Chapter 34
Joseph
The door to the lobby opened the moment Joseph’s radio started to work again.
“Joseph!” His mother rarely sounded so perturbed. “Are you still there? Come in. Montoya.”
He waited until he and Stella were in a dark corner before responding. “I’m here. We’re going in. Sylvia’s been made.”
“What!” A rabble commenced behind Genevieve. “Who the fuck is we?”
“Stella’s here. She’s with the FBI.”
“The FB… fuck!”
“Sheen has Sylvia and another girl in possession. I’ve gotta get them out of there.”
“Hold tight, Joseph. We’re coming.”
“Hold tight,” Stella mumbled. She cocked her gun. “God only knows what they’re doing to her.”
Don’t go there. Joseph couldn’t bear the thought of Sylvia suffering any more than the trauma Alexander already foisted upon her. If he almost assaulted her then… No. No, his mind could not go there. He would rescue Sylvia before that happened.
“Joseph.” Stella tilted her head to the left once she had his attention. “Sheen’s on the third floor. Let’s go.”
They crouched low and took the stairwell. Smile, Joseph. You’re on Sheen’s camera. Hopefully he was too distracted by Sylvia’s betrayal to notice two agents creeping up the stairs. Exposed lightbulbs illuminated the bare minimum, but a good camera – and Sheen would have good cameras – could still easily catch their shadows. They stayed close to the wall the first two flights of stairs. By the third, a large figure came into view hauling a lithe feminine body that fought for its life.
“Hold,” Joseph hissed. Stella stopped behind him and pointed her gun up toward the figure. “Don’t you dare take a shot unless it’s clean.” That could very well be Sylvia.
“I’m going.” Stella resumed her creep up the final flight of stairs. “Cover me.”
Joseph didn’t like it, but he also wasn’t arguing. Better for Stella to take the shot than for him to attempt it. If I missed and hit Sylvia, I would never, ever forgive myself. All the more reason for him to steady his weapon and focus on the task at hand.
They shuffled through the entryway to the third floor as the figure made its way by. Stella kept her Glock up; Joseph stayed right behind her.
“FBI!” she called. “Drop your weapon and release the woman!”
Sheen’s bodyguard swerved around, his own weapon up – and the woman as his shield.
It was not Sylvia.
It was Reina.
Joseph almost dropped his gun, but Stella remained firm. “I said drop your weapon and release the girl!”
The bodyguard grinned. That was usually not a good sign. “Now why would I do that?”
A bullet went off. It came from behind them.
Stella went down, blood spurting from her shoulder. Her scream of painful alarm made Reina scream too.
Joseph swung around in time for another bodyguard to barrel into him. His Glock landed on the floor. So did he.
***
Joseph could now say he had lived through two of the most embarrassing moments ever as a law enforcement agent. The first was having his case pulled out from beneath him and being made the laughing stock of not only his department, but the regional FBI office as well. The second was being knocked out and taken hostage, as if he never had any training in his life.
But he had training. Lots of it. How many times had his mother made him go back and train for hostage situations, both as a hostage and as a negotiator? Only now did he realize that she did it out of fear for him, her only damn child.
Wasn’t it weird that the human mind realized these things when it was too late? What good does that do me on a survival level? Absolutely none! So of course he would start thinking about all the little ways his mother ever showed she cared while he was coming to in some dark, damp and stinking storeroom.
“There’s my baby,” Sylvia said, her voice as cold as the air around them. “My big hero has finally arrived.”
First, Joseph was beyond relieved to hear her all right. He was even happier to feel her tied to him. They sat on the floor, back to back, a rope tied tightly around them. Joseph had been stripped of his radio, phone, and every weapon he carried – even his damn pocketknife. A lump on his head hurt more than the ropes rubbing against his bare arms, and his eyesight was so blurry that he wondered what had been irreparably damaged. But at least from here he could clutch Sylvia’s hand and take refuge in what little warmth she offered.
“Are you okay?” he murmured.
Sylvia snorted. “I was almost violated once they realized I was wired. Then I was manhandled all the way here. I don’t even know how the fuck they figured out I was wearing a wire. Sheen and I were having a nice chat… then bam! One of his bodyguards said there were pigs in the farmhouse, or something.”
Joseph leaned his head against hers. “He found the signal. They’d been looking for one.” And they should’ve realized those meatheads would know to look for one. “They also jammed the radios back at the station.”
“Please tell me your mom’s coming.”
“I think so.” Joseph attempted to break free from the ropes, but to no avail. All he did was annoy Sylvia to the point she told him to knock it the fuck off.
