SIXTEEN
ZETH
An hour’s drive. That’s how far she took Sloane. If I were Alaska and I was planning on kidnapping the woman I love, I would have taken her to the other side of the world. No, that wouldn’t have been far enough. I would have taken her to the other side of the fucking universe. Because the moment I find Sloane and she’s safe is the moment the killing will begin. I don’t care what her motives are. I don’t care what she wants from me. Alaska won’t get what she’s after. She’ll get my gun pointed at her head, and she’s weep as I pull the fucking trigger.
“Slow down,” I hiss to Mason. “If we get pulled over by the cops, I’ll be using your ball sack for target practice.” I’m aware that threats are probably the last thing Mason needs in his life, but fuck. If anything comes between me and Sloane right now, I will not be held accountable for what happens afterward. Friend or foe, there will be repercussions. I watch out of the window as Seattle city proper fades and suburbia takes over. Neat little houses with picket fences and yards. Dogs on leashes. Kids riding bikes in the streets. The sky is gunmetal grey overhead, brooding and filled with the promise of rain. In the back seat, Michael’s been making calls since we left the gym, trying to gather more information on what Alaska has been doing for the last year. When Cade told us he’d killed Julio, I wasn’t surprised. The fat fucker had it coming to him, and after what he did to Cade’s legs…
But it was a surprise to hear that Perez had traded his favorite woman beforehand, had her sent south of the border. Apparently she wasn’t with the Villalobos cartel for very long. Which means she’s been in hiding, plotting, planning and scheming, though god only knows what.
Alaska’s message said to arrive at eight, but fuck that. It’s six-thirty when we arrive at the Redwood Cubs baseball field, and it’s just started to rain, large, fat drops of water hitting the Camaro’s windshield like the beating of a drum. The parking lot is empty, besides a garage truck on the other end of the vast stretch of concrete, which is slowly hauling dumpsters into the air, groaning mechanically as it up-ends them, emptying their contents into its oversized belly.
The field’s floodlights are lit, sending stark white light blazing out across the field beyond. The three of us get out of the Camaro, and I head around the back of the car, popping the trunk, taking out the large black bag that sits inside.
I haven’t brought an array of weapons with me to this meeting. I have brought just one, and I am going to take great delight in using it on Alaska when I finally lay my fucking hands on her. She’s going to scream. She’s going to beg. There used to be a time when I objected to hurting women, but that time has passed. No one gets to take something that belongs to me and use it to hold it against me. And to take my woman? That’s just fucking suicidal.
“You’re going to stay calm, right?” Michael says.
My hands still on the small black plastic box I’m holding. I give him a look out of the corner of my eye.
“Okay. That was a stupid question. I’ll rephrase. You’re going to stay calm enough to find out where Sloane is before you go ahead and kill her, right?”
I slip the contents of the small black box into my back pocket, frowning. “Of course.”
Michael looks dubious. He keeps his thoughts on the matter to himself, though. A wise move. I’m walking a fine line here. I’m barely holding onto my rage as it is. “Mason and I will look for Sloane while you deal with Alaska,” Michael says “I won’t bother telling you to play nice, but…”
I slam the trunk closed, staring at him, utterly still.
“Never mind.”
“All right. Let’s move then.”
******
Michael and Mason bust open the door to one of the external service entrances outside the stadium, wishing me luck before vanishing from sight. I walk out onto the field alone, scanning the entrances and exits to the huge, space. She’s picked this place specifically because of the rabbit warren of tunnels and pathways that riddle the structure—an easy place to hide in, should one feel so inclined.
Bitch.
Sloane’s here. I can tell she’s here somewhere, some part of me pulling towards her in the weirdest way. She’d better not be hurt. Julio’s whore had better not have harmed her or the baby in any way. The second I think about the baby, tight bands of steel constrict around my ribcage, making it almost impossible to breathe. I’ve never known fear like this. It’s devastating, to the point where I can’t even fucking see straight.
In the very middle of the field, I stop, spinning around, scanning the seating and the dugouts, searching for the woman brazen enough to fuck with my family. “Alaska!” My shout echoes around the stadium, repeating back to me once, twice, three times before fading into silence. Again, I draw in a deep lungful of air, and I split apart the silence with my rage. “ALASKA!”
I only have to wait a few moments before my eye catches on a bright flash of red, off to the right. Not just red hair. A red dress. Red shoes. She stands at the very top of a narrow stairway, leading up to the nosebleeds. I watch her, refusing to look away from her, as she saunters casually down the steps toward me, taking her time. Where are her men? I’m not stupid enough to believe she’s here on her own. I stand with my hands in my pockets as she walks her way across the field, body swaying in an overtly sexual way as she heads toward me. A small smile sits on her lips, glimmering in her eyes, not an ounce of fear on her. If she’s at all worried about pissing me off, she’s not showing it. To the contrary. She actually looks pleased to see me.
