“Who’s that?”
Techie pointed to the words on the screen: Jag’s brother Jake.
“Bullshit!” I roared. “I don’t have a fucking brother.”
Techie pulled up another document. Certificate of Birth. I read the words, not believing my eyes. Franco Jacob. My father’s name was in the father’s category, but his signature was nowhere on the document.
“It has to be fake.”
“Why the hell is it on Zan’s computer in a file marked family?” Val chided.
“He could have set all that shit up before he died.” I couldn’t believe anything on his computer was true.
“What if this is the guy?” Matteo asked.
“Son of a bitch!” I roared, balling my fists. “I have to get to Catarina. Techie, can you pull up her office and garage to see if she’s left yet? Val, call Scraper.”
“Sure thing.” Techie typed on the keyboard and pointed to two screens on the right.
“No answer,” Val said, putting his phone in his pocket.
“Shit.” I turned to the screens. Ghost’s back was to the camera as he placed something into the trunk of the car. He looked around the car, quickly getting in, but there was no Scraper. “Is she there?”
He backed the tape up and the sight before me shattered my resolve. “Fuck! Wait.” Ghost pulled Catarina’s body from the car, her hands and feet tied together. He opened the door to an identical black car, tossing her inside like a rag doll. Then he pulled a rag and liquid out of his pocket, placing it over her face. Her body fought, but then went limp. “Follow that fucking car. I don’t care what you have to do, but do not lose that car.”
“Move!” I yelled at the guys who all piled into different vehicles. “Dan, on the phone with Techie. Do. Not. Disconnect.”
“On it.” He dialed some numbers, and I did so myself.
“Sal, I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but Ghost has Catarina.”
“All right, what’s the problem?”
Frustration grew; he didn’t get it.
“He’s batting for the other team. He just fucking kidnapped and drugged her. We’re on the chase right now.”
“Fucking shit! Don’t lose her, Jag!” Sal screamed. “We’ll call for location.” He clicked the phone, no doubt calling in reinforcements.
The car jerked this way and that as Dan listened to Techie’s directions over the speaker in the car.
“Can you see in the car?” I asked, hoping for something to tell me she was all right.
“No.”
Fuck. Anger and frustration rode me hard.
I grabbed my gun, needing something to hold. When the car stopped, I would fucking kill him.
“You’re almost to them. They’re on Allison right now. Get there.”
Dan veered the car off in that direction. Up ahead, we saw the shiny black car.
“There it fucking is! Do not lose it!” I banged my fist on the seat, gun in hand, ready to blow the fucker to pieces.
“Turn left on Moffet,” Techie’s voice barked from the speaker. The car veered left. “Now right on Stenger.” Even though we could see the car, I still wanted Techie’s eyes. He could see more than we could through the security cameras along the roads. Thank you city of Rapid City, Rhode Island for providing them.
“He’s going into a high traffic area. Watch yourself. Cars are everywhere.” Techie’s voice reverberated with excitement while I sat with impatience.
The car jerked left and right, surprisingly not catching the eye of a cop.
“Left on Baker.” The car jolted.
Cars were everywhere, and they were not giving a shit where they were. Looking ahead, the black car was four cars ahead of us and gaining distance.
“Get around these slow motherfuckers!” I barked to Dan.
“I’m fucking trying.” He blared the horn. “Stupid son of a bitch!” My eyes never left the black car, but it was getting farther away.
“Techie, what the fuck?”
“Still on the same path. Expect to turn soon.”
Suddenly, horns began blaring and a loud crash hit the side of the car, propelling me against the window. The impact jostled the shit out of me.
“Boys!” I barked.
“Fine, boss,” they both answered.
“Techie?”
“Shit, you guys all right?”
I groaned, my neck feeling the pain of the blow. Smells started floating into the car.
“Fine. Where the fuck is the car?”
“Val’s on it.”
“You do not lose that car, Techie.”
The phone went dead as smoke and gases began hissing and leaking from the car, smelling of gas. Shit.
“Get out now!”
I only had one way out. I scrambled, pulling the door handle, but nothing happened. Both Dan and Brett were climbing out of Brett’s door while I starting kicking the door with all my force, freeing it and flinging it open. Dan and Brett were there, grabbing my body and pulling me away from the car just as it combusted in flames.
Chapter 19
FIVE FUCKING DAYS, nothing. After spending the night in the hospital because they fucking doped the shit out of me, I had gone through every fucking tape Techie had.
Val had lost the fucking car. Lost it. Techie said the fucking car had disappeared from view, and then it was gone. Sure enough, when I had looked at the damn footage, it was like it had vanished into thin air.
Luckily, Rex was fine with only a few scrapes on his leg from when he had been pulled out of the back of the car. He was working his ass off now, using every connection possible to find Catarina.
Scraper hadn’t fared as well as Rex. One of the janitors had found him bound and drugged in the basement of Catarina’s office building. His face was black and blue, his knuckles bleeding. He had put up a fight and hadn’t been taken easily. After a night in the hospital, he ended up being all right. He was also on a war path to find my girl, and he had a hard-on for finding Ghost—said he was his.
I had heard nothing about Catarina. I paced the floor. I didn’t know if she was fucking alive or dead, didn’t know if he was hurting her. Fucking nothing.
Sal and Vino bit everyone’s fucking head off at every turn, including mine. Ghost supposedly had no family to bring in and interrogate. It was one of the reasons Sal had picked him to guard Catarina. He had only had loyalty to her.
Val was fucking livid, and I had to get Rex on him just to calm his ass down. Rex finally laid him out. Hopefully, that had gotten the fucking point across because I didn’t have time to deal with his shit.
I stared at the tapes for hours and hours, trying to figure out where the fuck the car had gone. We put bounties out on Ghost’s head and searched his files. Nothing.
After digging through Zan’s computer more, Techie had come up with more pictures of this Jake person. My gut felt there was some kind of connection. Between the shit Zan had pulled, then Ghost, and now this mysterious, long-lost brother, it didn’t add up.
The only thing in existence on Jake, or Franco Jacob Maratelli was his birth certificate. Nothing else existed on him. I had even gone so far as breaking my mother’s heart by asking her. She had cried and cried, never thinking my father had been unfaithful to her. It had broken me having to tell my mother about my father. I hadn’t cried in a long damn time, but that had done it. Hearing the pain and anguish over the phone, along with not knowing about Catarina, had done me in.
We’d had guys search every abandoned building and drive through neighborhoods, but nothing. Even Rex had been hot on top of everything with his guys. He had found small bits and pieces, but nothing had led us to my girl.