Charity's Passion (24 page)

There's someone behind him in the room that Justin is shaking hands with. I've seen him before, one of the soldiers from Panther.

Franco is in another room close by, maybe right next door, moaning incoherently.

"What happened to him?" Justin asks, not hiding the disappointment and agitation in his voice.

"Nothing, he's fine. He's just out of his fucking mind," Garrett defends gently. "He completely lost it when we picked him up. He started carrying on, screaming that we killed his baby. He wasn't making any sense and nothing was calming him down; we had to gag him just to get some control."

"His baby? He doesn't have any kids," Justin says.

Garrett shrugs his shoulders blankly.

Only Justin and I go into the room he’s in. They have him chained to a metal chair in a bathroom. As soon as we walk in his eyes set on Justin and he finally shuts up his constant moaning, his eyes growing wide like saucers.

Exactly the reaction we wanted.

"You know me Franco," Justin begins without yet taking out the rag that's visibly stuffed into Franco's mouth as a stopper. "You know I don't fuck around. This is what I do and I'm exceptional at it. You've paid me to do this yourself and you've benefited from my expertise. I'm going to chop parts right off you until you give me what I want. If you didn't know me, maybe you'd test me, but I'm hoping you'll be smarter than that."

Justin moves closer to him and somehow his eyes get even wider. I swear they might drop right out of their sockets.

"How do you contact Marker when you need him?" Justin demands as he tugs the rag out of Franco's mouth.

"P-Please, y-you don't understand," Franco pleads.

Justin slides his knife out and I step behind Franco; obviously he's not going to be smart about this. I grab his dark hair and pull his head back to expose his neck. He grunts in pain and I find it gratifying.

The big prick was almost responsible for my death!

Franco panics. "You're killing my little g-girl with every second! Please l-let me g-go, Justin, before it's too late for h-her."

There's something unsuspected in his voice, a believability I was not ready for. Tears stream down his cheeks.

Justin paces his knife behind Franco's ear, ready to take it off. My heart races, but not like it used to.

"Do whatever you want to me, Justin, but damn you for my daughter! Damn you for what you're doing to her!"

Justin leans close to his face. "You have three seconds to tell us what the hell you're talking about. You don't have any kids Franco."

"I have a little girl; she's almost ten. Her mother and I never married, and because of what I do, we didn't give her my name. We thought it would be safer for her and now Marker has her because of you." By now his chest is having in huge gulps of air, but it's not in concern for himself. "I don't want to betray John Roberts, I love the man, but this is my daughter. Just like you put Charity before everything, I put my daughter ahead of everyone—even myself."

After that, Franco becomes hysterical.

I can see it already—Justin believes him.

So do I.

It makes sense. Franco had always been loyal as far as we knew.

"What's her name?" I ask softly.

"Emma. She'll be t-ten in a few weeks, and I can't imagine how scared she is right now, what he's doing to her." Franco's voice cracks and hitches along the way.

Justin lowers the knife and I let go of his hair, but Franco is too distraught to notice.

"Just kill me if you're going to let her die. I c-couldn't bear the thought of living if she d-dies because of this."

"What happened?" Justin demands. "Where's her mother?"

Franco finally realizes we are listening to him. That starts more tears.

"I don't know how that bastard found out about her. No one but her mother has ever known that I'm Emma's father. Emma doesn't even know my real name in case they ask her at school or something. But he did find her."

"Where's her mother?" Justin repeats, trying to get to some details that can help us all.

"New York Presbyterian," He answers in a quivering voice. "I don't know if she's conscious yet; she wasn't last I checked. They don't know if she'll come out of it or not."

"How do you know it was Marker?" I ask.

"The bastard called me! He let her cry on the phone."

Franco lost it at the memory of his little girl crying. We had to wait for his chest heaving sobs to subside before we could continue, and I find myself patting and rubbing his shoulder to comfort him.

My eyes meet with Justin's above Franco's large head. I give him a very clear look that he had better understand.

He nods quickly.

Franco continues when he can. "He told me I had to do what he said or he'd kill her. She's so little, s-so scared."

"How do you contact him?" I ask.

"It's a Pandora's box thing," Franco says. "When I have something for him, I leave a chalk line on a mailbox—then he finds me."

"What's Emma's mother's name?" Justin demands suddenly.

"Amy Madden," He answers, confused.

Justin turns and heads out of the bathroom quickly. I know exactly what he's doing. He's going to have Garrett do a background in her, find out if she's really in the hospital, if she does have a daughter named Emma.

If it checks out—she becomes our priority!

"What's he doing?" Franco asks me.

"Seeing if you're a liar." I answer flatly.

"I'm not lying, I swear I'm not."

"Then he'll find out you're not."

"What then? What about my Emma? Marker will kill her, if he hasn't already," Franco sobs.

I'm not giving him anything yet. The test had to be passed first. "If you're lying, Franco, if you're lying about something like this—be afraid of me, not Justin. I'll make you hurt for a long time, longer than Justin would."

Franco shudders and falls silent.

It doesn't take long, not for some simple information. When Justin returns he has a bottle of water and a terribly sad look on his face.

"Untie him," he says softly.

Fuck!

I'm glad Franco didn't willingly betray us, but now there's an innocent little child in the middle of this, and that's more important to all of us now.

"What are you going to do?" Franco pleads as his hands come free. "Can you help me? Please help my Emma!"