“Well, hello there, stranger,” she purrs. “Been a while.”
“You’ll be wish it was longer soon enough.”
“Oh, come on now, Zeth. No need to be like that. We’re alike, you and I. We both bent over and took it from our masters for so many years. And now, here we are, free of the men who ruled our lives.”
I wonder if she can read my disgust. “You’re the only whore here,” I inform her. “I worked for Charlie, but I was always my own man. I did as I saw fit.”
She laughs, the sound scathing. “Please. He said jump, you asked how high. Don’t pretend it was any other way. You forget how often you came to Julio’s as Charlie’s spymaster. Did you think Julio didn’t realize what you were doing there? You never touched any of his girls. You never touched me.”
“I didn’t touch you because the very sight of you made me gag, Alaska. You reeked of desperation. You fucking reek of it now.”
That annoying little smile on her face slips. “You’d be wise not to talk to me that way,” she warns.
“Or what? You’ll kill Sloane?” She remains silent, a quiet intensity pouring from her. “Where is she?” I demand. “And how the fuck do you think you’re gonna get away with this?”
“Sloane’s safe. She’s being watched over quite closely. It turns out we have a friend in common. Our mutual friend was very happy when they were reunited with your lovely girlfriend. I’ve never seen anyone so excited before. We’ll go down and see them soon. In the meantime, we’ll get down to brass tacks so to speak. You want to know what I’m playing at. You want to know why I took Sloane. Well, here. I’ll tell you. I took her because she stands in my way. The past few months, I’ve taken control of Julio’s territories in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. I’ve spread further east than Julio dared. And now I’m looking to the north. Seattle. San Francisco. These cities will be mine, Zeth, no matter what.”
Seriously? She wants the same thing Roberto wants. What the fuck is wrong with these people? None of them seem to be listening. “I don’t care if you want to claim Seattle,” I say. “I don’t care if you decide to stage a coup and burn the fucking city to the ground. You’ll have to war with the Barbieri for it, but I think you already know that. Go and head fucking kill each other for all I care. Just leave me and mine out of it.”
With infinite slowness, Alaska shakes her head from side to side. “No, Zeth. You don’t understand. I want to be queen of the east coast. But not only that. I want you to be by my side. I want you to be my king. And to do that, Sloane needs to vanish. She can’t be around any more to distract you. She needs to die. That is the only outcome of this situation. Especially since…” She falters, her expression flickering with rage. “Especially since she’s now pregnant with your baby.”
Every second she’s been talking, I’ve been picturing what she’s going to look like when the light fades from her eyes and she passes from this life and into the next. I’ve been imagining how fucking fantastic it’s going to feel as I pin her down and hold her in place as she dies. She’s fucking delusional. At some point since I saw her last, she’s actually gone and misplaced her mind. And now she’s talking about murdering Sloane, along with the baby, so she and I can be together?
“No need to look so troubled,” she says. “I love children. I’m still young. And Julio had to make me get four terminations over the years while I was with him, so I know I’m capable. You can still be a father. Just with me, instead of her.”
I blink at the woman standing opposite me. Can she hear herself? Does she have any idea how fucking insane she sounds? She seems far too mellow and calm right now to truly have a grasp on what’s happening. It’s like she’s medicated up to her eyeballs or something. “I’m going to give you one chance to tell me where she is, Alaska,” I tell her. “And if I find her with more than a hair out of place, I’m going to do far worse than kill you. You’re going to endure a living nightmare of pain and humiliation.”
She cocks her head to one side, her auburn curls shining like red ribbons under the floodlights. “Humiliation? You think I’m even capable of being humiliated anymore? After everything I went through at the compound?” She grimaces, her voice hoarse as she tips her head back and laughs. “I don’t think so. Did you know, Julio let kept me for himself all those years I was trapped out in the desert with him. He was so mad when he had to trade me with that sick Villalobos fuck, so to make himself feel better he allowed each and every one of his boys to take a turn with me before he gave me up. He watched, smoking one of those disgusting fucking cigars, drinking his beer, while one after another his men came and sank their dicks inside me. They spat on me. They came all over me. They pinned me down and squeezed my tits, bit my skin, spanked me, raped me repeatedly over and over again. Julio was a smart guy. By the time it was all over, he didn’t care about me anymore. He thought I was a revolting piece of trash, and he didn’t want to keep me any more. So I think, unfortunately for you, I’m all tapped out on the humiliation front these days.”
If I were a bigger man, I’d feel a tinge of something like pity for Alaska right now. Like all of Julio’s other women, I’m sure she had no choice in being at the compound. She was probably snatched from the street due to her unusual, admittedly beautiful appearance. Julio always did go for redheads. But… Does her suffering make it okay for her to cause suffering to others? No. No fucking way. My mouth is filled with the taste of copper. Blood. I’ve bitten the inside of my cheek.
