Page 51 of Capture
His black eyebrows cocked. “Better than I imagined. I warmed her up to it, and she kinda got emotional thinking about what she went through as a baby.” he lowered his gaze as he spoke, and I knew Annika captured him like Gunner and me.
His anger toward her was waning, and I felt a sense of relief. It wasn’t her fault. None of this was her fault. She was caught up in an adult world of mass manipulation and blackmail.
“Do you think Sylvie might come around and maybe even accept Annika back into the family?” I asked to see how he’d react, while reflecting on what Annika said when she didn’t realize I was listening.
She thought she was talking to Gunner, or the ghost of Gunner, if she was going mad or half asleep. Maybe she could see him there, but then tapped on the wall as if she genuinely thought he was there. It was evident she was deeply concerned about where he was and hoped he wasn’t hurt. She’s a nice girl.
He chuckled and shrugged. “You never know. It’s hard to tell with Sylvie. Besides, it was a phone call, so I couldn’t see her facial expressions as we spoke. Anyway,” I sensed a quick subject change coming, even though I wanted to put an idea past him that maybe Annika could be given a share of the business and be employed here in an administration position.
There were more pressing issues to discuss, but I won’t forget what I heard her say last night when she thought she was alone.
“Poppa,” he started flatly, unemotional, “Serg Popov. The man who died in a car crash nineteen years ago.”
“Organized by Lars?” I assumed, since it wasn’t uncommon for the Kaisers to squash a bug when it was getting on their nerves.
“Of course, but ah…” he waved his hand dismissively, “sounded like he was a problem.”
“He had a kid?” I pressed, wondering why Mikky brought it up.
“Yeah. Guess who?” he quipped.
“Annika,” I resigned as everything fell into place. Now it was making sense. “He was a shit father and a shit husband to the crazy cop, so the perfect man to have an accident.”
“Basically,” he sighed, checking the time on his phone. “Kept forcing Annika’s mom back on the game. Every time she gotclean, he was on her back again, wanting her to hit the streets. So after several months, Lars solved Annika’s mother’s problem by organizing a fatal accident. But it wasn’t enough and, in the end, Annika’s mother asked Lars and Sylvie to take her away for money.”
“She sold her kid?” My voice rose higher than I intended because I hadn’t heard that part of the story.
“Desperate people do desperate things. And I guess she was smart enough to notice that Lars and Sylvie would give Annika everything she needed and more,” he stated, standing up from his chair as I noticed a change in his demeanor. “I’ll head to the kitchen and grab a plate for Annika.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to do that?” I teased as a smirk appeared on his typically severe face. Yep, he was falling down the Annika rabbit hole hook, line, and sinker. Captured.
“No, it’s fine. I’m more than capable of serving the girl,” he stated, glancing at me from under his eyelashes, smugly eager to get down to see her.
“Fine,” I laughed, leaving the room as his phone went off, and I heard him answer it as he walked down the hallway to the elevator. But stalled and caught my attention by clicking his fingers, and then pointed to the phone pressed against his ear.
It was an Ivanov representative relaying their demands to Mikky, asking if we would ever see Gunner again.
“Where is he?” Mikky asked sternly, showing no fear. “Give me a location.”
The conversation lasted two minutes, and the caller did the majority of the talking. When Mikky swiped off, he seemed calm and in control.
“And? What do they want in exchange for Gunner?” I asked, keen to get Gunner back. It hadn’t been gone long, but it felt much longer, and we didn’t know what state he was being held in.
“As we suspected, they want the club back,” he replied flatly, then added, “For free.”
“Fuck off,” I snorted. “They can get stuffed. You bought fair and square. It’s their problem if they’re shit with money.”
“They also want $30 million clean cash,” he said nonchalantly as if it didn’t bother him because we had outsmarted them anyway.
I laughed. “Good try, bros. But they might have better luck pursuing a different career than being crime lords.”
“They’d have better luck being street cleaners,” he joked. “Juvenile.”
“So, have you decided what the plan of attack is to get Gunner back?” He’d been coy as to what he had decided: either go pick Gunner up, or allow Tindale to do it.
There were pros and cons to both, so it took careful consideration. We had a location until the GPS signal cut out, and Google Maps showed it to be open farmland with a handful of houses scattered across the land. If the van kept going that way, they’d end up at the river, but I had a sneaky suspicion that he was hidden in one of those houses. It made no sense to hide him too far away from the city center and from where we reside.
Mikky seemed in good spirits as he left to serve our girl, and I retreated to the office to find a message on my phone from Freddie.
