BRANDONOne o’clock. Josephine Shaw Memorial Fountain, Bryant Park.From the inside of the food truck facing Bryant Park in Sixth Avenue, Cary and I monitor the satellite covering the front of the memorial fountain. In about three minutes, we should be in contact with Oliver. My left ear gives me the line for Stan, Pauline, and the Wolf; they’re only a few miles behind Pauline as she is getting ready. My right ear offers me Silvanus’s line.
In every corner of the streets, people are on standby: walking civilians, a man making out with his girlfriend by a bench, a lady feeding the pigeons, and a man selling hotdogs in a food cart. All of them are Jason’s Wolves in disguise.
I tap my earpiece and speak, “Stan, what’s on your view down there?”
“We’re still waiting,” he answers. “Oliver should be here in three minutes. I’m looking at Pauline.”
I tap another button on my ear to connect with Pauline. “Pauline, do you copy?”
“Copy,” she says.
“Good. Harry? ”“On it, boss.” He types fast on his keyboard, checks the frames one by one, blows up every image and every person’s face, and runs a face-recognition protocol. Nothing matches after a few tries.
“One minute,” Stan says.
“Fuck,”“Show us Pauline first,” he orders. “That, or no Oliver. My I growl inside. “Fine.” I turn off my mouthpiece to reconnect to Pauline’s line. “P, do you think you can go now?”
“But I still don’t see Ollie,” she says.
“It’s all right. Stan and Jason are behind you, and the Wolves are around the area, so you’ll be fine.”
She takes a deep breath. “Okay, okay. I’ll go.”
“Good. Stan, Jason... Watch over Pauline.”
“We’re on it,” Jason responds.
On our monitor, Pauline begins to approach the fountain, walking straight ahead. She’ll be fine as long as there are civilians in the park. Silvanus won’t be so stupid as to draw attention to himself. She sits on an empty bench facing the fountain.
“I’m here.”
“Okay. It’ll be enough.” I switch to Silvanus’s line again. “Pauline is already at the site.”
“Good dog, Brandon. I can see her now, but one wrong move and I will kill Oliver,” he warns. He probably has someone watching Ollie as well. I know for sure he wouldn’t come here unprepared.
I clench my fist. I hate his terms, but we need to do exactly what he says—to earn his trust.
“She knows the risk, and you can speak to her later,” I assure him. “I just want to make sure I’ll see Oliver.”
“Send himCary shoots me a wary look. I guess even a prodigy like him can worry. “We’re too open.” He switches his eyes back to the screen.
A few more minutes later, a man in a gray hood stops by. Pauline looks up at the man, and seconds later, the two exchange an embrace.
“It’s Ollie...”He leans over to whisper. “Are you sure?”
“Do you think I wouldn’t recognize that build?” I exclaim, pointing at the screen. “It’s Oliver! God!” I run my fingers over my scalp rashly as the relief spreads through my chest.
“Stan, Jason, are you seeing this?” Cary asks from our line.
“Yes, yes, we’re still on standby,” Stan responds.
“Pauline, it’s him, isn’t it? Is it Ollie?” I ask hastily, just to make sure.
Her answer comes right away. “Yes, it’s him. It’s really him,” she sobs.
“Give the phone to him. I want to hear him. Please...”
“Okay,” she says. “I’m handing the phone to him, okay? Here he is.”
“Brandon?”I squeeze my eyes shut to let his deep, gruff voice sink in. I let cold tears run over my cheeks even as I laugh. It’s really him.
“Ollie...”
“You made it,”“Hold on, buddy, okay? We came to get you, I promise. You’ll be fine.” I tap the Wolf’s line. “It’s Oliver.”
“Copy. I’ve got to go.” According to the plan, when we finally got a clear sight of Oliver, he should move to the next step. His Wolves will be securing Oliver’s safety and Pauline’s.
“Delta, Echo, Secure the area,” Jason orders from his other line. “And get the car ready. I’m approaching Golf and Foxtrot; you know what to do.” Based on his signals, he’s exiting his current position toward 42nd Street.
The code names refer to a group of Wolves he assigned to stand by in different directions in Midtown. Jason shall be connecting to me again. For now, I focus back on Pauline and Oliver on the screen.
