Shit. Nonna!
I could only imagine what she’d be doing right now. Most people might picture their grandparents crying and falling apart while their granddaughter was missing. Nonna wasn’t like that. She’d be carrying around her skillet, threatening anyone she thought wasn’t doing anything or could be responsible for it. She may even be out, driving like a crazy person, instead of sitting in front of her computer, choosing a filter for the online date about to start.
“I told you to fucking get it done, bitch. How many times did I tell you?” a voice yelled from inside the car, making my heart start beating way too quickly.
If I had my Apple watch on right now, would it send an alert to the screen saying, “Calm down, woman. Heart attack imminent. Do you want us to notify your emergency contact?” Maybe in the next update, they could add that as a feature?
Then again, it’d help if I freaking put the damn thing on as soon as I woke up. Patting around the pockets of my shorts for the millionth time and not finding my phone, I had to also admit to myself that it’d help if I carried my damn phone with me instead of leaving it in places while I got a coffee or a piece of toast.
Last time, I’d been too out of it to even think about using my phone. This time, I was an idiot. Lesson fucking learned.
“You saw how many times I tried to do what you wanted,” a female screeched back.
Wait, why was that voice familiar?
“What, by hurting a horse and ruining some tests? How’s that getting the money I told you to get?”
Again, why the shit didn’t I have my phone? I could call Marcus and tell him what I was hearing… after I told him where I was, of course. Then again, I couldn’t see outside the car, so I didn’t know where I was. Ah, but iPhones had that tracking thing in them now, didn’t they?
My thoughts being all over the place was making me feel dizzy, but I couldn’t help giving my pockets one final, hopeful pat.
Jesus Christ, Addy. Accept you don’t have your phone and watch, and make sure you pair it up with Marcus’s phone in the future so he can see where you are because you have your damn phone on you like normal humans do.
“It was meant to distract them all. The bitch in the trunk got hurt, but no one was distracted enough by it for me to get the money. Then I messed with the tests, again hoping they’d have to spend time saving the contracts and getting the information they needed, but they’re too smart for that.”
“No, you’re just too fucking stupid for that. Now you owe me over two hundred thousand dollars. How you gonna get that money?”
There was a moment’s silence, and I hated myself for doing it, but I pressed my ear against the back of the rear seats that separated me from the rest of the car, scared she was whispering, and I was missing out on information. I’d sterilize my face and ear later. Well, unless I got a flesh eating disease from how dirty this place was.
Finally, she started speaking again. “I’ll go back. Now she’s not there, they’ll all be out looking. Marcus won’t make anyone stay on the ranch. He’ll have them all out searching for her.”
The driver took a sharp turn, then stepped on the brakes, making the tires skid across what felt and sounded like gravel.
“How many men’s he got, Marni? Ten? Twenty? They could be anywhere. I don’t know what they fucking look like, but if they look on the security cameras, they’ll know what I look like. It won’t take them long to find us.”
“I already thought about that, baby,” she cooed, and I gagged yet again, this time not about the dirt and bacteria around me. “We’ve got access to the clips recorded by the cameras, so I went in on my phone and deleted them. Marcus has Liam, Tyler, Gus, Brody, Devon, Jay, Liall, and Remy on the ranch, plus that whore, Santana. I can get you photos of all of them.”
“If you go back, could you steal some of the horses?”
Her surprise was evident in the tone of her voice when she replied. “You want some of the horses?”
“Yeah, you told me they were rare breeds that cost a fortune to buy. Get me some of them and the money, and we’ll call it even.”
Guess he wasn’t thinking of her as his ‘baby.’
“Haldon, those horses are worth a lot, but you need paperwork to sell them. If you showed up somewhere looking for a sale and couldn’t provide that shit, you’d get reported to the police.”
More than likely, she was right. Marcus and Remy had told me about the breeds of the horses, and all I could compare them to at the time were cars. With breeds like Arabians, Akhal-Tekes, Dutch Warmbloods, Friesians, and a Shire horse, the kind of guy I was assuming was in the front of the car would stand out like a sore thumb.