The image of another woman entered his mind.
“Reina!” He jerked against their binds. “Fucking hell on wheels, please tell me that was my mind playing tricks on me.”
“Oh, by the way,” Sylvia muttered. “I found your sister. Sheen had her kidnapped.”
No doubt to get back at me. All of this smelled of Sheen. It couldn’t be a coincidence that Reina went missing. Sure, Sheen was after women of different means, but Reina had to have been targeted for her relationship to Joseph. Gotta get to me, and all that. Did he know about his relationship to Sylvia? How many other people had been hit by him?
Stella… she had been shot. Was she okay?
“We have to get out of here.” Joseph was going to burst through those ropes even if he had to turn into the Hulk to do it. Unfortunately, that meant yanking on Sylvia’s arms and sending her into a fit. Whoever had tied these knots must have had military training. These definitely aren’t BDSM knots, that’s for sure. So much for giving people a quick escape should they need it. Joseph had a feeling that Sheen and his cronies would’ve been those types of Doms. “Shit!” It didn’t help that every muscle from the waist up was sore and his strength sapping from his body. Didn’t matter. He was pissed. First his girlfriend, now his little sister? Low. Low.
“Calm down and let me think!” Sylvia sighed when her boyfriend refused to settle down, as if he were some monkey let loose on a playground. “Would you knock it off? You’re not helping, Joseph!”
“Calm down? You want me to calm down? They have my sister!”
“I know! I saw her!”
Joseph slumped against Sylvia in resignation. “Do you think they’ve hurt her?”
“Do you want me to honestly answer that?”
“You saw her up close.” It dawned on Joseph that the woman Sylvia was observing earlier… saying all those awful things about… Reina. She was the one brought before Sylvia to test her loyalty to Sheen. Yeah, it was deliberate. They know she’s my sister. “I need to know exactly how many bullets to put in that fucker’s head.”
“You’re not putting any bullets in anyone’s head without a gun.”
“Don’t remind me.”
Sylvia shook her head. “She looked tired and hungry, but I don’t think they’ve hurt her. Not like that.”
He was glad he didn’t have to explain exactly what he meant. If any one of those bastards touched my sister like that… They already had death wishes going as far as they had, but Joseph would settle for some cold hard justice at the hands of the court.
“Why are you even here, Joseph?” Sylvia asked with a soothing voice. Where the hell did that come from? Joseph swallowed. The last thing he expected tonight was to hear Sylvia sound like that… before the worst was over. “I thought you were backup, not the first wave inside the building.”
“Shit got real, okay? One moment everything was as it should be. The next? The signal’s jammed, my mother is freaking out unlike I’ve ever heard before, and Stella shows up waving a gun in my direction and saying she’s with the FBI now.”
“Stella’s with the FBI?”
“Right?” Joseph still couldn’t believe it. “She said that you had been made and we had to get you out of there. So I followed her in.”
“Did she lead you into a trap?”
“I don’t think so.” Joseph highly doubted that his ex-girlfriend intended to be shot. She’s not that altruistic for any cause. Stella was curiously into the more painful arts of BDSM, but getting shot was on another level, even for her. “She was shot right in front of Reina and me.”
“Oh my God! Is she okay?”
“I have no idea.” Joseph squeezed his girlfriend’s fingers. “I’m glad that you’re okay.”
Sylvia shuddered. Was she crying? “Fuck it, Joseph.” Yeah, she was crying. Shit. Don’t cry now, Sylv. I need you to be strong, okay? That’s what he should have said. Instead, Joseph was propelled to squeeze even harder, as if he could pass his confidence into her. Not that he had a lot to share right now. “We are so not okay right now. He was going to ship me off with the rest of them. I don’t know what he’s going to do with you. He’s probably going to kill us!”
“No, no, don’t go there, Sylv.” Could his other hand reach her? “Don’t cry, mi cosita.”
That only made her cry harder.
Wasn’t there some way for Joseph to break free from these ropes? If only to turn around and hold his beloved as she needed to be held right now? If there’s a God out there, I wouldn’t mind the power right now. If the Montoyas knew what was happening, they would be lighting every candle they could get their hands on and start reciting whole lists of saints. Not just for him, but for their dear daughter as well.
“We’re going to get out of here, okay?” Joseph did his best to caress the spaces between Sylvia’s knuckles. “We’re going to get out of here, we’re going to go home, and we’re going to, I dunno… have dinner, take a shower, and fall asleep in each other’s arms.”
Sylvia laughed through her tears. “You’re such a romantic, baby.”
