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“Amethyst and I left Crystal at the house with Erik, the nanny, and the other security. We walked some, had an early dinner, and then spent some time alone at the hotel. Came back to find that,” I said.
I looked at him, waiting for the judgment. To think that I had encouraged, practically forced Amethyst to leave the house.
Now my daughter was gone, and it was my fault.
“Who knew you were going to be leaving?”
“No one but the guards, Erik, and the nanny Paulette,” I said.
“Then we’ll start there. Or at least I hope we will,” he said, frowning.
“I hope so too, but Erik and Paulette were in bad shape,” I said.
“The doctor is the best. If they can be saved, he’ll do it.”
He looked away, clearly thinking about what to do next, and I was again glad he was here. Thankful that he was doing for my family what I couldn’t.
“The men are dead. What about other security measures?” Elias asked.
I shook my head. “All neutralized, and the recordings were destroyed.”
“What about backups of the recordings?” he asked.
“I’ll check, but anyone good enough to get past my security would have considered backups. So they likely disabled recording before they went in and only took the server as a best practice,” I said, revealing how I would have approached my own security measures.
“So not random,” Elias said.
I nodded. “Definitely not.”
“And good,” he said.
“Very,” I responded. “They took out five of our guys, maybe six if Erik doesn’t make it. Knew about the security and took all of the countermeasures I would have. Definitely professional. Some of the best in the world.
“But why…” I trailed off, not wanting to give voice to what I was thinking.
Knowing I had no choice.
My daughter needed me, and right now, that meant thinking things, saying things that I didn’t even want to consider.
“Why did they take Crystal?”
I asked the question, thought that my heart might shatter into a thousand pieces as I said it.
I looked at Elias, and I could see that he wasn’t unaffected.
“There’s only one reason,” he finally said.
I nodded, knowing the answer before I’d even asked the question.
“Leverage,” we both said at the same time.