“Sloane is underground, tied to a bed in the control room that monitors all of the stadium bells and whistles,” Alaska continues. “She hasn’t been harmed yet. I wanted you to be here, to see it, to witness it with your own two eyes. That way you’ll never doubt what happened. That she’s gone.”
I’m really fucking struggling to keep my cool here. She’s not making this easy at all. If she thinks for one second I’m going to stand by and watch Sloane be murdered, she has another thing coming. I am ready to fucking die before I allow that to happen. I want to feel the sickening crack of Alaska’s neck breaking beneath my hands. I want to hear the gurgling, choking sound of her suffocating as I cut off her air supply.
Such dark, dark thoughts.
Still, I bare my teeth at her, my hands itching by my sides. “Lead the way then. Let’s get this over with.”
******
Narrow, twisting walkways seem to stretch on forever beneath the stadium. Alaska is strangely trusting, walking ahead of me, not even worrying enough to occasionally look back over her shoulder at me as she navigates a pathway towards our location. If I were her, I’d be guiding me at gunpoint, safely from behind, but she didn’t bat an eyelid when she descended first down the steps into the darkness below. Flickering lights blink and hum angrily overhead.
It takes mere moments for Alaska to halt in her tracks, pointing at a heavy steel door. “Go ahead. Open it,” she says, gesturing to the handle.
I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to find in here, but my skin feels cold and clammy. I hold my breath as I jerk open the door and push it back to reveal…
My head spins.
I look to Alaska, trying to understand what’s going on here. Why Agent Denise Lowell is sitting on top of an unopened beer keg next to a gurney. On the gurney, a stark white sheet is draped over the shape of what appears to be a…a dead body.
My throat is instantly dry.
Lowell’s suddenly smiling, her face alive with happiness. It’s a terrifying sight to behold. “Mr. Mayfair! So glad to see you could make it.” She sounds like a fucking Bond villain. My eyes are fixed and locked on the gurney next to her; I cannot look away. Is it Sloane? I feel gutted from the inside out. It can’t be. It fucking can’t be. The body is…it’s too small. Too short. Too narrow at the shoulders. I take a step forward, and Lowell raises her arm, removing the safety from the gun she’s holding in her hand. “Don’t,” she warns. “I have every fucking right to shoot you in the head right now, you piece of shit. If you so much as take one more step in my direction…”
“What the fuck?” I snarl at Alaska. “Where is she? Where’s Sloane? And why the fuck is she here?”
Alaska saunters past me in the room, sighing. “Denise has been helping me for the last month or so. We’ve become quite good friends, haven’t we, Dee Dee?”
Lowell’s eyes flash with anger. “Don’t call me that.”
“Oops. Sorry.” Alaska pulls a face, cringing. “Still. It’s been kind of fun having a contact at the DEA to help me transition into my position of power. And having someone who can arrange a little misdirection here and there is, let’s face it, very convenient.”
“So you made a deal with the devil in order to avoid being arrested by the cops?”
She taps the end of her nose with her index finger, and then points it at me. “She’s obsessed with you and your girlfriend, this one. Made me promise she’d be the one to kill the girl.”
“I made you promise more than that,” Lowell hisses. “I made you promise I’d get to do it while he watched. And here we are. I’m one very happy girl.”
I refuse to say anything. I won’t engage either of them in this ridiculous game until they show me who is beneath that sheet. I fold my arms across my chest, and I wait. With every second that passes, I lose another small piece of my mind. It can’t be her. It can’t be her. It can’t be her.
“Aren’t you going to scream and shout?” Lowell sneers. “I thought you’d be a little less calm about this whole situation.”
I probably look calm on the outside. Inside, a tempest is raging. When I unleash the storm spinning out of control within me onto these women, they’re going to rue the day they ever heard the name Zeth Mayfair. For now, I merely arch an eyebrow, slowly shaking my head. “We can stand here all night, or you can quit fucking around and host your grand unveiling, bitch. Then we can move on to what comes next.”
Lowell makes a curious hmmming sound. “I wonder what does come next. See…you loved this woman,” she says, placing her hand on the gurney. “Loved her deeply. And I’m betting when you see what we’ve done to her body, you’re going to freak the fuck out just a little bit.”
A wave of nausea rolls over me. I swallow it down, breathing down my nose.
“Are you ready?” Lowell whispers.
I am going to rip her fucking tongue right out of her head before this day is over. I narrow my eyes at her, and she whips back the sheet, a look of sheer delight on her face.
And there, lying on the gurney…
Fuck.
Fucking god, no.
There, lying on the gurney, is my sister.