Chapter 33—Gabe

“I was wondering when you were going to call,” Tobias says and laughs. His voice comes off all staticky with a rasp to it.

I have to actually take a moment to calm myself before I can talk to him.

“Give her back to me, you fucking prick. If you so much as harm a hair on her head, your fucking dick will be the least of your worries.” I’m going to kill him; wish I’d fucking done it when I had the chance to when he was right in my reach, and I held the gun in my hands. All I had to do was aim a little higher. Raise my hand just a little and shoot him in the head.

Now look at the shit we’re in.

Salvatore comes up to me and makes a gesture like he’s pressing his hands down, telling me to calm the fuck down.

I’m standing in my office at the club, and my brothers and Christian are here.

We’ve brought in Tony Sanchez, one of our cop associates who’s been trying to get a track on Tobias’s whereabouts. We’ve been hard at work for the last two hours trying to track this fucker and getting nowhere.

“Hmmm.” Is all Tobias says after the long silence and after my rant.

“What the fuck do you want? More money?” It’s always more money. These fucking people always want shit loads of money, and even when they get it like this motherfucker did, they still want more.

“Nope.” His simple answer cuts my thoughts.

“What the hell do you want, Tobias?”

“The game.”

I bare my teeth, seething. “Another game, more fucking games?”

He laughs. “Mr. Giordano, we are still playing the same game. We haven’t stopped, so I’m not sure what gave you the impression that we were about to start a new game. We aren’t. We’re just wrapping this one up.”

Shit! This motherfucker could have all manner of shit in store for me.

I hold on to my breath and think about how the fuck I’m going to do this.

“You bastard,” I hiss. If he’s listening close and paying attention, I’m sure he can hear the desperation in my tone. I look like a man on the edge. A man who looks like he’s about to lose everything. A fucking puppet, because right now I’ll do anything to get Charlotte back.

“Yes, I am,” he chants. “I am a fucking ruthless bastard, just like you, and right now, we want the same woman.”

Fuck. If only I hadn’t let her go.

If only I’d been more forceful. It wasn’t like I didn’t know she was in danger. But I let her go.

It was her words that fucking got to me. Hating me. That word specifically. Hate.

I knew what ‘hate’ meant for her. She hated Antonio. She hated Tobias. She never said as much, but I knew she blamed her father too for the past.

Her words pulled on my fears, all that I feared most for us. The worry of her hating me in any shape or form was something that hit me hard. I didn’t want to be another man in her life to let her down. I didn’t want to be another person to add to the fucked up past.

I wasn’t thinking logically. Not one fucking bit. If I were, I would have tied her up before allowing her to leave the damn house and land in this shit.

And fucking fuck, I just assumed she was going to her family. That’s what I thought.

“What do you want me to do?” I ask, and I hate the emotion I hear infused in my words. They’re laced with my love for my girl and my baby and the fear of losing them both.

My girl and my baby.

Jesus…. I can’t believe this madman has them, and I’m here going crazy.

What if he hurts her?

What do I do then? It’s fucking history repeating itself where I’m helpless, and I can’t do shit.

“I’ll send an address. Make sure you come alone.” Fucking prick. He hangs up as I’m about to answer.

I look at the phone, and the guys look at me with expectancy.

That fucking asshole made it sound like it was the first call I’d made, but it was just the first call he’d answered.

We were hoping to get a track on him because the number was showing as being at the coffeehouse, and Charlotte’s phone was switched off. The prick probably moved somewhere he wanted us to track.

“Seems like he was in a car driving by the Chicago River,” Tony says. “Doesn’t help much if he’s on the move. Can pick up location but not something static, and I can’t get a read on the car.”

“Yeah, that asshole played that well,” Vincent adds.

“He wants me to finish the game, he’s sending an address, and I’m to come alone,” I tell them.

Vincent’s already shaking his head. “You’re not doing that like fuck are you doing that, Gabriel.”

“Vincent, I won’t jeopardize Charlotte by bringing you guys.”

My phone pings with a message. I look at it and see it’s from Tobias.

All it says is:

Come to the entrance of the old mines at Black Creek. Get there by 5. COME Alone. No drama, no fuss…

This is shit.

That’s what this is. It’s shit.

I show the phone to Vincent, and he scowls.

“The old abandoned mines,” Vincent states.

“This just got so much worse.” Nick points out as if I don’t all-fucking-ready know that.