Lord, did he love it when she called him that. “You make me want to do the most mundane things and declare them the pinnacle of romance. Because that’s how you make me feel, Sylv. You and me, you know? We don’t have to be crazy fancy. But I guess we could be, if you’d like.”
“I want to get out of here and never let go of you.”
He felt exactly the same way, but he couldn’t say that. For all he knew, these could be their last few moments together. “I love you, Sylv. I don’t say that lightly.”
One of her fingers pushed between his. “I know.” The world was nothing but pure silence for the next few moments. Heartbeats throbbed. Breaths steadied. It almost felt like they were somewhere else, far, far away from the horrors they already had been or may be yet subjected to. Sylvia’s voice was the first to crack like thunder. “I love you too.”
“When we get out of here, I’ll give you whatever you want. I’ll marry you.”
She laughed. “Now, come on, don’t be ridiculous. You’re saying that because we’re high on adrenaline. You’ve ever seen Speed? You know how this goes with the sequel.”
“Never seen those movies.”
“Then I won’t spoil it for you.” Sylvia’s fingers continued to caress his. “We’ll watch them when we get home.”
“I promise you we’ll get home.”
“I’m promising you the same thing.”
“I…”
Gunshots.
“Oh my God.” Sylvia shook so hard that she made Joseph shake. “What’s going on?”
It didn’t take long to find out.
Someone beat down the door to the storeroom. A man dressed in SWAT gear, weapon at the ready, stormed in to the sound of Sylvia’s excited screams. The moment the man recognized Sylvia and Joseph, he called over his shoulder, “I’ve got two in here, Commander!”
Another man was attacking the knots holding Joseph together with Sylvia when Genevieve Stone appeared in the doorway, Glock returning to its holster. Joseph had never, ever been so happy to see his cold and distanced mother.
Apparently, she had never been so happy to see him too.
“Joseph!” A high-pitched voice that he didn’t recognize attempted to break his eardrums. Genevieve rushed to his side, but only one hand was reserved for the top of his head. The other was on Sylvia’s shoulder in a futile attempt to calm her down. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you? We’ve got a medic downstairs.”
He shook out his arms as soon as they were free. The first thing he did afterward was topple Sylvia over with the roughest bear hug he could manage. She clung to him, crying into his shirt. As tears wetted his chest and more agents spilled into the small storeroom, Joseph said, “We’re fine. What about Stella? She was shot.”
Genevieve stood back to give them air. “We found her. She’ll be fine, I think.”
Joseph stood up as soon as he was sure that Sylvia wouldn’t crumble without him. “Mother,” he said in a near-whisper. That instantly got her attention again. “Did you get Sheen? He… he has Reina.”
Panic settled in Genevieve’s frosty blue eyes. Her face didn’t fare much better. If Joseph thought his mother was losing her mind over him? Hearing that about her son’s little sister – the youngest child of a man she once fancied enough to have a baby with – only made matters worse.
“Are you sure?” she asked in a hush.
“Yeah.” Joseph couldn’t peel Sylvia off of him if he wanted, but at some point a paramedic needed to take a look at her. One coaxed her to come over now, insisting that she would be fine away from Joseph for two minutes. She refused to budge. I’m not letting her go right now anyway. Reina was already in danger. Rattled logic told Joseph that letting go of Sylvia would put her in danger as well. “I saw her. I know it’s her. We have got to find that truck before it goes out. Where the hell is Sheen?”
“He and the last of his bodyguards got away as we arrived. We’re turning the building inside out as we speak.”
It might be too late. “Have you checked the roof? It connects to the building next door.”
“We’ve got agents on either side of this building.”
“He’s smarter than that.” Joseph pushed Sylvia toward the paramedic. “Go with her, Sylv. I have to find Reina.”
She looked back at him, a dark, painful blur in the midst of more dark and desperate people running around. Joseph counted more rifles than he did heads of common sense.
Genevieve pulled her Glock out of its holster and held it out to her son. “Take it. Give the bastard a swift kick in the face if you find him. I want this wrapped up tonight.”
Joseph didn’t hesitate or question his mother’s breach of protocol. As soon as the gun was in his hands, he was whistling for two agents to follow him up to the roof. The last thing he saw before bounding up the stairs was Sylvia’s despondent demeanor.
***
The jaunt up to the roof was littered with fellow agents, all of whom claimed there was no sign of Alexander Sheen. That was preposterous. How could a man, regardless of how much money he had, disappear out of thin air? Let alone with two huge bodyguards in tow?
He was hiding somewhere. Joseph would find him, so help him God.
