Page 80 of Playing Hard to Get

An image of Vivian sitting at a table in the middle of the room flashed up on the screen. My breath caught in my throat when I saw her. The way her hair tumbled down her back. The way her finger sat on the rim of her glass. Probably tracing it, the way she always did. The slight smile on her face as she looked at the screen of her phone. I had to push aside the memories of her touch, her smell, so I could pay attention to what Vinny said.

The screen flashed, the picture changing to one of Vivian sitting at the table across from that blond.

“Jason Davidson slipped something in her drink,” Vinny said. He pushed a button on the remote and the image on the screen moved, pausing only as Davidson dropped the twenty onto the waitress’ tray. His hand covered one of the glasses on the table, his eyes trained on Vivian as her eyes are on that tented bill. The video continued as Vinny said, “Then he takes her out of the bar.”

“How do you know she went unwillingly?” The voice belonged to my old buddy, Barnes. He had a smug look on his face, same as he always had back in that desert wasteland. Back before the bombs went off that shook apart my world and took the lives of some of my best friends.

I wanted to smack him. Didn’t care that he dropped everything and came running the minute Lee put out the call. He and Macevoy were here to help. Just hoped their help in this mission didn’t have the same result as the last one we were on.

Vinny’s cheek twitched under the dark bags that made their home under his eyes. “Multiple reasons,” he said, all smooth, calculated control. “For one, she’s in a serious relationship with Mitch. My sister’s not the type of person to go running off with random strangers when she’s seeing someone. For two.”

Vinny clicked the remote again. A still of Davidson pushing Vivian’s body in the side door of a minivan popped up on the screen. Her long legs dragged against the floor of the van, her dress bunched up around her butt, as Davidson carelessly tossed her inside.

“Not many people willingly let themselves be thrown in the back of a van.”

Barnes nodded, then leaned forward in his chair and looked across the living room to me. His eyebrows rose as a grin crept across his face. I ignored him and his attitude. Turned my eyes to Vinny, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees. Focused. I didn’t need his shit. Didn’t need him questioning me, questioning Viv. Didn’t need to be reminded that the woman I loved was in a league in a whole other universe than mine.

Vinny gave a slight shake of his head, like he was brushing off his annoyance. He pushed forward, his attention on what mattered. “We hacked into the traffic cams and followed the van out of town. It took a while to figure out where they went once they got away from the city. Cameras are few and far between out there and we had to hack into a global satellite imaging data center and look through hours of satellite imagery.”

Another picture flashed onto the screen. Greens and browns seeped together as the image cleared, the camera zooming in and focusing on the roof of a house. A mugshot of Davidson popped up in the upper right corner.

“We also looked into Davidson. His history, his family. Anything we could to figure out where he’s been, where he’s going. And that search directed our attention to where we needed to be. We found this property,” Vinny said, motioning to the screen. “A great aunt on his father’s side owns this little acreage in upstate New York. She’s been in a nursing home for years and is on the downward slide with dementia. Visitation logs showed a J. Davidson visiting her starting a year and a half ago.”

The picture zoomed in. Sitting there next to an old, dilapidated outbuilding was a green minivan. I sat up when I saw it. When I saw the tracks of footprints leading between the van and the front of the house. Even though I’d seen this before a dozen times. I didn’t want to be sitting here. I wanted to be moving. Be in that house, be doing everything in my power to bring home my girl.

“We believe she’s being held here,” Vinny said. He pushed his blond hair out of his eyes and looked out at us. “A few days ago, the satellites show the van leaving the house. But it’s back now. We’ve analyzed the footprints going to and from the van, and we’ve gone through every available satellite flyover of that area. We don’t believe she’s left the house.”

Lee got up from his seat on the arm of the couch, his large frame towering over Vinny. He gave a glare to Barnes and Macevoy and the two of them cowered into the couch cushions and stopped the whispers that were going between them.

My stomach churned. That I had to deal with them again. That I had to trust that they’d help bring home my girl when they were still acting like children. Like they did back in that desert hell. It was almost too much to take. I hung my head and stared at the swirl of white in the blue carpet below me. Tried to push down the sinking feeling I had inside.

“I’ve consulted with Vinny and his team about the best way to do the extraction,” Lee said, his booming voice hushed, like he didn’t want the neighbors to hear. “We’re taking a private jet from the airfield here to a place not too far from the acreage. Our bags are packed and loaded. We’ll go in fast and light. Most the team will head in the front, cause a distraction. We’ll have another small team sneak in the back. We think it’s the best way to get in and get out with the least amount of damage.”

I could feel the weight of the eyes falling upon me. Lee, Barnes, and Macevoy. They knew the kind of damage we were hoping to escape. Even Vinny knew now. I overheard Lee talking to him when they didn’t think I was nearby. Heard him speak of that day with the gravity it deserved. A warning of the shit we’d been through before.

They agreed there was no need to tell anyone else. That Cael and Weston didn’t need to know of that day that wrecked me in order to pull off this mission with us. And Marco and Frankie weren’t to be told. No need to worry them over things they couldn’t change.

Lee went over a few other basics of the plan. All the last-minute details would be hashed out once we were on the ground. But for now, it was just getting the team comfortable. Giving them a chance to warm up to the idea, to opt out if they didn’t think they could handle it.

I’d heard it all before. Helped Lee come up with the plan. I advocated to pull in more members of the security team, but he countered that they couldn't pull them out of their current assignments. He called in Barnes and Macevoy, felt they deserved a chance to help. Trusted that they could get the job done.

Lee was still using my gut. Like he did back in the day, he listened to me. Used my knowledge and skill to build up our best chance of success.

Made me feel better that everyone was giving him their undivided attention. Even Barnes had zeroed in on our old CO to listen to how this was going to go down.

When Lee was done, he and Vinny passed out fancy, high-tech comms that looked like some sort of Bluetooth headset for a cellphone. Vinny explained how they worked, what buttons to push to speak to the whole team or a single person.

“I'll be listening the whole time once you're on the ground,” Vinny said. “I've got Angel as our eye on the sky. He’s in the satellite data center keeping an eye on what is happening as we speak, so he’ll be able to tell us if there are any changes or anything we need to be aware of.”

Lee shot a glance toward Marco, then put in one last word. “We leave here in under an hour. If you have anything you need to do before we go, do it now.” With a sharp nod of his head, Lee dismissed us.

Pressing my palms to my eyes, I took a deep breath. Before I’d fully exhaled, something hit my foot. I looked up and found Barnes and Macevoy standing in front of me. Barnes had that smug look on his face as he stared down at me, and I braced myself for the bullshit that was to come.

“So, you and the rich chick, huh?”

I sat back in my chair and narrowed my eyes at this old friend of mine. “Her name is Vivian. And yeah, she’s my girl.”

“Lucky guy,” he said. His lips curled in a cross between a smirk and a scowl. Before he could say another word, Lee came over and clamped one of his giant paws on Barnes’ shoulder.