Colby
“Now,” the Mayor says, slowly walking around the three of us with an amused look on his face. “What exactly am I going to do with you all?”
I resist the urge to tell him to go fuck himself. He does have a gun. This whole situation is a mess and there has been so many game changes in the last hour, I’m not sure who the actual bad guys are anymore. The Mayor scratches his chin thoughtfully, then reaches a hand out to help Nadia to her feet.
“You were magnificent my love,” he croons, dropping his lips to hers and pressing a chaste kiss on them.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Okay, I suck at keeping silent for too long. “How the fuck can you be all happy to see her? You do realize she’s been spreading herself for everything with a pulse since she set foot on this island, right?”
Stephenson offers a small shrug, one hand soothing the bristling Nadia as she scowls in my direction. “Feeling left out, Mr. Maitland? Evidently she didn’t offer you a round.”
“I’d have been more woman than he knows how to handle,” she giggles, shooting a smug look in Briella’s direction.
“Like he would ever touch that dirty snatch,” Bri shoots back. I can practically see the steam rising from her ears.
“Bri,” I grab her hand and pull her back, noticing that she’s all ready to smack the woman down. “Bitch be trippin’.”
She laughs despite herself but doesn’t take her eyes off the strange pair.
“I don’t understand. What was the point in all of this.”
The Mayor sighs and makes a show of cleaning the fingerprints from his gun. “Colm had become a liability. I didn’t want Calvin to take over… what’s not to understand?”
“So why not just stop making deals with them instead of all this needless death,” Bri scolds. She’s worked up. It doesn’t help that there’s a van full of girls on their way and we still aren’t sure if they’re headed towards danger or rescue.
He inspects the gun, then presses it into Nadia’s gloved hand. “I never liked Frankie McGregor, Colm O’Leary, whatever name you prefer to remember him by. We had an arrangement, one where I turned a blind eye to the gun and drug trade he was partial to in exchange for… favors.” He grins, exaggerating the word and I can guess the favors weren’t the party kind. “But all good things must come to an end, and Mr. O’Leary was becoming more and more demanding. You don’t just shake hands and walk away from a man like that, or a man like me for that matter. I needed them taken care of, far away from my city.”
“Keep him talking, we haven’t been able to narrow down your location yet,” Skylar chirps in my ear.
“I love it when they monologue,” Marcus whispers like a creeper.
“Keep your fucking hand off my ass,” Sky hisses, and I can hear Cross in the background trying not to laugh. My pulse relaxes slightly, knowing that we have them all back with us.
Bri squeezes my hand, letting me know that she can hear them too. “What about the women?”
The Mayor waves his hand dismissively. “The perfect cover, I couldn’t have planned it better myself. I have eyes and ears everywhere my dear, I heard the whispers that Calvin was planning something elaborate to knock his brother from his throne and take charge. Why do you think I planted you here? I needed blackmail material incase things didn’t quite go to plan, and your footage has been invaluable. Unfortunately, they’ll become casualties of war.”
This guy was worse than the lot of them. Who the fuck calls a boat load of kidnapped girls casualties of war?
I try to school my emotions as he turns to me with a calculated look. “Are you familiar with Greek mythology Mr. Maitland?”
Well fuck, he is actually going to monologue. Marcus is positively pissing his pants with laughter as the Mayor begins to tell me the tale of the Hydra, and how if you cut off one head, three grew back in its place. I wasn’t stupid. I watched Hercules when I was a kid.
“That’s a beautiful lesson, thanks for sharing,” I mock.
His face darkens. “I could have any one of you killed with a click of my finger, Colby. I recommend keeping your wise cracks to yourself.”
“Careful Colby,” Cross warns quietly.
I hold my hands up and bow my head. “My apologies Sir. It’s a very stressful situation.”
He regards me with shrewd eyes before continuing. “The Irish Mafia is much like the Hydra. By chopping off its head, namely Colm, there is already a small succession of people ready to take the position of head of the family. It can’t be stopped, but it can be handled. You’ve seen with your own eyes what they’re capable of, the depths they’ll go to. Calvin would have been worse than his brother ever was… but Colm’s son is much easier to deal with.”
“Colm has a son?” Bri asks in a flat tone. “There was no record of that.”
“There wouldn’t be, would there. Just as there is nothing linking you to Colm O’Leary.”
Fuck. Bri pales and clamps her mouth closed in defiance.
Stephenson chuckles. “It’s quite alright dear, in fact you should be grateful. Your brother is the only reason you and your colleagues won’t be found dead in the morning thanks to a tragic boating accident.”
“You son of a bitch,” I growl.
“Not by my hand of course.” He offers a slimy grin and takes Nadia’s hand in his. “We are of course grateful for everything you’ve done here. But I think it’s time we handed things over to the proper authorities.”
He glances at his watch and smiles when we hear a vehicle approaching. The van with the young women inside comes hurtling around the corner and stops mere inches from where we’re huddled. The door slings open and a figure dressed in black emerges. He removes his gloves and swaggers over to the Mayor, shucking his balaclava as he gets closer. Gomez grins… and Sydney sees red.
“You sick son of a bitch,” Sydney spits, launching herself at the man before I manage to snag her around the waist.
“It’s not worth it,” I whisper in her ear, ignoring the anger I can feel coming down the line from Cross.
“Ah yes, I believe he owes you an apology,” Stephenson laughs, patting the would-be rapist on the back. “It would seem Gomez took his acting skills a little too far. I assure you, he wouldn’t have hurt the girl.”
One look at the bastard’s face as he leers openly at Syd shows the lies for what they are. Gomez would have happily taken that woman against her will and I don’t, can’t think about what would have happened to Syd if we hadn’t gotten to her when we did.
“You can’t honestly think you’re gonna get away with double homicide?”
Stephenson gives a shrug and hands the revolver over to Gomez. “My dear boy, I don’t know what you mean!”
He turns his back and just as I think it’s now or never, my knees are swiped out from under me. A trio of blacked out guards tackle us to the ground and we never even saw the bastards coming. I grit my teeth as they roughly yank the girls arms behind their backs, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I’m shoved over onto my stomach, my hands getting the same treatment as Nadia giggles like a simpleton.
“Get your fucking hands off me,” Bri warns as she kicks out at an approaching Gomez. I watch, helpless to do anything as the gun is forced into her hands, sealing her fate. Her eyes widen as she locks them with my own. We’re being framed.
“Your turn lover boy,” the Mayor’s whore of a wife croons as she drops onto my back, straddling the tops of my thighs and making a show of feeling me up.
“Enjoy it while you can bitch,” I mutter darkly. I daren’t look at Bri, I can practically feel the anger pulsating from her.
She presses the gun into my hand, her nails digging into my skin as she squeezes my fingers around the trigger, just long enough to frame me as the suspect. I have to hand it to the duo, they’d thought this through.
The Mayor starts to leave once his wife returns to his side, then stops. He snaps his fingers, shaking his head with a chuckle.
“How silly of me, I almost forgot,” he says, pointing a finger at Gomez.
The man grins evilly and lifts a walkie-talkie to his lips. “Take out the trash boys.”
Loud bangs and shouts echo over the feed in our ears, the sounds of chaos deafening. Marcus and Cross are yelling, telling the girls to get down. A woman screams. Another shouts ‘No’… and then, nothing.