“Blah, blah, blah. You see your dog, now I’m taking mine,” Silvanus says.
Three men approach their location, and I can still hear the voices in the background.
“Boss, we got her,” a man says.
“Then get her the fuck out of there!” Silvanus commands. “And finish him“No...”“No!” I roar.
“Fuck you, Silvanus! Fuck you!” Cary curses. “Code red. Code red,” he calls, connecting to the Wolves around the area. “Secure Oliver. Code red. Code red. Secure Oliver!”
“Ollie, can you hear me? Hello? Ollie!” I shout into his line.
“I’m... I’m still here,” he responds, panting.
“Hang on. We’ll be there. You’ll be fine, okay?”
The Wolves acting as civilians around the area, together with Stan, advance toward Oliver then finally move him. In the other frame, Pauline’s car is approaching 40th Street.
“Drive!” Cary shouts to our driver to head toward the crossing of 41st Street and Sixth Avenue.
I take off my earphones and jump into the back of the truck. Five Wolves are already on fallback; two of them are medics, awaiting Stan and Oliver’s arrival.
“They’re coming, boss!” Harry shouts.
A Wolf named Pen unlocks the door, and I finally catch sight of Stan and Oliver. The lower right side of Ollie’s body is covered with blood, and the three men carrying him are sprinting toward us. I rub my face in frustration and fear of losing him again.
The Wolves immediately take Oliver inside and lay him out on the stretcher in the middle. Stan gets in after the others and closes the door. Automatically, the Wolves clear the space.
I immediately move to Ollie’s side and hold his hand. But my heart clenches at the sight of his face. He has dark bruises and fresh wounds. His left eye is swollen, and his mouth is chapped and bloody. Apart from that, he has lost too much weight, and he is too pale.
It’s like what they did to me. The weight of fury oppresses me.
“Ollie, can you hear me?” I ask.
He responds to my grip and forces his eyes open.
“Master Lucien, we’ll take care of him.” Folk, one of the medics, takes charge. “Sven?”“We need to stop the bleeding,” Sven says, and starts applying pressure to the wound.
Folk cuts Oliver’s shirt in the middle. Like his face, his body is covered with bluish-purple bruises and cuts.
“What’s happening now?” Cary appears from the front and covers his mouth at the sight of Oliver. “Damn.”
Sven lifts his hand, and Folk checks the wound. He first cleans the area, gently scrubbing the blood with clean water.
“Get me the anesthetic and antibiotic,” Folk instructs his partner, and Sven does as he says. “The knife doesn’t seem to have hit a vital organ, but the wound is deep,” he explains.
“Will he be okay?”
“We can only hope for the best, but for now, we need everyone to clear the area. Don’t worry, Master Lucien, we will take care of Mr. Katrakis,” he says.
I nod, convinced that they can do the job. These men come from Rutherford Hospital too. Their profession in the medical field is an excellent disguise for members of a mob. I give Oliver’s hand another squeeze to make him understand we’re with him.
I stand up. “Stan, Cary? We still have important things to look at.”
The twins and I return to the front and check the monitor screen.
“What’s up?” I ask Harry.
He clicks the enter key, and a frame fills the screen. “They’re approaching Park Avenue toward 53rd Street.”
“They’re near Stavros’ private airport,” Stan says.
“And Jason?” Cary asks.
“He’s on the same lane with the Golf team.” Harry points out the cab. “Delta will be coming from this side,” he traces the line indicating 52nd Street, “... and Echo from here,” he points to the Lexington Avenue lane, moving to the intersection of 53rd Street. “Foxtrot is following this direction,” he points the way toward First Avenue. Judging from the direction each of the Wolves is taking, Silvanus’s team would be surrounded. But then, anything could still go wrong.
Foxtrot is the Huntress’s command, and she’s tracing Silvanus’s location. Apparently, the GPS of the phone we sent to him is still on, and he used that line just now to connect to us.
I rest my hands on my waist. “Harry, this is your call.”
“Yes, sir!” He types on his computer again, and several codes appear. His eyes don’t leave the screen.
As for us, we head in the opposite direction. We need to take Oliver to my private airfield immediately. We have no more time to waste. We’ll meet with everyone else there, and fly to Lawrence together. That’s the plan.
