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All I saw at first was a skinny body dressed in simple jeans and a sweater. No jacket to protect against the wind. And a mop of brown hair with just the little bit of curl.
And a fucking chain link collar around his neck that belonged on a guard dog, not a human being. Disgust and rage went through me, but I managed to stay focused. I needed to see his face.
“Turn around, damn it,” I whispered to myself.
Even though I knew the young man hadn’t heard me, he did just that and I nearly dropped the binoculars. Remy had been right. Even without the birthmark which I could see plain as day, he looked just like me.
“It’s him,” I breathed in disbelief. “It’s actually him.”
Magnus’s fingers pressed into my leg for the briefest of moments. I watched my brother and his escort enter the shop and then lowered the binoculars. “It’s him, Magnus,” I said, still reeling.
“I know, baby,” he said softly and then he kissed me.
I knew I needed to keep it together, even though all I wanted to do was go into that flower shop, get rid of the hulk of a man keeping watch over my little brother and take Aleks into my arms and tell him no one would ever lay another hand on him again. “You’re up,” I said to Magnus as I clenched my fingers into a fist in the hopes of stopping their shaking.
Magnus nodded and reached for the door handle. I grabbed his wrist and waited until his eyes were on me. “Be careful,” I said softly.
“I will,” he said before kissing me again and then getting out of the car. I pulled my gun from my back and held it on my lap as I used the binoculars to watch the driver of the Town Car. Magnus began jogging down the block towards the car and with his sweats, running shoes and knit cap, he looked like all the other runners who braved the winter weather to get their daily exercise in. And fortunately, there were enough people around that he didn’t stand out. He stopped on the far side of the car when he reached it and bent down, pretending to tie his shoe. With a flip of his wrist, he planted a tracking device in the wheel well of the car and then he was back up and running again. The driver of the car didn’t even spare him a glance. Relief was instantaneous as Magnus made his way around the block and out of sight. I turned on the app on my phone and smiled when the tracking device activated and showed up on my screen. With the busy Chicago traffic, we’d decided not to run the risk of losing the other car as we followed them or of staying too close and getting made.
Several minutes passed before Magnus dropped down into the driver’s seat, breathing hard. He’d clearly picked up the pace when he’d been running around the rest of the block to get back to me. We didn’t speak as we watched Aleks and the man return to the car, several packages of carefully wrapped flowers in their hands. The man put them in the trunk while Aleks climbed into the backseat. As they pulled away from the curb, we kept our distance. It took about forty-five minutes to arrive at our destination – a huge house in a suburb just north of the city. The Victorian style mansion sat on at least a dozen acres of perfectly manicured lawn surrounded by wrought iron fencing on all four sides and with Lake Michigan butting up against the back of the property.
“Fuck,” I murmured as I realized how tough it was going to be to get into the house. From where we were parked, I could see dozens of security cameras focused on the front of the house. Why the hell hadn’t we just risked it and snatched Aleks at the shop? Between Magnus and me, we could have taken the two men.
Yeah, except it would have been a fucking bloodbath.
“Look,” Magnus said. He’d been using the binoculars to scan the property. He handed them to me and pointed to the far right of the house where the land was more wooded. Movement caught my attention and I realized it was Aleks. He was walking towards a greenhouse, the flowers from the shop in hand. More importantly, he was alone – no guard.
“Let’s see if there’s a way in on that side of the property,” I said quickly. Magnus drove us around to that side of the house which was heavily wooded.
“We’re going to leave prints,” Magnus said as he scanned the ankle-deep snow.
“We have to risk it,” I said. “This may be the only chance of getting him alone.”
