Chapter 61

Dean

Aleck and I were in my office. Brian was sitting on the couch doing recon; he was checking out the cameras that he had. Mac was doing research on Silas Reid. We needed to know who this idiot was and how capable he was.
“Boss, I’m in,” Brian said.

We walked over to him and looked at the laptop. And stood looking at the laptop. There were well over fifteen views.

“How many cameras does he have in that place?” Aleck asked.
“Boss, he has them all over; he has about twenty security cameras covering the outside alone. Every single inch of the house,” Brian said.

I saw movement on a corner of the screen. “What’s happening there?” I asked him, pointing at the screen. “Wait, I’ll pull it up,” he said.
When he opened the screen, we saw that fucker ripping her clothes off, and she started screaming. Fuck. Aleck walked away, and I looked at him.

“Boss, he has security alarms all around the house and in the house. I can try and could trip one,” Brian said.
“Do it,” Aleck said.

Brian did his thing. I kept my eye on the screen. I knew the minute Brian did it because we could hear the alarm, and he did too. He let go of her and ran out of the room. He ran straight to his office and grabbed a gun. We saw about ten security guards come out from God knows where and started looking around, but they couldn’t find anyone. I looked at the other screen and saw her sitting on the bed crying.

“Boss, he has security guards hidden on the compound,” Brian said.
“You’ll continue to trip the alarms at all hours of the day and night. Keep him guessing,” I said.

My office door opened, and Mac walked in. He handed me the folder. “Silas Reid’s information, Boss,” he said.
I took it from him and began reading.

Layla

I heard an alarm going off somewhere in the house, and Silas ran out of the room. I was grateful for that; I couldn’t help but cry silently. Why was he doing this to me? Why did my life have to be this way? I wish I were dead instead. I didn’t even know if or when I would be able to escape this place.

That night I didn’t go down for dinner; neither did he call me. I stayed locked in the room. I didn’t sleep all night. I was scared he would get angry again and return to the room and do something.

It has been two weeks since Marcella was here and two weeks since I began avoiding Silas in general. He would still come and get me and sit and listen to my heartbeat. One day I refused to sit down, and he hit me. That day. After that, I did what he asked me to do.

I was currently sitting on the couch, and he was listening to my heart when I heard the alarms going off. In the past two weeks, the alarms have been going off at all random hours of the day and night. The first night, the alarm went off at two in the morning; my room door burst open, and Silas was standing in the doorway. I didn’t say anything to him. I went back to sleep.

He didn’t seem bothered by the fact that the alarms were going off. He continued sitting there, listening to my heartbeat. I wanted to move, but I knew I couldn’t. After a few minutes, he stood up and looked at me.

“Why can’t you forgive me, Marie? I love you; please just give me one more chance,” he said, caressing my face.

He was delusional. “I’m Layla, not Marie,” I said, looking at him, and his face contorted in anger, and he slapped me. I looked at him and stood up. I walked to the kitchen, grabbed a knife, and walked back into the living room and looked at him.

“If the person I love can’t have me, then neither can you. You want Marie’s heart? I’ll fucking give it to you,” I said, raising the knife to my chest.

“WAIT, WAIT! Okay. OKAY. Okay, I’m sorry. I won’t touch you again. I’ll do anything you ask except let you go,” he said.
Suddenly, I heard gunshots. I looked at him. “I will be in my room,” I said, walking past him and heading up the stairs. It could only be them.

Aleck

When Dean handed the folder to me without a word, I knew it had to be bad. I sat and read about Silas Reid. I read the entire folder, and all I got from it was that he was a fucking sadist and deranged psychopath with money. He doesn’t have any family. He grew up in an orphanage. He got whatever he wanted by bullying people; he was abusive to his wife and everyone around him, and we knew we had to get her out of there.

Two days later, we were in the office. Brian was always keeping an eye on the security cameras. I was in my office when Diego called, saying he had something at home, so I headed home. I had just walked in when Dean pulled up.
Diego and Mac were standing outside waiting for us. “What do you have?” I asked.

“We have his men that were watching us. They are in the basement,” Mac said, so we headed down to the basement. When we walked in, five men were tied to chairs and bloody. I looked at Mac and Diego.

“We did the honor of torturing them for information. They report to him every three days if everything is normal. There is a secret bunker on the property where the security guards are. There are at least fifty of them. The house is rigged. There are sensors around the premises. If anyone or anything crosses the threshold, the sensors are triggered and alert the security guards,” Diego said.

“Thanks to them, we found a way. At the back of the house, where the cliff is, there is a ladder that leads up to the top of the hill. There aren’t any sensors there. They’ll provide us with a layout one way or the other on how to get to the bunker. We’ll use their phones to update him on the situation, so we won’t alert him,” Mac said.

“Okay then, get the layout. We can’t use the helicopter, so we’ll use the ferry. We’ll need a personal boat for this trip. We can’t just show up there. That place is basically nonexistent. We need to plan everything in order, and we’ll leave. And Mac,” I said, looking at him.

“If either of you get to Silas before we do, kill him,” I said.
“Of course, boss.”

It took us a week to finalize everything. Despite having money, getting onto that island was hard. It was small, and not many people lived there. Silas was the main head on that island, so we had to be careful he didn’t know we were coming. We paid a few people off for permission to visit and had everything squared away. A few days before we left New York, Diego and fifteen of the security details left for Cape Town. They would make sure everything was set and ready by the time we got there.

One month after we received her letter, at two that morning, we boarded the jet to South Africa. Dean, I, and another fifteen of our security detail, including Brian. It would take us fourteen hours nonstop to Cape Town, then another six days to actually get onto the island. So help me God. When we get her back, her ass is never leaving that house without me or Dean. The entire flight my mind was on her. I was worried if he would do anything to hurt her by the time we got there. Before we left, our parents, Andrew, and Mal told us to be careful and hurry and go back home with her.

I saw Dean looking at me. “She’ll be okay. She can handle herself. She has a nasty temper, and if he pushes her too hard and too far, then she may kill him before we get there,” he said, and I knew it was the truth because our baby girl could only tolerate so much. I hope Silas Reid finds out the hard way.