Reina. That was the driving force sending him up to the roof to begin his manhunt. He has Reina. He’s going to… Joseph wouldn’t let the words form in his head. He had enough images to send him into a rage. Sylvia. How many times had Sheen traumatized his beloved? This was beyond enforcing the law. It was personal.
At least Sylvia was safe for now. Joseph trusted that neither his mother nor the agents closest to him would allow his girlfriend out of their collective sight. Still, he never should have let her go undercover one last time. What was he thinking? Of course Sheen would have found her out. Somehow, someway. Men like him always got away with their crimes.
Until now.
“Clear!” one agent called from the far corner of the roof. They were five stories above Morrison Street, red and blue police lights flashing in both lanes and obstructing the late night traffic. Buses were diverted to other streets. Taxis drove in circles. Pedestrians, homeless, and even the midnight joggers were ushered off the sidewalks while a hundred police radios lit up with APBs. Not a single officer was getting a wink of sleep that night.
The other agent lowered his gun after doing a sweep in his corner. “Clear!”
Joseph led the agents to a door built into another building. He stood to the side before twisting the handle and opening the door with ease. Whether opened by Sheen or another agent, it had remained unlocked.
Right away he saw policemen checking rooms on the fifth floor of the neighboring building. Joseph’s mother had been right. Every available department was scouring the neighborhood for Sheen and his three bodyguards.
To the roof they went anyway. Joseph ran into another group of agents and barked at them to check the boiler room, in case Sheen was trying to make an escape via car.
No matter what, he wouldn’t get very far. That’s what Joseph told himself as he raced up seven flights of stairs to the rooftop. He’ll try to fly somewhere. Hopefully he doesn’t think Mexico is going to harbor him after word gets out he has Horatio Montoya’s daughter. There were rumors that some of Joseph’s more unscrupulous great uncles ran with a few powerful gangs. Blood ran deep with them. More so than a billionaire’s money.
The air was colder, fiercer up on this particular rooftop. The lights of Portland twinkled around them, but it wasn’t enough to illuminate Alexander Sheen and his associates, if they were up there. Down below on the street, dogs barked and howled. They must have had something of Sheen’s for the dogs to sniff.
But he’s mine.
If Joseph were a billionaire suddenly on the run, how the hell would he escape when law enforcement came crashing down? The man was not a magician. He could not disappear into thin air. No cars had been seen coming from the parking garages. Borders were posted in a two block radius in either direction. Sheen’s only hope was to bunker down somewhere and hope that nobody found him. Someplace that even dogs couldn’t sniff him out, for he had to have known that they would be brought out.
“Montoya!” The older agent picked something up with a gloved hand. “Wouldn’t happen to need an embroidered handkerchief, would you?”
Joseph glanced at the silk handkerchief stitched with the initials AS. “I knew he came through here.” The question now was where the hell had he gone?
The man had been spooked enough coming here. There was no way he didn’t have an escape plan developed far ahead of time.
“I’ve got blood over here!”
The other agent waved Joseph over to see a small trail of blood leading from the middle of the roof to a flat wall. It was fresh, too. Fresh enough that one of the agents could bend down and pick some up on his finger.
“Could one of them be injured?”
“Stella… I mean Agent Moore… had fired at one of the bodyguards before she was hit.”
“Took him this long to bleed?”
“More like he finally bled through his bandages like a squashed tomato.”
Joseph motioned to the wall. “How the hell did he get into a wall?”
The agent who found the blood reported it into his radio. Genevieve’s garbled voice came over the line, telling the three agents to hold their positions until backup arrived. All fine and dandy, except Joseph wasn’t about to let this mystery go unsolved.
“How old is this building?” Joseph asked. “Either of you got any idea?”
They both shrugged. “Almost a hundred years old? This part of town has been here as long as my grandfather has been. A lot of these buildings are from the early 20th century.”
“So… prohibition era?”
“What are you trying to say?”
Joseph motioned to the wall where the blood trail ended. “How much you want to bet this building used to be on the prohibition runners’ route?”
“Oh, shit.” The agent who found the blood looked something up on his phone. “I think there used to be a speakeasy or two around here.”
“Most likely. Can’t exactly separate a Portlander from his booze.”
“So, what say you two?” Joseph asked. “Where would a speakeasy store their goods?”
“Behind a false wall, obviously.”
“If you put it outside, it’s all the easier for runners to get to.”
“I like the way you think, Montoya.”
Someone’s voice came over a radio announcing a diversion of men from the stairwells to the rooftops. An agent responded by announcing where they thought Sheen might be. By then, Joseph was already searching the wall for a latch.