"We will," Justin says, and that makes my heart soar. "We need to know some things, though, if you want your daughter to survive."

Franco takes the bottle from Justin, wrapping his fat, sausage-like fingers around it. "Anything. I'll tell you everything." Then he gulps half the bottle down and wipes the beads of sweat off his forehead.

"What does he know already; what did you tell him so far?" Justin asks as he leans against the sinks.

"Not much! I tried to tell him that I don't know shit about your operation. It's bigger than any of us know, I told him that. I gave him some addresses in the city, but he knew those already, and I knew you had a source up North, a few safe houses near Canada."

Now we know what happened to our decoy.

"Marker wasn't after what I knew, though. He was after what he thought I could get him. He wanted me to get him John Roberts. He said that was my
in
. I had to get John Roberts out of whatever hole you hid him down. I'm not important enough in this, he wants John Roberts."

"Then you'll get him John Roberts," I say comfortably.

They both look at me.

"We'll show him something he wants and flush him out where we want him. He doesn't know we're back, no one does. Let's make a mistake that he thinks he can use."

Justin gets me. "Contact Marker. You're going to tell him where John Roberts is."

"How does that help my Emma?" Franco pleads.

"Because we know where he has her," I tell him.

Franco looks stunned.

"What the fuck do you think we've been doing this whole time?" I snap.

"Hiding," he says as if it was that simple.

Justin scoffs. "Sometimes the best way to find someone is to let them follow you. You know where they are—right there in your trail."

"Marker had no idea where you were, and he couldn't find anyone else either," Franco says.

"We let Marker think we were hiding everyone. The only one we hid was John Roberts, everyone else went to work," Justin tells him. "While Marker was looking for us, my team was looking for someone looking for us. The closer he came, the closer we got to him. Someone was helping him, and that lead us to you. There are no more lose ends."

"We could have helped," I add. "If we knew about your daughter, we would have kept her safe."

Franco drops his head. He knows it's true. "Will you help her now?" He begs. "She d-doesn't deserve any of this." He's crying again, hard. Spit flies from his mouth. "She's the only thing I l-love in this w-world."

I never thought coming in here tonight that my heart would end up breaking.

"We'll get her, but you have to be convincing," Justin says. "Your daughter's life, and the lives of my soldiers rest on your ability to lie."

Justin lets some silence pass on purpose. "Call on Marker—make the signal."

FRANCO LEFT HIS MARK
on the mailbox just as we told him to do. We don't know when Marker will make contact with him, it's at his will, so we're on Franco around the clock waiting for it to happen.

While some of our men are watching Franco, Justin and I are joining the team monitoring the location we're sure he's using to hold the girl.

There's a whole new level of urgency in the air now. No one wants a little girl to die—least of all me.

I'm not sure I'm going to be able to handle it if she dies. No matter how you say it, some of it will be our fault.

How do I live with something like that?

Instead of answering that, I'm just going to believe that we will save her.

Marker is using an abandoned theater in Tribeca. It was perfect, really. The walls are soundproofed to meet code. No one would hear him—or the girl.

We are across the street in another building with an alley access. The door is plain but functional, and it offers a loud hollow echo when Justin knocks.

When it opens I'm startled to find Lena greeting us with a wide smile. I knew I'd see her soon, but I didn't know it would be here.

I do my best not to react until we are inside, then my arms are around her.

"I'm fine," she laughs, yet she's squeezing me back tightly.

"I see that, but I was so damn worried."

"I was pretty worried about you too, kid. But I knew you were in good hands."

I hear Justin laugh as he leans in and kisses her cheek while I'm still hugging her. It's not until I let her go that I see that Malcolm is here too.

Malcolm is much too serious to hug, but I do get a friendly smile returned to me.

There are two more soldiers diligently watching cameras that are aimed at the theater's exits. They are happy to see Justin, but they don't budge from their post.

"We found this place about the time you were arriving in Naples," Lena says. "We were watching everything, but it was the internet activity that got us on it. There were searches for flights to Canada right before our agents were hit, so we put the location on the short list. Malcolm and I have been here since, hoping we'd have him tied to a chair on an IV for you, but he's been smart about it. We have visual confirmation that there are people inside, but no visual on Marker."

We have to wait now; it's not safe for Emma if we go in while Marker is there—she could be his first shot. Everyone finds a quiet place to sit and confine our urges to race across the street for the sake of the little girl caught up in our mess. She doesn't give a shit about presidents and senators, about profits or revenge. The only thing she must be thinking about is her mother.

Suddenly I'm praying that she didn't see whatever Marker did to her, though I'm certain she did. What she must be going through, how terrifying are her nightmares that her mother might be dead and no one is coming for her.

Fucking tears!

I can practically hear Emma crying from across the street, begging me to come get her. I found a dirty window where I can see the front of the theater. The building looks sick and depressed, like it swallowed something bad and it's waiting for it to pass.

How can anyone be so dead inside to do this to a child? My fingers are trembling, desperate to wrap around Marker's throat and dig into his flesh. I'm angrier now than I have been since he shot Justin in the neck and left him for dead. All of that old anger is swirling back up into the mix now.

Franco had a picture of her in his wallet, but when I try to remember her smile I can only see her trembling with a lonely, desperate fear in some dark moldy room. She has her father's dark, black hair, but her eyes must be her mother's, wide and blue surrounded by long, angelic lashes.