Page 6 of Sinner's Ransom: Taken
Chapter Two
Salvatore slapped the photo up on the corkboard, stabbing it with a pin. He stepped back to stare at his handiwork and nodded. “Gentlemen, this is our target. His name is Montgomery Booker, and he’s the son to the owner of Booker Industries. He’s worth billions, and if we play our cards right, we’ll be the ones worth that amount of money.”
George grunted from the frail chair he sat in. It creaked when he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. He was the oldest out of the group, but also one of the most intelligent, and Stone’s long-time friend, which was why Stone brought him on board to begin with. “If the boy is worth billions, his dad ain’t going to give us all his worth to save his son.”
There were two other men in the room besides Stone. Jam and Romano were seated on white plastic chairs near him: Jam, the youngest and least experienced at this sort of thing, and Romano, who only had a few more jobs beneath his belt. But everything they’d done before had led to this moment. Kidnapping Booker’s son.
Salvatore spun toward George and shoved his finger against the photo. “If it’s to save his son’s life, he would.”
George stood, his knees popping with the movement, then crossed his arms. He had a large scar that ran along the length of his forearm where he’d been tortured by a mob boss quite a few years back. Killough was a tough son of a bitch, but George was tougher, which is why he did some work for Killough once the torturing was over and done with. According to George—all was fair in business and war.
“You obviously don’t know how a billionaire’s mind works, Sal. Let me bring you up to speed.” He stepped closer, using his height to stare down the younger man. “Billionaires like Booker worked hard for their money. He worked, bribed, and blackmailed his way up to that sort of cash, and he won’t let anyone, his son included, take that money off him.”
“My cousin told me that Booker always pays for shit to get his son out of trouble. He paid my cousin handsomely to get Montgomery’s victim to drop assault charges after the spoiled prick got his buddy to beat the hell out of him. I’m telling you, Booker will pay the ransom.”
Stone sighed, arguing would get them nowhere. He rose from his seat in the corner of the warehouse and strode toward them. His approach made them fall silent, four stoic sets of eyes watching him carefully. Even George waited, and Stone appreciated that. For the other three crew members, it was about fear and what Stone would do to them if they opened their mouth, but with George it was about respect.
He stepped up to the photo and stared. Montgomery Booker was a gorgeous man, from his soft, emerald eyes to the twist of a smirk on his plump lips. He had a nice face, symmetrical, but from that smug expression on it, he knew it too. His brown hair flopped on his head, soaked from a recent dip in the pool, and he had a nice body, if the picture said anything. Even though the photo was taken from bushes, looking onto the pool area, Stone could see the hard lines of his abs from the work he did in his own personal gym. That’s what happened when you had all the free time in the world to work on your body, Stone supposed. Not that Stone would know because he got his from hard labor, working double shifts at the construction site before he turned to the criminal business.
“George is right. Booker won’t give us a large sum of money. We need to take this seriously.”
“But Stone—”
Stone held up his palm toward Salvatore, stare firm when he looked at him. “Booker loves his money. He’s not going to give it up without a fight. Yeah, he does pay people to keep their mouth shut for his son, but that’s nothing compared to the money we’re going to be asking for.” He glanced around at the other two men sitting quietly in their seats.
Romano made some gestures at him with his hands and Stone raised his hand in acknowledgement. Romano couldn’t speak, even if he wanted to, not since he’d had his tongue cut out. Stone didn’t know much sign langue, but he knew enough to understand.
Jam could speak, but he chose not to. Like Romano, he was a follower, but also very young. He reminded Stone a bit of his own sister, Kate, if she’d been alive these days. Jam had a tuft of dark curly ringlets springing from his skull, and big brown eyes, wide and begging for the next order. Kate was similar in a lot of ways. She’d followed Stone wherever he led her, until their dad’s death. After that, she lost her way.
Stone shook his head. He couldn’t think about that right now.
“I brought this crew together because we’ve all be wronged by Booker, but if we want to get justice by taking his money, we need to tread carefully.”
“Right.” George tapped the photo. “And this boy is only a tool for Booker as well. Men like Booker don’t care about their kids, not like an ordinary father does.”
“When do we have an opportunity to snatch him?” Stone asked, looking at the photo again. Something stirred inside of him, an unfamiliar desire that clenched at his stomach. He’d had hot men like Montgomery in his bed before, but there was something about that smirk—smugness—that made Stone crave dominance over him. He wanted to put him in his place.
“Next week. He’s got a court date.” Salvatore shrugged. “It’s the only chance we’re going to get. The gated community they live in has plenty of security, and the chances of getting in there are slim. He goes on benders every now and then outside of his house, but we don’t know when he’ll go on his next one, and even if we do spot him on one, kidnapping him without being seen will be impossible. If we grab him next week, we’ll only have to deal with a few bodyguards. We can either pay them off like Booker does to people, or we can knock them out.”
“We might need to do both,” George muttered.
Stone rubbed his chin and glanced at the multiple sheets of paper—reports and information—Salvatore had stuck to the corkboard. He’d dug deep to get as much intel about Montgomery and his father as he could, and it went as far as to mention every person Booker paid to keep their silence. By the looks of it, Montgomery truly was a spoiled brat who needed a firm hand to his backside. Obviously he didn’t get it when he was a child.
“Next week is too soon. We don’t have time to prepare,” George argued. He laid a hand on Stone’s shoulder, squeezing. “Stone, we need to tread carefully here. This is personal and that could cloud our judgement.”
“It could, yeah, but Salvatore is right. We need to move quickly if we want to snatch the boy.” He spun toward the Italian. Salvatore lacked height, but he had the width to make up for it. His muscles had muscles, and he was the recon of their crew. He knew whenever Montgomery took a shit. “Can you bribe the bodyguards?”
Salvatore grinned, his white teeth flashing at Stone. “You just say the word, boss.”
“Word.”
The following week,Stone found himself sitting in the passenger side of George’s sleek black BMW, which Killough had bought him as a gift. The tint of the windows was so dark that anyone outside wouldn’t be able to look in at them. George had parked the car along one of the backstreets that Montgomery and his bodyguards would be traveling. They didn’t have to pay the guards much to get them to do what they wanted, but according to Salvatore, they would have done it nearly for free—that’s how much they hated Montgomery.
Their target car, a red Mercedes that looked more expensive than Stone’s house, advanced toward them and veered toward the red lights, right behind the SUV the rest of their crew sat in.
“Here we go,” Stone muttered, loading his handgun in case the job went awry quickly.
Salvatore and Jam shot out of the SUV with ski masks over their faces and rushed at the target car. The bodyguards got out and there was a pretend struggle, with a not-so-pretend knock to the head of each guard. The two large men fell to the asphalt, groaning as they gripped bloody wounds on their foreheads.
