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“Fucking asshole,” I shout as I kick both of my legs back at whoever it was, but all I hit is air and the sound of laughter fills the van, followed by more Russian voices. There are at least four of them in here with me. I feel so fucking stupid getting ambushed like that.
What the fuck! I should have been more vigilant. We knew they were going to attack sooner or later, and I let my guard down. I was so fucking relieved to have those two drunken college girls off my hands that I took my eye off the ball. And now I’m in the back of some disgusting van that, for some reason, stinks of fucking sausages and bacon grease and it makes me want to vomit into the bag on my head.
Fuck! I hope someone saw something, and my brothers are already on their way. But what if nobody saw anything? What if these fuckers are going to shoot me in the head, dump me in some ditch somewhere before anyone even notices that I’m missing? What if I never see my brothers or Jessie again?
My heart races in my chest so fast that I feel like it’s going to burst through my ribcage. I try to take deep breaths, but the heavy cloth bag over my head doesn’t exactly make that easy and I start to hyperventilate as I struggle to get enough air into my lungs.
Fuck! I can’t breathe. I’m going to suffocate on the floor of this stinking, shit-box van. I can’t die like this. Not here.
Think, Liam! Stop fucking freaking out like a scared little kid and think! What did Dr. Lisa used to tell Conor to do when he was having a panic attack or a nightmare?
The window. Yeah, that was it. Draw a window in your mind and follow the lines.
Breathe in for two.
Hold.
Out for two.
Hold.
And repeat.
As my breathing rate slows, I get more air into my lungs and my heart starts to calm down too. They will notice I’ve gone. They’ll be looking for me right now. And they will come get me and take me home. And if they don’t, I will haunt them for the rest of their goddamn lives.
Chapter
Four
JESSIE
“Coffee, Red?” Mikey asks as he looks up at me from the laptop screen.
“Yes, please, I would love one,” I say as I rub my eyes. We have been staring at these damn screens for a solid two hours. As I suspected, whoever tampered with the security feed has wiped some of the other cameras too. Specifically, the camera in the alleyway, where Conor met his mystery lady, has ten minutes missing so there is no evidence of her. And when we checked the camera for the main entrance, the footage of her talking to one of the bouncers from earlier had been wiped too, making it much harder to track her.
Sure enough, when Mikey checked the VIP area, there was no footage to be found of the woman claiming to be me approaching the guy with the green hair either, and a full ten minutes had been wiped. It doesn’t mean that we can’t find and track these people, it just makes it a hell of a lot harder.
But what is worrying me most is that I am systematically working my way through every security camera along this street and every single one has been hacked, and each of them has had a crucial portion of time wiped so that I have been unable to get eyes on the van that Liam was taken in. Which not only means that we are dealing with someone who really knows their shit, but it could take me days to find him, and we don’t have that long.
“I’ll be back in five then,” Mikey says as he stands up and I smile at him because I can’t let him see how worried I am.
I’m still bent over the screen when I hear someone walking into the room a moment later. “That was quick,” I say without looking up.
“He didn’t know anything useful,” Conor replies and I look up to see him and Shane walking toward me.
“Really? Nothing at all?” I frown.
“No. You come up with anything yet?” Shane asks as he perches on the desk beside me.
I shake my head. “Nothing except that we are dealing with someone who knows their stuff.”
I briefly explain the problems I’ve been encountering and watch as the worry and concern settle over Shane and Conor’s faces.
“You can find him, though, Jessie?” Conor asks when I’m done.
“Yes. Of course I will.” I glance at the computer screen. Liam has now been gone for almost three hours and who the hell knows what they are doing to him. “But I had hoped I’d have something by now. At the very least, I’d have wanted to identify the van that they took him in.”
Conor sits on the sofa with his head in his hands while Shane nods solemnly. “What can we do to help?”
