The conference room was full. Mia was in her regular spot at the end of the table next to John. They were looking over surveillance video. Neal had flown back in as soon as I called to let him know Jessica was missing. Eric was talking to Sam on a laptop.

“What have we found?”

I took a quick look at the clock. It was seven p.m. The sun was setting, and Jessica had been kidnapped a few hours ago.

John leaned back in his chair. “I followed Jessica when she left here. She went to the airport, which confirms what Patty said. The plane I saw leave wasn’t Jessica’s family’s, nor was it ours. It was another plane.”

I picked up the photos from the airport. “So they want us to assume Jessica was on the family jet and it crashed. Sam, I think the family should come out and act like Jessica died in a plane crash. You need to plan a funeral.”

Sam ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “I think that might be too hard on Patty. She’s due any day now, and I don’t—”

Patty’s head popped into the video feed. “I will plan this stupid funeral as long as you promise to get my sister back. This little one will stay put until I get my sister here. I won’t have this baby without Jessica.” She sat down on Sam’s lap, and he wrapped his arms around her body, resting his hands on her stomach. “Get her back soon. I don’t know how many days I can keep this baby inside me.”

“Okay, team. We are going to announce publicly that Jessica died in a plane crash off the Atlantic coast on her way to Shialia.”

Neal jumped up and paced back and forth. “If she would have let us put another tracker inside her arm, we wouldn’t have this problem. And you!” Neal turned toward me. “If you hadn’t fucked up like an idiot, she would still have her GPS on.”

“I know I fucked up. But nevertheless, we need to locate Jessica. Stop pointing fingers, and let’s find her.”

Eric leaned forward and grabbed a donut from the middle of the table. “If I were them, I would take her back to where it all began.”

I looked at the big screen. Sam was shaking his head. “Not possible. The place was demolished a few years ago.”

I needed proof it was in shambles. “We need to take a closer look. Someone pull up the satellite imagery of where Jessica was originally held.”

Eric looked up. “Regarding Axmed, there’s not much information. No siblings. Parents dead. Spent his teenage years bouncing around group homes.”

“That doesn’t help us. Why did he originally kidnap Jessica?” I paced the room. It helped keep my mind running. “Was he after money, or was it something else?”

Mia grabbed a report from the conference room table. “From what it says in Sam’s report, at first, Axmed thought he had Patty. Then it seemed he developed an attraction to Jessica.”

I grabbed a piece of licorice off the table. “He has a funny way of showing attraction,” I grumbled.

“Jessica’s dad didn’t pay the ransom the last time she was kidnapped. Why would these men kidnap her again?” John asked.

Deep down in my bones, I didn’t believe there would be any ransom demand. “He wants Jessica for himself. Her being rescued screwed up some plan he’d hatched.”

I sat back down in my chair, rubbing the space between my eyes to relieve the tension.

“Sam, what reason were you given for not killing Axmed?”

Patty pushed Sam out of the way and appeared on the screen. “In the early years, Dad said he was trying to get information out of him. Over time, we forgot about him, and I stopped asking. Jessica has never been keen on having someone killed. I wanted his head on a stake. Anyway, when we came back, I tried again, but Dad keeps changing the subject every time I ask.”

Patty was a shark when it came to her sister. She would do anything to protect her. “Have you asked since Axmed escaped and Jessica was kidnapped?”

A frown formed on Sam’s face. “William went on vacation about an hour after Axmed escaped, and he is not answering his phone.” Sam had dark circles under his eyes from stress.

“Do we need to worry about him?”

Patty and Sam both replied, “No.”

Sam continued on. “He knows something. I think the information is damning to his image, and he isn’t sure how to tell us. We haven’t been able to tell him Jessica was taken. When we announce the funeral tomorrow, I hope he contacts us.”

The door to the conference room swooshed open. Sophie came storming in with a red-faced Daisy on her heels.

“Master Brock, Daisy tried to stop her. She walked right by me and stormed in here.” I had never seen Daisy so angry before.

Sophie had a stack of papers in her hand. “You’ll want the information I have. There wasn’t time for me to wait.”

“John, lock up Blackwood Security and email the club members that we’re closed for the night.”

Daisy was still fuming at how Sophie had treated her. Neal grabbed her by the hand and led her to his station. On his way to his chair, he grabbed a pillow off the couch, and Daisy kneeled next to him.

Sophie was handing out stacks of papers to the team.

I hoped Sophie had additional information that would help in the case. “Sophie, you want to explain why you burst in here and are taking over the meeting? You do know how to use a cell phone, right?”

Sophie turned on her heels and glared at me. “You are all taking too long to solve the case, so I took matters into my own hands. And I want every one of you to remember that I helped save Jessica.” She eyed each of us before continuing. “The intelligence I gathered will lead back to me, and when it does, people are going to be coming for me. But we’ll cross that bridge in a few weeks.”

She continued to take over the room like she owned the place. Sophie sat down at my computer and zoomed in on the satellite imagery. “They took her to the same place.”

Sam objected. “William told me that place was leveled.”

“Wrong. One facility on the property is gone, but look here.” She zoomed in on a building at the rear of the property.

This was the best lead we’d had in the case. “Let’s go.”

Eric sat back. “This is personal to you. Hell, it’s personal to all of us. But we need to formulate a plan of attack before heading in.”

A couple keystrokes later Sophie had two images up on the screen. One was Axmed. The other looked like his brother.

“Axmed has a brother. A twin, to be exact. He was trying to kidnap Jessica so he could exchange her for his brother’s release. Since Axmed is already out, Jessica is now his gift,” Sophie explained.

I hadn’t found this intel anywhere on the dark web. “Where are you getting this information? I need to check the source before we go in.”

She shook her head. “My source will come out in the next few weeks, unless I figure a way to cover my tracks. I also know why King William didn’t kill Axmed.”

The mention of why William didn’t kill Axmed piqued Patty’s interest. “How do you know this information?”

“I’ve read the report of someone who was in the room when William interrogated Axmed.”

Patty leaned in closer to the cameras. “I’ve read the same report.”

“No, you read the report your father wanted you to read.”

“Spit it out,” I prompted. The sooner Sophie spilled the information, the quicker I could rescue Jessica.

“Axmed and his brother, Ashkir, are Patty and Jessica’s half-brother,” Sophie explained.

I glanced at the computer screen to make sure Patty was okay. Her face was pale. Sam had her wrapped in his arms.

Patty recovered a few seconds later. “I don’t care who these men are. Brock, make me one promise. You will kill them both.” Patty closed the video link.

Sophie seemed more stressed now than when she arrived. She rose from my chair. “Abshir is the one behind your sex trafficking case. He puts other people in the light to make them look like the leaders while he sits in the background, pulling strings.”

Sophie turned on her heels and left the conference room in the same fashion she came in.

I pulled the phone out of my pocket and sent a text to the pilot, letting him know to have the plane ready to go in an hour. Then I took a second to digest all the information Sophie had given us. “Why would he kidnap his sister to start with?”

Eric spun in his chair. “He wanted to take over the throne. From what I read about this man, he was sent from group home to group home as an orphan. More than likely, he hates Jessica and Patty for their privileged life.”

His idea made sense. The reason to retake her was to make his father pay for keeping him in jail. We needed to get to Jessica soon. These men were after vengeance.

“That was a lot of info to take in. Let’s put together a plan of action and head to the airport. John, pack as many explosives as you can. I want to blow the place up. Everyone else, grab your guns, and let’s get Jessica back.”