Page 55 of Love and Loathing

“Okay. My usual fee applies.” His answer was instantaneous.

Charlie threw up his hands, then flinched back into the wall when Ike turned his stare on him. Charlie spoke quietly. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Alex, you can’t just hire people to kidnap other people for you.”

Ike grinned. “I don’t kidnap. All I’ll have to do is show up and explain the situation to them. They come back willingly. They always do.”

“Always?” Charlie’s brows shot up. “You do this a lot?”

Alex pointed to Ike. “He’s also a bounty hunter—didn’t I tell you that?”

Charlie placed his hands on the middle of the table. “No, you didn’t. Were you trying to scare the living daylights out of me?”

“Well, he is,” Alex said. “And because both Daniel and Jacob jumped bail, they’re free game. I called Ike because no one’s going to go to the Maldives to bring back a couple blue-collar criminals, unless they have some extra incentive to do so.”

“Speaking of which,” Ike said, dropping one massive hand palm up on the table.

Alex pulled an envelope from his wallet and put it in his hand.

Ike shoved it in his inside coat pocket. Just then, a waitress came over with a sandwich that not only looked good but smelled so amazing that Alex’s mouth watered. Charlie leaned closer and sniffed.

“You guys order anything?” Ike asked. “Their subs are the best in the city.”

Business concluded, Alex shook his head. “No, but we are now.”

* * *

Charlie was still eating his sub when they got back to Alex’s mother’s Central Park West apartment—or rather, he was eating his second sub. “Those sandwiches were like ambrosia.”

Alex and Charlie entered his mother’s penthouse apartment. Alex signaled to the sofa in the living room, a white plush thing that Alex typically hated to sit on, even though it was quite comfortable, out of fear he’d somehow managed to stain it. His mother liked white, black, and gold, and the apartment reflected that.

Charlie didn’t share Alex’s fear and plopped down on the couch. “Do you think he’ll actually be able to get them?”

“It’s why I asked him,” Alex said. “He’s the best.”

“So now what?” Charlie asked.

“We’re going back to Harvest Ranch.”

Charlie sat up. “We’re?”

Alex nodded.

Charlie sat up and leaned on his elbows. “I can’t. I’ve been gone too long.”

“Only a month,” Alex said.

“That’s long enough,” Charlie said. “No, there’s nothing left for me there.”

“She still loves you, Charlie.” Alex leaned back against the entertainment center. “I was with her and her family a week ago, remember?”

He shook his head. “It won’t work. Our business there is … over. We live here; they live there. A quick break is the best for all of us.”

“Actually, I’m not so sure. All this time, we’ve been telling ourselves we needed someone to guide us through making a development like this, but I don’t think we do. All we need is a good realtor, which we have, and some knockout marketing.” He pulled his phone from his pocket, turned the TV on, and screen-shared Jessie’s video, but he didn’t play it yet.

Charlie sat up straight. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Yep.”

“And it’s—”

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