TWELVE
ZETH
Theo and Sal Barbieri are potentially two of the most violent, reckless, moronic people I’ve ever met. My introduction to them last night at the restaurant was an experience to say the least. Now that we’re all sitting together on a plane, heading back to Seattle, I’m getting rapidly tired of the sound of their voices.
“No, he’s dead already. You’re thinking of the iron born king dude that was pushed off that balcony in the storm. I’m talking about the guy who went north to the wall with that guy who has no fingers.”
“Little Finger?”
“No, he has all of his fingers.”
“Then who?”
“You know, the one with the weird accent. The one who fucked that red woman and the shadow assassin guy came out of her cu—”
“Will you both please shut the fuck up? This is a six-hour flight. If I have to sit through another fucking minute of you idiots rambling on about a TV show, I’m going to fucking land this fucking plane myself and shoot you both in the back of your fucking heads.”
On the other side of the aisle an elderly woman with reading glasses perched on the end of her nose sends me a near fatal death stare. I bare my teeth at her, and she quickly turns away, burying her head in her book.
Yeah, that’s right, lady. Keep fucking walking.
I’m not a multi-millionaire, but I do have plenty of money; I could have easily chartered a private jet back to Seattle. In the very least, it would have been easy enough to fly first class, but I figured the more people around, the better. That way, the Barbieri boys couldn’t try and kill me, and I couldn’t try and kill them.
My plan works. Just. Time seems to slow down until it feels like it’s moving fucking backwards. The moment we’re on the ground, my phone starts blowing up. Eighteen missed calls from Michael. The screen on my cell phone goes crazy, displaying text after text from my friend. Dread sinks deep into my bones as I read.
Michael: Call me as soon as you get this.
Michael: What time do you land?
Michael: Call me back.
Michael: Zeth, please call back ASAP!!
Michael: 911
And then, finally…
Michael: Sloane is missing.
“Whoa,” Sal Barbieri hisses. “What the fuck is going on? You look like you’re about to go nuclear.”
For a moment, I can’t speak. My jaw is clenched too tight, my teeth grinding together so hard. People are getting up out of their seats all around us, reaching up into the overhead lockers, pulling down their bags, chattering into their phones. I am glued to my seat, my heart thumping frantically in my chest. She’s missing? What the fuck does that mean, missing? She’s not answering her phone? He just can’t find her at the hospital? She’s dodged him and traveled home on her own?
I hit the call back button on the screen, holding the phone to my ear, holding my breath. The line rings just once before Michael answers.
“Thank god,” he says. “I’ve been going out of my mind.”
“Tell me,” I grit out.
“She went to go give a consult. When she didn’t come back, I searched the hospital. She’d just vanished. I bribed one of the security guards to let me watch the security cameras. She was taken into a stairwell by the nurse who came to get her, and then the feed from the underground parking lot shows her being taken away in a van. I’m sorry, man. Fuck, I am so sorry. I ran the plates on the van. It’s registered to some cleaning company. I called and they said the vehicle was stolen forty-eight hours ago. I have people working on tracing its journey from the hospital as we speak. We should know where they took her soon.”
I can’t move. I can’t fucking blink. My heart has quit it’s urgent thumping behind my ribcage and has ceased beating altogether.
“Zeth? God, just stay calm, okay? We’re going to find her. We’re going to get her back.”
“I know,” I whisper. “ Text me an address. Text me somewhere to meet you. Right now.” I hang up. Theo and Sal are watching with matching frowns on their faces, their eyes hard, flashing with curiosity.
“Something’s happened,” Theo says, excitement coloring his voice.
“I feel like we’re about to fuck some people up,” Sal adds.
