Dane

He got to his feet with a groan and walked slowly to the window to stare at the lights outside. Pushed away a memory of Lila coming to him in the Penthouse the other night when he'd gotten in late and had been watching the city from their bedroom… and everything that had happened after. He swallowed and breathed and found the calm and stayed in it. Because that was what he needed.

​​

It was why his father had taught him to embrace it.

"What do we know so far?" he asked the room, though he hadn't turned. In the reflection of the window he saw Chris and Josh look at each other, and Tank frown. "Debrief me," he snapped.

Chris sighed and pressed his lips thin, but turned on his phone and started flipping through whatever he had on there.

"The image was sent to our main office email—the one that's on our website for general enquiries—at… nine fifty six tonight. So we have to figure he'd had her for at least an hour, probably longer, by that time. When did you last see her, Dane?"

Dane cleared his throat. What time had it been? "This afternoon. I'd have to… I'd have to check logs. Find out when I got back here with Yosif. I'd just left her then."

Chris nodded, "That was between one and two—we've been working on a timeline for today." He stared at the back of Dane's head for a second before he continued. "So, at some point between two and ten, he got her."

Dane closed his eyes. He could have had her for hours already. How had he been so stupid. When he opened his eyes, Chris was staring at him again, he wondered if he'd had the same thought.

"We called code red as soon as I saw the image. The team is tracking the email, though I doubt we'll find anything incriminating there. We already know it was sent from a local server—"

"Of course it was. He's not hiding from us," Dane snapped. "he sent it to a public email address so other staff would see it before I did." Dane felt something spiral in his gut, but it was far away, it didn't touch him. "He wanted me to know how far out of control I've gotten. Fine. He won that round." He turned to face the men. "There's no point treating this like a normal client, Chris. We know so much more about who's behind it—and so much less about how he's going to react to it—we have to think outside the box."

Josh said, "We do? You guys know who did this?"

Chris narrowed his eyes, but didn't respond to Josh. "Our systems are designed to—"

"Our systems were designed in direct response to his MO—you think he doesn't know that? He's playing a game. He's not going to do anything the normal way this time. I wouldn't be surprised if he's breaking his own rules and getting his own hands dirty just to fuck with me. So, no, Chris, we're not going to run this the usual way. We have to figure out something else."

"Are you guys going to tell us what you know, or are we all flying blind here?" Josh ground out.

Dane remembered Chris's suggestion that morning—to tell the staff about his father—and made a decision. "The man who has taken Lila is my father. He's the guy in organized crime who has a vendetta against me. He's the one we've been watching for all along."

Josh's mouth dropped open. "And you didn't think telling us this might help?" he spluttered.

"No. Because the more you knew about him, the more danger you were in."

"How the fuck can that be true?"

Dane whirled on Josh, "Because he's literally a government sanctioned spook and unless we play this right, he could slit her throat and hand her personally to the governor and all they'll do is cover for him, so no, Josh, I wasn't going to tell you all about him so that he maybe decided you were a target too!"

Josh's mouth opened and closed a couple times, then he looked at Chris.

Chris sighed. "It's true."

"You knew about this?"

"I grew up with him."

"Fuck," Josh said, raking his hand through his hair. "I mean… Fuck, Dane!"

Tank stood to the side, his massive arms folded, frowning.

Dane turned to him. "Are you pissed off at me for this too?"

Tank shrugged. "I don't know enough about this asshole to know if you made the right call or not. I just want to help Lila."

Her name on another man's lips sent a shiver down Dane's spine.

"Look," Dane said quietly, "right now he doesn't care about anyone except Lila and me. And he's waiting for me to make the next move, to try and get her back. It's a game to him—a power play. What I need to figure out is how to play it so he won't decide killing her is the best option."

Josh paled. "That's… he's… he would do that?"

"He would do that to any woman that he thought weakened me. He killed my sister when she backed me against him," Dane muttered and shook his head against the images that wanted to rise. The memories.

"Holy shit."

"So, I guess you're going to tell the staff then, huh, Dane?" Chris sighed.

"I guess I am."

"The plan you were already working on?" Chris asked.

"No, no." Dane screwed up his face. "You're right. It's worthless now. What I was planning... it doesn't work when he's already got her. I was going to try to… it doesn't matter. We're starting from scratch." He forced himself to look uncertain, unmoored. It wasn't hard. He felt like he was adrift.

He just wasn't confused about what he had to do. Or how important it was that no one else know about it.

They all stood there for a quiet second until Chris sighed. "Well, then, lets get started. Dane, first things first. You need to tell us where she was so we can figure out how he reached her, and see if we can get any leads out of that."

They all turned and looked at him.

Dane froze.