but to listen. “So tell me Blaze which agency do you work for?”
“I don’t—” He started to formulate his lie. Holding up my free hand to stop him because I wasn’t having any of it. He didn’t get to take what’s mine, allow psycho fucks to hurt her and then lie to me.
“Uh uh uh, don’t even think about denying anything,” I tsked, that stopped him. The look in his eyes told me he was trying to come up with something to cover his arse. I held up the folder that contained everything we knew about him and opened it. “See when we dug a little further into your background, it became fairly evident to us that it was nothing but superficial, so an associate of mine sent people out, and they confirmed our suspicions, so I’ll ask you again, Who. do. you. work. for?”
Blaze stood there for a bit, it looked as though he was having an internal argument with himself, every few seconds he looked like he was going to say something but then would shut his mouth. After a few minutes he sighed and slumped in defeat against the brick wall.
“I can’t tell you anything, it’s classified,” his answer wasn’t what I’d expected given how he just reacted, nor was it what I wanted to hear either. “If it got out, there’d be too many people at risk.”
“Paige would be at risk,” I lamented, this wasn’t going as I had planned, it had barely started and I was headed for a fucking brick wall. Reading between the lines, he’d just admitted to working for someone but couldn’t elaborate further.
“Yes she would, she already is,” Blaze admitted, looking up at both Madden and I, he looked as though he was studying us. “Forgive me but I seem to be at a disadvantage here, you know who I am but I don’t recall you telling me who you are?”
“Who we are is not important,” Madden clapped back, his look telling me he wasn’t about to take no for an answer and that one way or another we would be leaving this alley with the answers we came for. “Which agency do you work for and why did you take my man’s girl?”
“Listen, I already told you I can’t tell you,” Blaze tried to stress the point again. Madden and I needed to switch tactics here, the standover approach was failing, lowering my gun , I gestured for Madden to do the same.
“I don’t care what you have to do or what strings you need to pull but I suggest you get a hold of the people you work for and get the permissions needed to tell us what we want to know before we expose you to your partner and Alexander,” I added, I didn’t care what it took by the end of this conversation we’d have someone on the inside and consequences be damned.
“You wouldn’t do that,” The cocky fuck called my bluff as he straightened himself up. “If Paige meant so much to you, there would be no way you’d endanger her like that.”
At the mention of her name, my heart started aching. This guy believed he had the upper hand now, bringing the depth of my feelings towards Paige into question but he was forgetting about another important player in all this, the ace up my sleeve.
“I don’t you truly understand the situation you’re in Blaze,” my voice low and full of an unspoken warning. I stepped closer to this cocky asshole. “You and whoever you work for are aware of what family Paige comes from right?”
Blaze nodded in acknowledgment, that was good it meant that I didn’t need to give him a full explanation I could just skip right to the ace up my sleeve.
“Good, that’s good,” I said, nodding a little. “Then you know the connections her uncle has, and how far his potential reach can go.”
“Yeah I do, but I don’t see what any of this has to do with anything,” Blaze answered but it lacked the confidence from before, and for the first time since we ambushed him, he had started to falter.
“It’s lucky for you that I have convinced him to let me take lead on this Blaze, if Killian gets involved, this little operation of yours will be put to an end.” A smirk started to form across my face the moment Blaze realized he didn’t have a choice in the matter. “So what do you say about setting up that meeting with whoever your bosses are and getting the information I want to me?”