Page 30 of Strangers in Love

“Thanks.”

“Stay safe, and let me know if there’s anythin’ else I can do for you.”

After Da hung up, I made one more call. Nobody had come out and told me how bad it’d been for my parents in March, but I’d heard enough to know that I had to put something in place, just in case something happened to me. Fortunately, I knew just the brother to do it.

“Eoin?”

“Brody. I have to make this quick.”

Twenty-Two

Eoin

I knewa lot of people would call my family snobs for having our own plane – multiple planes, actually, when counting the entire family as a whole. Much of the reason we practically owned our own fleet had less to do with us not wanting to fly commercial and more to do with practicality since we had business all over the world.

For example, a flight that took a little over two hours in the air meant around twice that amount of time spent. I understood why there was so much security, and I agreed that it was necessary, but in situations like this, waiting in line for who knew how long would’ve driven me crazy. With a private plane, that wasn’t an issue. I was able to be in Los Angeles and on my way to Cain’s apartment two-and-a-half hours after I checked out of my hotel.

When he opened the door, his face was so grim that, for a moment, I thought the girl we were supposed to rescue had been killed. Instead, he stepped aside and I went in.

“Thanks for coming. This is…fuck…” He ran his hand over his hair, still buzzed military-short even though he’d been out for a couple years.

“Anything new?” I dropped my bag next to his couch and tossed my jacket on top of it. I didn’t need one here, but it’d been cold when I’d left Seattle.

Cain shook his head. “I never met her, you know. Freedom’s sister, I mean. Aline wasn’t at Stanford when Freedom and I started dating. The kid’s four years younger than Freedom, so she’s only twenty-one, twenty-two.”

Now I understood his expression. He was thinking about this young woman, barely out of her teens, being held by an unknown group of people who could be doing all sorts of shit to her right now. My stomach turned as I realized she was around the same age as my baby sister, London.

“We’ll find her and bring her home.” I dropped my hand on Cain’s shoulder. “Tell me what I need to know.”

Cain gave himself a visible shake and refocused. “Freedom just sent me the link to the ransom video those bastards posted about thirty minutes ago. I haven’t watched it yet.”

He seemed almost embarrassed to say it, but I couldn’t really blame him. If it’d been someone with a personal connection to me, I would’ve waited the half hour so I didn’t have to watch it alone.

“All right, let’s do that first.” I followed Cain to the table where his laptop sat. “How much do the girls’ parents know?”

“They’ve seen the video.” He sat down and moved his chair to the side so I could pull another one up beside him. “They’re already talking to the authorities about paying the ransom, but they don’t know that Freedom asked me to get involved.”

“She doesn’t trust the kidnappers to let Aline go after they get their money.” I made it a statement rather than a question.

“Freedom’s the sort of person who plans for every contingency in day-to-day life,” Cain explained. “No way in hell she’s going to leave her beloved little sister’s fate up to a single plan.”

Something about the way he said it made me wonder why he and Freedom had broken up, but I wasn’t about to ask. Even if we hadn’t had anything else to do, Cain and I weren’t the sort of friends who talked about stuff like relationships. If it mattered to the mission, he’d tell me. If it didn’t, then I didn’t need to know.

“I downloaded the video as soon as Freedom sent me the link.” Cain pulled up a video file. “Good thing too. Exactly ninety minutes after it was posted, it came down, and every trace of it vanished.”

My eyebrows went up. “Vanished? I’m no tech genius, but I didn’t think anything vanished on the internet.”

“It doesn’t,” Cain said. “But sometimes it can take a while to dig it back up again. I’m still going to see if I can trace the IP address, but I think we’ll have better luck using other means to find Aline.”

He nodded toward the screen, and I focused on it.

Sitting front and center was a slender, delicate-looking woman, beautiful in a way that couldn’t be changed by dirt or circumstances. What I could see of her hair was pale, though I couldn’t really tell if it was blonde or light brown. She wore a traditional headscarf, long sleeves, and pants. All of which were grungy. When she glanced at the camera, it was too quick for me to see what color her eyes were, but then she started talking, and I turned my attention to what she was saying.

“My name is Aline Mercier, and I am an American citizen.” Her voice was low, but not soft exactly. It was firm and even as she read the script in her hand. “I was working in Iran and have been…taken by a group of concerned citizens of Iran. They have not hurt me, and as long as their demands are met, I won’t be. My parents, Gerard Mercier and Paulette Lutz, must gather together,” she frowned at the awkward sentence, “five million Euros and five million American dollars in two separate black bags to be dropped off at the Azadi Tower by noon this Thursday. Any sign of the authorities and I will be hurt. If the money is not delivered, I will be…killed.” Her eyes flicked up to the camera again, and they were as full of fear as I would’ve expected from someone in her situation, but there was something else there too.

She was pissed, I realized with a start.

This tiny, young woman had been taken against her will and had who knew what done to her, and instead of cowering in fear, she was angry.

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