It means our plans have gone to hell. We have an elaborate setup we manage to wrangle most times when shit hits the fan. We don’t travel light. We run like an army. Go in like an army with lines of defense and guys watching our backs. Snipers who can see ahead so that we know what we’re doing and how to strike.

How the fuck are we going to do anything at Black Creek Mine? That entrance he’s talking about is at the bottom of a cave.

No one will be able to see anything in there.

“We’ll just have to go and see what happens,” Salvatore says.

“I need to go alone,” I insist.

“Gabriel, don’t fucking cross me,” Vincent shouts in my face. “Don’t fucking do it. You are my brother. You’re doing the same shit as Frankie, getting all ahead of yourself and running into shit by yourself.”

He’s not wrong.

That is what Frankie did.

Frankie did exactly that, and an innocent got caught up in the crossfire. So many similarities between Frankie and me I can’t count them all.

“Vincent, I don’t know what I’ll do if something happens to Charlotte and she’s carrying my child.”

“I know, but this is a damn trap. It always was and never claimed to be anything other than a fucked up trap. He put his mark on you, a fucking target on your back, you have to beat him at his own game, and it can’t be by yourself.”

“You go in the mine. We stay out,” Salvatore offers. “We stay out as backup, that way, we won’t piss him off.”

Vincent nods and looks over to Christian and Tony. “You guys stay here and wait for my call. I’ll need you to round people up if there’s more trouble.”

Christian nods and Vincent looks back at me. “Let’s go. Black Creek is a good ninety minutes from here in traffic.”

I nod, appreciating his help again but hating the uncertainty.

It’s three now. If we can get there before five, then we can station ourselves in time, and I guess see what happens next.

I look to Salvatore, and the one look gives the reminder of our conversation the other night.

To take care of Charlotte.

This feel of the day is not a good one.

The heaviness in my heart tugs on my soul because I’m not sure I’m going to make it back this side.

He knows what to do if that happens, and I know he won’t just allow Tobias to take my girl and my baby if something happens to me.

We travel in two separate cars.

I take the Ferrari, and the guys travel together.

As a child, I hated coming down to these parts on any kind of school trip or anything. The land around Black Creek is off-limits for two reasons.

The first is that to the average Joe, it looks like the place is dangerous and a hazard. But we know different because the other reason is the land is Antonella property, and it’s been known for smuggling and hiding shit.

The shit being bodies.

There’s always a stench about the place and the same fucked up stench hits me when I get down to the cave entrance.

I’m alone, but honestly, I take comfort knowing my brothers are around and they’re not far.

I don’t know what surveillance there is here. I won’t make the mistake of assuming there isn’t any just because of the dilapidated way the place looks.

Everything around screams danger.

The minute I see that it’s five, I call the bastard, and he answers on the first ring.

“I’m here,” I tell him.

“I can see that. Glad you followed orders and came alone.”

Good, he thinks I’m by myself, so that could mean the surveillance might not stretch past where I am.

“Times going, Tobias, what next? What the hell next? Where is Charlotte?”

He chuckles. “Steady tiger, you are right though; time’s going for you. I thought of a great way to finish off this game to make a lasting impression for everyone. I was thinking of something with a bit of classic flair. Eenie, meenie, money mo. Something like that.”

“Fuckkkkk!” I shout. “Get to the fucking point motherfucker.”

“Typical Giordano, always running ahead of yourself. There’s a bomb, and our lady love could be in the room with the said bomb that’s set to go off in one hour.”

Holy fuck, holy fucking hell!

No…

Why would he do this?

If he wants me, why would he do this?

“Son of a bitch, why? Why would you put her in a room with a bomb?” I’m shouting, and I can’t stop.

“You may want to hurry on up. The clock’s ticking.”

He hangs up, and I roar. It’s absolute shit and doesn’t make sense.

Of course, it doesn’t…

It doesn’t make sense because it simply doesn’t.

He wants Charlotte.

I want Charlotte. The problem is me, not her.

The bomb isn’t meant for her.

It’s meant for me.

It’s meant for me, and he knows I know he’s screwing with me. He knows too that I’ll still go in knowing that because I won’t want to risk her safety.

That fucker could have put the bomb near her, or on her, or some shit like that. The game could be me trying to get the bomb off her, or it could be anything.

Shit! Maybe she’s not even here. Maybe this is me going into my death.

That fucking psychotic motherfucker is fucking dead when I get my hands on him.

Whatever this fucked up game is, I have to go inside no matter what.

I have to go inside whether Charlotte is here or not.

It’s the risk I have to take.

And I will.