Page 55 of Knot Letting Go
Talis stepped back toward the rear of the room and spoke quietly into his phone with orders to send a temporary travel ban to the nearby airports. He glanced over at me and added, “Pacetti will move them fast. I have contacts at both the international airport and the regional. We’ll keep them on the ground and find them.”
I nodded. What else could I say? Lorenzo would take them immediately back to his home territory. We’d never get Lillianna and Aubrielle back if he did that. The only way would be if I hired a small army to go in and extract them, and fuck, if it took my entire fortune, I would do it in an instant.
Here in town, we still had a chance. Lorenzo would have to go into hiding if he couldn’t fly, and he wasn’t a man used to hiding in sewers. No, he had luxurious tastes and would settle for nothing less.
“Found the departure point.” Levi froze his screen on a black car in the back of the parking lot. Aubrielle had picked up Lillianna from the stroller, and my daughter was clinging to her. The image was farther away and grainier than the one inside the museum, but it was them. “Add the car’s description and send it in to the local police. I’ll try to get the license plate, but I think it’s too far away from the camera and not at the right angle.”
The image seared into my brain. My daughter was terrified, and Aubrielle, fuck, she was so strong keeping ittogether. I would find Lorenzo. I would find him and make sure he would never hurt anyone I loved again.
Quill slapped the desk, his face red. “Follow the car with the traffic feed. Find them!”
“I can’t do that from here. Let me work on seeing if I can get the plate. They’ll already be on alert downtown at the station and start checking their feeds for the Sedan.” Levi didn’t even glance my brother’s way. His fingers flew over the keyboard, trying to close in on the image and make it clear.
“Fucking hell. I can’t just stand here and wait.” Quill was about to lose his shit. Dealing with him was the last thing I wanted to do, but I also felt what he was feeling right down to my core. My instincts were bellowing at me, telling me to do something, and it was to chase down Lorenzo myself.
It was time to hunt.
I grabbed Quill by the arm. “Once Lorenzo can’t fly out, he’s going to lock himself down in some swanky hotel penthouse. We can drive around to the hotels, give them Lillianna’s and Aubrielle’s descriptions, and be one step ahead of them.”
Talis exchanged a look with Levi who nodded, and then turned back to us. “That’s a good plan. Go to the places you think he might be. Let the people see your faces. Concerned family is sometimes more powerful than a criminal trying to bribe them to keep quiet. But stay nearby in case we do locate them.”
“We’ll keep our phones in sight and give you our location each place we go.” I didn’t wait for them to say anything else. Marching out of the office, I resisted the urge to push and shove my way through the people in the halls as Quill and I left the building.
Once outside, I nearly ran to my car with Quill right on my heels. We hopped in and I sped out of the lot, tires squealing.
Time was of the essence. Every second the girls were gone tore another layer of sanity away.
“You know fucking Talis told us this was a good idea to get us out of the way, right?” Quill grumbled from the passenger seat. He buckled his belt and pointed west. “Go to the resorts on the side of Young’s Bay. They’re the fanciest fucking shit in town.”
“I know,” I said through clenched teeth. I slammed on the brakes at a stop sign and then headed south. “Let them do their job. It’s what I hired them to do. They’re good at it. If they find them, they find them. The sooner, the better. Yet we weren’t any help there. But here’s the thing: none of them know Lorenzo like I do. I know the way the bastard thinks.”
“We’re going in the wrong direction.” Quill pointed at the next street that went west.
“No, we’re going out of town. Lorenzo’s not idiotic enough to draw attention to himself. I don’t think he’ll head north to Seattle or go as far as Portland to fly out. He’ll have his own plane. The closest small airport is Astoria Regional.” I zipped through a yellow light just as it was turning red. Nothing was going to stop me from following my gut. Lorenzo didn’t play by the book like Talis and the others thought. He was crafty and not above doing anything to get what he wanted. “Once he’s told there’s a travel ban, he’ll buy off someone there or kill them. And if he doesn’t get off the ground, he’s going to stay nearby, so he can leave as soon as possible.”
Quill scowled at me. “So why didn’t you say that to Talis?”
I could have had their professional team go in, but they would capture Lorenzo and his goons. They’d be put in jail and their sleazy lawyers would get them out and bring them back to Italy. Lorenzo would still be alive to torment everyone I loved another day.
I hadn’t said it out loud. I hadn’t even really said it clearly in my own head, but I wanted Lorenzo dead. I couldn’t trust anyone else to do it. It was bad enough the trouble he was causing our business, but he took my daughter and Aubrielle. There was no coming back from this. I didn’t care what happened to me as long as Lorenzo was dead and my girls were safe.
“Because I’m going to kill Lorenzo.” As the words came out of my mouth, it felt right. This was what I had to do.
“No, you’re not.” Quill came back immediately. “I am.”
What the fuck? No way. I refused to let my brother go down that path. Lorenzo was my responsibility. “He was my father-in-law, so he’s my problem.”
“He’s everyone’s problem now.” Quill shifted in his seat so that he partially faced me. His face was hardened and serious. Not an expression I’d ever seen on him before. “Look, Kon. Lilli needs you. If you get put in jail or shot and killed, she’ll never recover from it. Doesn’t matter if you kill Lorenzo and rescue her. She needs her dad, and you need her. Uncle Quill is expendable.”
“You’re fucking not.” I growled at him, gripping the steering wheel tighter.
“Okay, I’m not. But you are far more essential to Lilli’s well-being than I am.” Quill infuriated me all the more because he was right. Not that I was going to let him take on the weight of this. “I love that little girl to the moon and back, but you’re her dad. As for Aubrielle, fucking hell, I think I’m in love, bro. I’ve never felt this way about any woman. Someone has taken her from me, and now they’re going to die. I want her to have a happy life, and you can give it to her. She’s already the mother Lilli needs, and I’ve seen how Aubrielle gets past your cold exterior. You’ll be the perfect family.”
Coming to a stop sign, I slammed on the brakes and turned in my seat to grab the front of his shirt. “We are a family. Lillianna, you, me, and Aubrielle. Without you, it won’t be complete. So don’t be a self-sacrificing ass.”
“Pot.” Quill poked me in the chest and then jerked his thumb at himself. “Kettle.”
I snarled and turned back to face the front to drive on. I hated this. What I wanted, what the world needed, was to have Lorenzo gone. “Our family will never have peace as long as Lorenzo’s alive.”
