A hand covers my mouth, another wrapping around my waist and pulling me against a hard body as they drag me into a bush. I throw my elbow back and a deep grunt sounds as my captor releases me. I spin to face then snort when I see it’s Griffin with a disgruntled look on his face and rubbing at the spot I hit him in his chest.
“Was that necessary?” he groans in his thick English accent, and I scoff at the audacity.
“You dragged me into shrubbery,” I deadpan. “You’re lucky I didn’t make a pincushion out of you.”
Griffin rolls his eyes as he swats his unruly dark blonde hair out of his eyes. I cross my arms and pop out my hip, silently telling him to get on with it.
“What’s so important you risked death?” I quip and he stares at me with a blank look.
I was born in the states. Griffin the U.K. My family moved to Europe and found themselves in some trouble and wound-up dead. My sister and I were put in an orphanage where Griffin was. He and I became close friends. When I lost my sister, he became the only thing holding me up.
Ever since the day I saw my sister, Jayla, get dragged into that white van, never to be seen or heard from again. Griffin has had my back in my plan to find out what happened to her. Together we escaped our cesspool of a group home, he taught me petty crimes, shadowing career criminals, and now the both of us in our late-twenties, are called in to play hired muscle. Taking jobs all over the world, learning and growing, finding out anything we could about the men that took Jayla that day.
Ten years after her kidnapping, I managed to get a lead. That lead led me to Elio Ricci the son of an unknown sex ring king. Not unknown in a way that makes him irrelevant. Unknown in a way that makes him untouchable.
A ghost with a thriving fucked-up organization that no one could ever stop.
Not without cutting off the head of the snake. A snake nobody knew existed with the man he hired to play the face.
An entitled fall-guy essentially.
“I heard Elio talking to Oscar about Malia,” he says in a hushed tone.
My interest is piqued, but he needs to give me more to go on before I take a bigger bite. “Okay, and?”
Griffin snorts at my act of indifference. He knows I’m more invested in helping this girl than I want to verbally admit to him.
“Elio wouldn’t want just anyone to be his wife,” he continues, like I don’t know this. “Especially with what lengths he went to and still goes to, to break her down.”
I’ve been racking my brain as to why he had this girl chained in his cells and now he keeps her constantly drugged. It’s obvious she’s a threat to him, but who is she and what’s the rest of the story here?
I twirl my finger signaling for him to get to the fucking point.
He sighs. “Does the surnameOlinmean anything to you?“ Griffin asks, crossing his arms tight against his chest, showing his impatience.
I think on it, the name sounding familiar but not ringing any bells. Like the lightbulb that switches on inside my brain, Griffin snaps his fingers and I resist the urge to smack him on the side of his stupid head.
Most of our work is in Europe.
Any of the men that hire us that originated here will come here to hide until their shit blows over, sending us there to do their bidding and we return. It’s usually quick and we don’t linger much. The U.K. being where we usually set up base between jobs.
It’s more about nostalgia than loving the place.
I have heard the name Olin before. Their arms business started in Birmingham over a hundred years ago. Eventually, they migrated to America like a lot of businesses do. I don’t remember the man’s name that runs it now though.
“Arms dealers from Birmingham,” I say.
Griffin nods. “When I heard them mention the name Olin I did a little digging. Nathaniel Olin has been missing his daughter for about four months now.”
“And you think it’s Malia?”
He runs a hand down his face. “IknowMalia is the missing daughter. If you look up a picture of the man, she’s a carbon copy of him.”
“Where are they located?” I ask.
“D.C. is all I know,” he says with a shrug, and I nod.
“We have enough connections in the states that it shouldn’t be hard to get into contact with his people.” I shake my head. “It all makes sense now—the way he had treated her. It’s time the Ricci’s pay for every family they’ve ripped apart. Go to D.C., get in touch with Nathaniel Olin, and get that girl back to her family.”