Page 14 of Savage Protector
“But—”
The door bursts open, and Cristina hurtles in. “Are you all okay? I thought…” She flings herself into Ethan’s arms. “What were you even thinking?”
The Mafia boss regards the still unconscious girl. “A good question, sweetheart. Fancy joining me in a hot bath?”
“Idiot.” She punches him on the shoulder.
“Get dry and warmed up. We still need to finish that briefing. Reconvene in my office in an hour.” Ethan is still barking out orders as his wife drags him from the clinic.
Left with no option and all of us shivering uncontrollably, we let ourselves be herded outside. A hot bath sounds like a wonderful idea.
3
Zayn
Romeand I arrive together for the reconvened briefing. Ethan is at the head of the table, Tony to his left and Jack to his right. Aaron and Nicofollow us in, and we all help ourselves to a mug of the ubiquitous coffee from the fresh stuff brewing on the side table. Mrs McRae keeps it permanently topped up, I gather.
Ethan waits for us all to be seated, then, “Where were we?”
“Taking stock from the warehouse raid,” Jack reminds him. “As I said, we got our stuff back plus a little on top. There were three guards there, but they didn’t seem interested in putting up much of a fight. We left them tied up in the office.”
Ethan nods. “Good. Pity the same couldn’t be said for Gallagher and his crew. He lost five men on that roof and narrowly escaped with his own life. Nice shooting there, by the way, Zee.”
I shrug. “You said to leave him alive, boss.”
“I did. No point starting a war over a few kilos of product. It was to be a warning, demonstrating a principle.”
“Do you suppose anyone found him yet?” I wonder aloud.
“Unless he’s even more of a dickhead than I gave him credit for, he’ll have told someone where he was meeting us. His brother will have been searching for him long before now. I’m expecting to hear from him any time now.”
As if on cue, there’s a gentle knock on the door.
“Come in,” Ethan calls.
The gangly geek youth enters, a tablet balanced on the flat of his hand.
“Frankie?” Ethan’s brow furrows.
“Boss, sorry to disturb, again, but…I thought you’d want to see this.” He places the tablet on the table in front of Ethan. “I took a video.”
“A video? What video.”
“This video, boss.” Frankie hits a key on the tablet.
Ethan’s eyes narrow as he watches the footage. “I need to run that through again.”
“What is it, bro?” Aaron moves around to peer over his brother’s shoulder. “Oh. That looks like…”
Yes,” Frankie announces. “It is. They deliberately threw her into the water.”
Now we all cluster behind Ethan to view the short clip.
“The whole thing is about ten minutes long…I left it going when I ran down here to raise the alarm. But the business end of it is only about forty seconds. Watch this, it all starts right here.”
The video shows the small boat bobbing on the slight swell of the North Atlantic. Four figures can be clearly seen seated on the benches at the stern, with a fifth at the wheel. The girl’s vivid red dress is easy to spot. The rest of the boat’s occupants are men, two older, maybe in their fifties, and one younger, in his twenties, I’d say. They appear to be discussing something, with much finger wagging and angry expressions. The girl has her back to the camera so we can’t see whether she is participating or not, nor what her demeanour might be.
Suddenly, one of the older men gets to his feet. He’s standing over the girl, his face close to hers, his lips drawn back in a vicious snarl.