Oh. Oh, he has no idea. Whoever has done this has just signed their own fucking death warrant. I’m not just going to kill some people. I’m going to tear them limb from limb. I’m going to peel the skin from their bodies. I’m going to torture them within an inch of their lives, and then I’m going to patch them back together, purely so I can cause them more pain. They’re going to suffer. They’re going to experience pain the likes of which they’ve never known before. I’m not just going to end the lives of the people responsible for this affront. I will destroy their families, their brothers, their sisters, their children, and their parents. Anyone they fucking love will pay the price for their actions. There will be no compassion. There will be no mercy. I get to my feet, my vision flashing red. I’m tumbling, falling down a rabbit hole of violence and death. People snap at me as I shove them out of the way, pushing them back into their seats so that they fall into one another as I force my way past them. My ears are deaf to their complaints. When I reach the front of the plane, the air hostess waiting by the still-closed exit gives me a cool, unimpressed look.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait your turn, sir. You can’t just barge past people and expect—” I take a step toward her, and she stops talking, registering the look on my face. Out of nowhere, Sandra, Michael’s airline contact appears, sliding herself in between my body and her colleagues.
“That’s okay, Michelle. This gentleman has severe claustrophobia, don’t you, sir. I’m his liaison. I’m going to escort him from the plane right now…okay, sir?” Her expression is grim, filled with warning, but I can’t heed her. Not right now. Not when the woman I love has been fucking kidnapped. She needs me. She needs me to find her, and I can’t do that if I’m trapped on this godforsaken tin can.
“Get. These. Fucking. Doors. Open. Right. Now.” I snarl.
Michelle still doesn’t look very happy with my attitude. Her imperious pout fades a little when she looks over my shoulder, though. Sal and Theo are right behind me, looking just as menacing as I do. A solitary furious passenger is one thing, but three… She arranges a forced, polite smile on her face.
“Don’t worry, gentleman. We’ll have you off here in a jiffy.”
******
I have an address, but it’s not the one Sloane has been taken to. She’s still nowhere to be found. Apparently the van driver who took her made sure to follow a route free from security cameras. Smart motherfuckers. They won’t have been that smart, though. They will have fucked up. They will have slipped up somewhere, made a fatal error along the way, and Michael will track them down. His guilt at losing Sloane means he won’t stop until he finds her.
He’s ashen when he opens the door to the house he asked me to meet him at. His suit jacket is gone, and his shirt is rumpled, his tie missing altogether. The haunted, desperate look in his eyes flickers when he sees the two men standing behind me.
“Theo and Sal Barbieri,” I tell him, as I slide past him into the house.
“What…why?
“We’re your bosses new protégés,” Sal offers helpfully, slapping Michael on the shoulder. “We heard you dropped the ball.” He tuts, shaking his head. “For shame.”
I wheel on him, charging back across the darkened living room I find myself in, and I shove him hard, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt. “Shut your fucking mouth. This isn’t his fault.”
Sal grins maniacally. “Isn’t it?” I raise a fist, flaring my nostrils, ready to smash my hand through his fucking head. Sal holds his hands up, laughing. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn’t mean anything by it. Just observing the facts. You asked your boy here to watch your girl, and she was snatched right out from under his nose.”
Theo places a hand on my arm—the one I’m using to pin his brother to the wall. “Let’s all take a moment to breathe. Sal, do as the man says and stop talking. You’re not endearing yourself to anyone right now.”
Sal bares his teeth, like he could give two shits about making himself endearing, but he gives a curt, resentful nod, inclining his head. I let him go.
“You two should go to the Blood and Roses gym over on Rosemont and Sacks. We’ll come and find you there once this has all been ironed out,” I say.
Theo’s mouth twitches. “And miss the perfect opportunity to observe how the infamous Zeth Mayfair metes out justice? I don’t think so.”
“I wasn’t asking.” The words are barely comprehensible. I’m so angry, wound so tight, that my speech comes out in a gravel-filled snarl. “You’re just going to get in the way. I won’t be held responsible for what happens to you if you cause trouble right now. Go to the gym.”
A silent confrontation follows. I don’t back down. Theo’s dark eyes are calculating and clear, annoyance clear as day shining from them. Still, he shrugs his shoulders, motioning to Sal. “C’mon. Let’s go. We can entertain ourselves, I’m sure.” Something in the way he says, “entertain ourselves,” makes me second-guess my decision to send them away, but it’s done now. I’ve dismissed them. And really, how would they be of any fucking help?
