Chapter 81

**Artemis**


“I’m sorry Artemis.” Rhea rests her hand on my shoulder and gives it a reassuring squeeze.

“He’ll talk eventually.” I tell her but she and I both know that our father would happily take everything to the grave if it meant that he would win.

“Maybe, but I know that you’ll find her. There has never been anything in this world that you can’t figure out.”

Her confidence is sweet but misplaced. I am a determined asshole but even I have my limits.

“I just need to go at him from another angle.” I stand from my old chair and walk around the desk to go talk to Dane when the door opens.

Alan walks in with Abigail under his arm. She’s curled into him, and her eyes are fixed on the ground in front of her.

“What are you guys doing here? Shouldn’t she be seen by a doctor?” Rhea asks.

Abigail looks up at my sister and shakes her head. “I’m fine.”

“That bruise on your face says otherwise.” I point out.

She can’t seem to look at me even when I’m speaking directly to her.

“She wanted to come here and help.” Alan says.

“It’s okay to take some time-“

“No!” Abigail shouts, cutting my sister off. “Blue saved my life. I have to help her.”

“What do you mean she saved your life? What happened?” I ask her.

“Let’s sit down.” Alan says before leading her over to the couches and helping her to sit down.

Rhea and I sit opposite them and wait for Abigail to speak. She’s shaking and Alan has to wrap his arm around her again before she calms down enough to speak again.

“She told the man who had us to let me go. She said that I was nobody and it wasn’t pointless to keep me. I didn’t think they would believe her but then there was a cloth over my mouth, and I woke up somewhere else. But she was alive when they took me away.” She lets out a weak laugh. “Better than alive. She was giving the guy some choice words before I left.”

I scoff. Of course, she was…smartass. Fuck I love that woman. I know inexplicably now. I just hope I’ll get the chance to tell her.

“Do you remember the guy’s face?” I ask Abigail.

She shakes her head. “He stood behind me which was why Blue was able to convince him to let me go. I hadn’t seen anything.”

“What about his voice? Would you remember it if you heard it again?”

“I think so.”

“Alan.” I don’t have to tell him what to do.

We already suspected him and I made arrangements to deal with him once we knew for sure and Abigail just confirmed everything. It was time to finish this.

He pulls out his phone and dials the number. Once it starts to ring he places it on speaker and sets it on the table in front of us.

“Alan. What can I do for you?” The familiar but bitter sounding voice causes Abigail to immediately tense up.

Her eyes are wide when she nods, and a tear falls down her cheek to emphasize the truth. This bastard had taken my wife and was keeping her captive somewhere.

“I was wondering if I could meet with you later this week.” Alan says.

I can tell its hard for him to keep his upbeat and friendly voice in tact when he knows this man is responsible for taking his wife. Thankfully he has always been a better actor than me, I prefer my distain for everyone to be absolutely clear. No point in faking it.

“Any business between us was finished when Artemis sent my men back. I won’t be working with your company again after the way he treated them and handle the matters of our contract.”

“No worries in that department. I don’t intend on working with you in the future either.” I say.

It goes silent for several seconds and I start to think maybe he’s hung up, but he’s to arrogant to do that. Just like another man I know.

“Artemis. How nice to hear your voice! To what do I owe the pleasure of speaking to you?” I can hear how proud of himself he is by the cocky tone of his voice.

He thinks he’s won something, but he has no idea the lengths I am willing to go to get my wife back.

“It’s not a pleasure at all. I would prefer never to speak or hear your voice again, but you did something incredibly stupid. For one you got into business with my father and secondly you took the one thing in this world I would kill to get back. See, I’m a smart guy too and I know how to make sure any crimes I commit against you would be impossible to point back to me. Which means I could get ride of you, and no one would be able to find you.”

There is another silent stand off before he starts laughing. “My god. I thought your father was a big talker, but you take the cake. What is it with you Rhodes and making yourselves sound like mob bosses with all this power, when you aren’t willing to get your hands dirty. See I’ve seen war and I have killed more people than you could imagine under the command of men with more power than you. So forgive me if I’m not intimidated by your pathetic threats.”

“You’re right. I’m not one to get my hands dirty, but see my wife has this way of making friends. She happened to make some very interesting friends on our way home from our honeymoon. I’ve had them on standby when I suspected you and now you have given them just what they need to find you.”

He laughs but it isn’t a confident one this time. He’s getting nervous. “So, you have a hacker tracking my call or something? I’m not stupid. I know how to scramble my location and far more. That whole IT issue we had was a set up, so cut out the grandstanding. You don’t have shit.”

My phone alerts me to a new message and I unlock it to see it’s from the General.

*General: Ready when you are.*

“It was nice talking to you, but I don’t expect to be hearing from you again. So let me say one last thing. Duck.”

*Me: Now!*

“What the-“ The line goes dead before he can say another word.

“Oh my god. Artemis what was that?” Rhea asks looking at me like she’s never seen me before.

“It was me cashing in a favor.”



**Blue**


This guy was all talk…should have known. Here I was a sitting target and telling him to pull the trigger, but he still won’t do it. To add to it he gets a phone call from a completely different phone than the one he had earlier.

“Alan-“ He steps away before I can hear him say anything else which sucks because why was Alan calling?

Did Abigail not make it out? Are they holding her somewhere else and asking Alan for a separate ransom of something? Shit. Did I screw up having them take her away? God I was so stupid. If she had been here then at least I would have been able to see for myself that she was okay, but now I won’t know. The only way I would know is if I get out of here, but it would be stupid to hope that will happen. If this guy is angry enough at Artemis to take me then he might want something more than simply money. He probably has a much bigger plan that has nothing to do with keeping me alive.

“Fuck!” I hear someone yell.

There is a bunch of yelling and maybe five guys come running in my direction but none of them stop to untie me or even seem to notice me.

“What’s going on?” I yell at them, but they don’t respond.

There’s another sound that sounds like rocks hitting metal and a lot more cussing.

“What the hell is happening?” I yell to anyone who didn’t run past me.

Still no answer. Only that same sound but louder and now that I can hear it better, I recognize the sound. It wasn’t rocks hitting metal…those are gun shots! Oh crap!

Even though I know it’s useless I try again to rub off the binds holding me. My skin feels like it’s on fire and my arms are burning but I don’t stop. I’m probably not going to have any skin left, but as long as I get out of here I don’t give a shit.

There is a couple more gun shots but then it goes silent. The kind of silent when you know things are about to get a whole lot worse. I stop fighting and wait for whoever has been shooting up the place finds me.

“Miss Blue, fancy finding you here.” My whole body deflates in relief when the General walks into my line of sight.

“Oh my god.” I say with a relieved breath. “General. It’s very nice seeing you so soon.”