Page 39 of Kinknapped

"It was the Carnelli family," I informed her, showing the arrest report for Dante.

"Um, when you said unlawful, the organized crime families didn't come to mind. What the fuck did you guys do to piss them off?"

"Talon is known as The Cleaner to the families. He goes in after certain incidents to make it look like nothing happened. He had ajob a few days ago, so I'm betting something happened with that. The cops were still able to tie Dante to the kills."

"So they paid but want a refund from not being satisfied with the cleaning?"

"That's just it, though. Tal is thorough. His OCD doesn't allow room for error. There's always someone there to make sure the job gets done, and he came home with the money."

My fingers were back to the keys, pulling up the dash cam footage. I went to that day, seeing what might help me now. Lucinda scooted closer to view it, impressed we went to such lengths for protection. Like I'd ever let Tal have these jobs without it for this very reason. I scanned the videos for the date and time he'd been gone that day. This would take me a moment, so Luce went to the fridge after swearing under her breath that this would take forever before coming back with a string cheese for both of us to eat as I dug through the footage.

“Food now, so we can forget to eat later,” she muttered something that made sense.

I found the time stamped video I needed, seeing the van parked outside a warehouse. A man kept pacing next to the driver's side of car with his phone at his ear, so I scrolled back to make sure we could hear any detail that might help. The position blocked his face, being too close, but he missed the camera that recorded voices too. He looked nervous, checking the open garage door to make sure Talon didn't see him.

"You can't be calling me right now,"he hissed. Someone on the other end said something he needed to reply to."I told you, I have everything that will put the blame back on Dante. We knew he'd be stupid enough to come after our family, so everyone let me take some blood just in case. I also snagged the knife he used with his prints and more blood on it. It will at least be enough to hold him."

Someone said something else.

"Look, I'm having to watch The Cleaner roll up my brother and put his corpse on a fucking gurney right now! Don't tell me I'm not all in when it comes to destroying that family!" He hung up, smoking a cigarette to take the edge off.

Now that we heard who was at fault, I knew where to begin. I just had to capture his face on the cam better to run my facial recognition software. I fast-forwarded the clip to where he went into the building to verify the job. We knew his plan, so it wouldn't take much to use this against him, but I had another schemeup my sleeve. A penance needed paid for taking my family, and I'd do just that.

His face lit up my screen, so I pulled all the information on Fredrick (Freddy) Smith. Nearly scoffing, I couldn't believe the family fell for such a generic name. Clearly, it was a cover, so I pulled more to find it. Sure enough, someone covered a lot of tracks to not trace they made him a new identity over a year ago. His real name was Jamie Riviera, and he belonged to another family in the ring. A cousin who did things on the side. Almost two years ago, he had a brother 'disappear' and was never found. We knew his motive to join the Carnelli crew.

"He wanted revenge for his brother's death," Luce whispered, reading the same thing as me.

"And they just killed another brother..."

Sitting back, I let my software find the man we needed to get to. He'd be on the run because of his fear, so his address with his fake name wouldn’t show me shit. It took my computer a minute to find everything, so I built a folder to add the proof to. My case had to be foolproof.

"What if I have a crazy idea, but I'm not sure if it's my pain killers?" I asked her.

"I'd say tell me, and I'll decide. Sometimes, the good shit clears your mind to see what you need to."

"Tomorrow is the day we need to give Vicki back, but she's currently being detained at the Carnelli compound. What if there was a way to pin our kidnapping on the Carnellis?"

"I'd say it'd be a winning hand for you, but how would you make it work? Didn't you want a ransom? Are you good losing it?" She had a valid point.

"I think the Carnellis need to learn they can't mess with us. We can help them free Dante, but they'll have to pay back the ransom we collect for the reasons we planned to use it for."

"And how would you do that? And who is the ransom for?" She quirked her brow.

"The families who were laid off when a certain D'amour shut down a local factory. They didn't deserve to be left with nothing all at once, so they're getting a better severance package."

"So that's why Vic fell so hard for you guys. She has a weakness for white knights, and a bigger weakness when they're morally grey men."

"She doesn't know. We haven't told her why." Some butterflies found my middle when she mentioned me being morally grey because I knew that was all the rage in the dark romance world.

"Oh, fuck. You're going to make her wet herself from the front hole when you do." Luce let her mind wander for a moment before shaking it to get back to business. "Okay, so let's say the Carnellis don't kill them tonight, and that'll be a stretch, considering they like to take their revenge fast. How would we execute this plan in time to save them?"

She had a valid point. We needed to find a way to lead them on a goose chase long enough to devise this plan my brain began to form. I sat back in my chair as my arms crossed.How?

"Maybe we could just ask?" Luce shrugged. "Maybe tell him you can find the bad guy and free his son? If we show him our perp with the truth, he'll let our people walk too soon for us to pin the kidnapping on."

My computer dinged with a ping, locating Jamie at a rundown motel he planned to hide in. "Luce, you're a genius."

She snorted. "Tell me something I don't know. I was valedictorian, sugar tits."

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