He found it in a groove between bricks. Wear and tear my ass. This was left here on purpose. The building’s owner probably thought it a clever trick worth keeping up with the times. Perhaps the office on the other side of this hidden storeroom used it for supplies or for mistress rendezvous. Joseph had a feeling that wasn’t what it was being used for right now.
“Get ready, guys.” Joseph loosened the latch. “I have no idea what’s coming.” And he wasn’t going to wait for backup. That truck could leave at any time.
Since the door opened in his direction, Joseph didn’t immediately see what happened. But one moment there was the wailing of police sirens, and the next came a barrage of bullets exploding in the cold autumn air. One of the agents Joseph brought with him went down. The other managed to leap behind a half wall in time for a bullet to graze his ear. Joseph readied his weapon and cautiously stepped out from behind the brick door.
The rooftop was chaos. A huge man dressed in black made for the fire escape. Another ran in the opposite direction. At first, Joseph half-expected the third to come out with more guns blazing, but by the time he rounded the door, he saw the bodyguard Stella had shot sprawled out on the concrete.
That only left Alexander Sheen… and Reina.
Half of Sheen’s pant leg was covered in his bodyguard’s blood. He also held a gun that he appeared completely competent of using. That was a huge misfortune for Joseph, for the gun was pointed at Reina’s temple.
“Stand back!” Sheen shouted, and yet Reina was the one screaming in terror, her sandals slipping against the concrete roof as Alexander hauled her toward the edge. Joseph kept his weapon at the ready. Behind him, the one agent who hadn’t been shot kept his position. Bullets flew down on the sidewalk. Footsteps pounded in the stairwell leading up to the roof. The agent who was currently unconscious and bleeding on the floor? His radio was popping with orders from Commander Stone.
Who appeared shortly thereafter, brandishing her backup weapon. “Fall back, Montoya!” she cried the moment she saw who was being held hostage. “I said fall back!”
“It’s over, Sheen!” Like fucking hell Joseph was falling back! That’s my sister, thank you very much. It couldn’t have been training that kept him so levelheaded in this moment. No way. After all, that was his sister crying, struggling to breathe, beaten and bleeding from the cuts lining her bare arms and legs. Sheen was not going to let go of her unless her brother shot her or they both toppled over the edge of the twelve-story building. I have to stay calm. Pretend you’re a full-blooded Stone for a moment. Would Genevieve have backed down if she came up here and saw her son being held hostage? Hell no. She would have calmly stood there like a cold statue, even if she was a hurricane inside. Joseph also didn’t doubt that his mother would put a bullet right between Sheen’s eyes.
As much as Joseph wanted to do that, he knew it seriously risked his sister’s life. A sister who was crying until tears fell down the arm keeping her in a choke hold. Her chipped nails pulled futilely at Sheen’s sleeve.
It was an image that would remain with Joseph for the rest of his life.
“I said it’s over!” Joseph kept his weapon as even as he could, although his arm threatened to tremble in rage. Don’t fuck this up. Don’t be the reason your sister dies. “Tell us where the truck is!”
“Fuck that!” The barrel of Sheen’s handgun dug into Reina’s temple. Her flat, greasy hair whipped pitifully in the wind. “Why the hell would I let go of my last paycheck?”
“Let me handle this, Montoya!” Genevieve’s arms were certainly more leveled than her son’s, but that didn’t say much. Joseph was on the verge of firing if he wasn’t careful. “Sheen! It’s over! We have you completely surrounded! Your bodyguards aren’t here anymore! You’ve got the blood of at least two agents on your hands already! Don’t have more added to that record!”
“And what am I going to do, huh?” Alexander’s laugh was as unusual as it was caustic. “Go to jail? Lose everything? Be like Xavier Crow and spend the rest of my life rotting in a low-security cell?”
If this guy thought he was getting anything but max security after tonight…
“We can work with you, Sheen!” Genevieve insisted. “Give us the girl, tell us where the truck is, give us all the information you have about your business, and we’ll make sure you’re nice and comfortable while you’re away at prison!”
“Or what?”
“Or you either die here or spend the rest of your life sharing a cell with five other guys who are a lot worse than you, Sheen! It’s up to you!”
The man’s face ran a nasty gamut. Was he afraid? Calculating? Determined to make these people feel the most amount of pain possible? Why am I even looking at him? Reina was the one killing him inside. There was no way his little sister was coming out of this situation the way she used to be. Joseph could already see the innocence burning right out of her scared, bewildered eyes.
“If it were really up to me, you would all be dead right now.” The gun smashed into Reina’s temple with renewed vigor.
One bullet went off.