I pace the room from one side to the other as the two Barbieris leave. Once the front door slams closed, Michael starts talking. “He’s right, you know. Sal. This is my fault. They did take her right out from underneath me. I should have been—”
I wave him off, rubbing at my temples with my fingertips. “ Stop. Enough. You can’t watch her every second of every waking day, no matter how hard I might have you try.”
“But—”
“But nothing. This would have happened either way. These motherfuckers would have found a way to take her if they were really serious about it, no matter what.” It would be very easy for me to blame Michael for this. I’m blinded by my fury at the moment, and taking it out on him would feel justified. I know my friend, though. I know him. He’s diligent. He loves Sloane almost as much as I do, for fuck’s sake. The fact that she’s been taken is eating him alive. If I were to lie this at his feet, it would physically crush him.
“Where do we start looking?” I ask, my voice flat.
Michael makes a frustrated sound at the back of his throat. “Fuck. Without knowing what direction they headed in, I—I don’t know.” I can hear the pain in his voice, how hard it is for him to admit that. I can’t handle hearing the words, though. They make me feel fucking helpless. I pick up the closest object and hurl it at the wall, shouting out my rage. A vase smashes into a thousand pieces, sending tiny shards of glass scattering through the air. A polished silver bookend is next. A photo frame. A heavy wooden clock. The wall is dented and cracked by the time I run out of things to throw, but it’s not enough. I curl my fingers into a fist, and I throw all my weight behind the punch. My knuckles connect with the plasterwork. I lash out again, again, again, roaring at the top of my lungs.
Michael’s hands are on me, clamped on my shoulders, pulling me back. I fight him off, picking up a glass coffee table and hurling that, too. The crash of broken glass is deafening. The sound must bring me back to my senses. I stand there, chest heaving, surveying the destruction before me, my mind reeling.
She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s been taken.
“Who’s house is this?” I pant.
“It’s mine,” a voice behind me says. Standing in the doorway to the kitchen: a woman I didn’t think I’d ever lay eyes on again. Pippa Newan. Her right hand is heavily bandaged around what looks like a metal framework, and her whole arm is bound to her torso. She’s as white as a sheet, dark circles under her eyes, her lips tinged with blue, her hair tangled in random snarls all over head. In short, she looks like shit.
“You live in that apartment over—”
“I moved,” she informs me, cutting me off. “Just had the place decorated.”
I look again at the mess I’ve made, and I just don’t have it in me to fucking apologize. I sink down onto my knees. I’ve found myself in some pretty fucking dire situations before. I’ve been held at gunpoint; I’ve been attacked by groups of vicious bastards in prison; I’ve been half-drowned, and shot and stabbed. I’ve been hit by moving cars, and I’ve been trapped inside burning buildings. But never, never have I felt this close to death before. Because if Sloane is gone…there is nothing left for me.
A hand lands on my shoulder. I expect it to belong to Michael, but when I look up it’s Pippa who’s standing next to me. She looks like she’s been crying, her cheeks mottled with patches of red, her eyes bloodshot. “Don’t worry,” she says. “You know what she’s like. She’s strong. You know she’s going to be okay. I’ll help you any way I can.” Her features are set with determination. How did she even come to find out about this? How the fuck did Michael end up here, at her place? A million unanswered questions fire around the inside of my head, but I don’t have the time or the energy to ask them now. I need all of my mental focus trained on finding Sloane.
I take a deep breath. I’m about to get up. I’m about to drag myself to my feet, to pull myself together and start formulating a plan of action, when my phone chimes in the back pocket of my jeans. A cold, stony fist squeezes around my heart. Somehow, I fucking know the message I’ve just received is about her, and for a second I’m too worried to look. Michael holds out his hand.
“Give it to me. Let me see,” he says softly.
I’m numb as I hand over the device. Michael reads quickly, his mouth flattening into a grim, straight line.
“Well? What is it?”
He looks down at me, where I’m still kneeling in amongst a debris field of shattered furniture and broken glass, and he looks like he’s struggling to find his voice. Eventually, he speaks, and my blood run cold.
“You’re not going to like it.”