Page 17 of Defending it All

There was some interference on the call. Markus realized the disruptions were announcements over a loudspeaker. The kind you’d hear at an airport. Lukus appeared to have noticed too, as he looked down at his watch.

“Listen, I’d love to shoot the shit with you two all day, but I’ve got a few more important things to do. I always love Chicago in the spring,” Jake said breezily.

Lukus jumped in. “Nice bluff. Your receptionist said you just left an hour ago.”

“You mean the receptionist who works for me, and tells people what I ask her to say?”

Markus’s phone dinged with an incoming text message. He was set to ignore it until Jake goaded him.

“Maybe you should take a look at that text message I just sent.”

With dread, Markus flipped to his text messages and found a short clip that looked like it came from a security camera. It had a date/time stamp of a few minutes ago; 4:03 p.m. CDT. It was a grainy picture of Brianna and Tiffany walking to the door, turning off the lights, and locking up The Beauty Box.

Jake filled the silence as the men tried to recover from the kick to the balls that was seeing their women under surveillance by a sadistic predator. “I’ve thought about sending you a thank you note, Mitchell, for installing my company’s security devices in a lot of your clients’ locations, including The Beauty Box. It was so easy to tap into the feed with my little bag of tricks when I was there visiting your wife a few months ago, Lambert. I can’t thank you guys enough for sharing your women with me these last few months. They’ve provided me with many hours of viewing pleasure. I enjoy checking on them a couple of times a day.”

“You’re dead, you fucker. You touch one single hair on either of their heads and you’ll pray for death,” Lukus snapped.

Jake ignored the taunt. “You know, I have to say I’m a bit surprised you’re wasting your time on that O’Sullivan bitch, Mitchell. I’ve done my homework. I have to hand it to you, you have a lot more patience than I do. She may be one hot piece of ass, but she’s a royal bitch. Thanks for getting her training started. I must admit, I’m gonna have fun trying to break her. Gotta go guys, but thanks for leaving them unprotected. You really are making it too easy.”

The call dropped.

The men sat in silence, frozen in fear, until Lukus snapped out of it and placed a call, putting it on speakerphone.

“CJ. Tell me you have eyes on the girls.”

“Well, technically I only have eyes on Tiffany. They left the salon about five minutes ago, but they had separate cars. You didn’t tell me who to sick with so I stayed with Tiffany.”

Markus was furious and jumped in. “The bastard is on his way there, and it’s my wife, not Tiffany, he’s after. Get your ass over to my house, now.”

Lukus was not happy. “Listen, he’s made it clear he’s after both of them. Stick with Tiff, CJ. She’s just going home to change and then she’s gonna go over to Brianna’s anyway. You can guard them together there. But this is not a drill. Davenport has confirmed they are a target. Z is in the air on his way here. He can take over out here in California with Dylan. Markus and I are heading to the airport and will be home late tonight. This is escalating faster than we expected. We need to stay close to home now. I’m counting on you to keep them safe until we get there. Call in the police if you need to, do you hear me?”

“Yeah, boss. I hear you. I’ll call Sean and see if he can come out and help,” CJ said.

“Good. Text me with updates every twenty minutes. Bye.”

Lukus threw the car into gear and peeled out of the parking lot. “Get on the phone. Find us the next two seats to Chicago. Davenport has a couple hours’ head start. I’m not gonna rest easy until I have Tiff in my arms.”

“I don’t like being played. We’ve been taking this whole investigation too slow. We need to go on full-out offense.”

Markus had never seen Lukus look as menacing as he did as he maneuvered the rental car through the busy city traffic.

“I owe you an apology, Markus. I’ve been distracted, playing house with Tiffany. I haven’t been on my A-game for weeks. This whole investigation may have turned into a debacle, but trust me when I say it has my full attention now. That fucker has threatened my woman. He’s threatened your wife. He paid thugs to beat up my employee, putting him in the hospital, and he’s terrorizing countless other innocent women. I usually try to keep Z in check, but not this time. I’m turning him loose to get it done any way he needs to. If he wasn’t such a total prick, I’d almost feel sorry for Jake Davenport with Z on his ass.”

Chapter Six

Brianna

“Iget to pick the next movie. That one was silly,” Tiffany complained, as the second romantic comedy of the evening rolled to credits.

The best friends had obeyed, staying home at the Lamberts’, even though they were unhappy with the men in their lives. It was bad enough they’d missed the girls’ night out fun, but Brianna was equally upset that she’d been unable to reach Markus by phone for several hours. Tiffany wasn’t having any luck reaching Lukus, either. Not only did they have no idea where the men were, they also knew the men were hiding things from them.

“Tiff, I don’t want to watch any more movies. I’m sick of watching TV.”

“It’s only ten on a Friday night. I hardly think we should go to bed this early. You want to play chess? We haven’t played in forever.”

“What I want is for Markus to answer his damn phone,” Bri muttered.

“I hear you. I’ve left Lukus at least five text messages; he hasn’t had the decency to reply to any of them. This double standard is really pissing me off. If I went for hours without answering my phone, he’d have my ass.”

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