We watch the car that took Pauline turn into 53rd Street.
“Come on, come on.”
Our camera swivels and faces 53rd Street; traffic congestion should appear there. The Echo vehicles from Lexington turning toward the same route, the Delta coming from behind, following Pauline’s car, and...
“Here we go!” Harry presses the enter button. He makes the lights in the avenue turn red, stopping the road circulation by hacking the traffic systems. “Gotcha!”
We watch the screen as civilian vehicles ahead of Pauline’s car stop in the middle of the road, sandwiching it. Five vehicles from Delta pull over across the lane, and Jason’s car stops at the end lane.
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Harry raises his hand in victory.
Every vehicle door opens, and the Wolves step down.
I cross my arms and smirk. “So this is the show you were talking about, huh, Jason?” I state in admiration.
“Damn, he really is something, isn’t he?” Stan remarks.
Jason, who’s now covering his face with a black mask, rushes to the car holding Pauline. Three men from Silvanus’s side get out of the car, prepared to fight.
“Oof! That hurts!” Cary grimaces when Jason hits one of them. Another five Wolves approach their pack leader and join the fray.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Harry pulls his hair. “We’ve got incoming!”
At least ten other black cars are approaching across the opposite side of 53rd Street. Harry immediately clears the road again, undoing the traffic hack so the civilians can pass through unharmed.
“They’re taking too long.” I tap the mic to his line and speak, “Jason, take Pauline and get the hell out of there. You’ll get outnumbered! Jason!”
His line comes through. “On it.” He opens the car again and pulls Pauline out. He covers her head then sprints toward the end of the lane. His Wolves surround them, allowing them to get away first.
One black car moves on ahead, overspeeding, and starts firing in Jason’s direction.
“Jason, hurry up!” I order.
He howls. “Fuck, I’m hit!”
A black BMW sports car abruptly stops in front of them, and he lets Pauline get inside first. Jason pulls out a gun and fires a few shots before getting into the car. His men get inside their vehicles and begin to take off as well. Fortunately, no one seems to have died, but I’m sure plenty of his men got hurt.
Cary and Stan only then relax.
“I thought I was going to have a heart attack,” Cary says and blows out a deep breath.
Stan pats his brother’s shoulder. “Yeah, yeah... Me too.”
I can’t blame them, as I felt the same tension. I slump into the seat behind me. “Jason, what’s your situation now?”
“I’m sorry, Brandon, but....” A cry comes through from the background. “Pauline was hit too.”
I sit up. “Do you have medics with you?”
“No, we need to transfer her fast.”
“It hurts! Ahh... it hurts...” “We need to go back,” I inform the twins. “Pauline got hurt.”
“We can’t!” Cary says firmly. “If we go back, you’re in danger too!”
I bang my fist on the metal surface of the truck. “Cary!”
Stan grabs my shoulder. “Cary’s right, Brandon. We have Oliver as well. We don’t want to involve civilians either.”
I get back on the Wolf’s line. “Go straight to my airfield, and take off first. I’ll tell the Huntress.”
“Roger.”
Jason’s sister is after Silvanus with the other skilled Wolves as her backup. I felt driven to go there myself, crush Silvanus’s skull, and beat him until there’s no life left in his body after what he did to Oliver. But Jason stopped me from joining the mission, letting the Huntress chase after my cousin, and told me that I’d be risking my safety and that the operation would all be for nothing if I died on the scene. Apparently, everyone is against me getting my hands dirty
“Harry, can you connect us to the Huntress’s line?” I request.
“I’ll try, boss. I’m not getting any reception from them. Foxtrot team entered a building, and umm...” He zooms into a frame with a view of an old building. “Here. They’re here. Holiday Motel. It’s abandoned, so there’s no CCTV inside, only on the street across it.”
I tap his shoulder. “Give me an update when you find something.”
“Yes, boss.”
What’s going on now with Arianna? I don’t think I can face Alayna if anything happens to her sister. But I can’t hold on to that thought. People around me are getting hurt because of my vengeance, my anger...
Who else is going to get involved next? Until when am I going to let people fight for me? Alayna, her family, my cousins... and Pauline got hurt because I brought her here, and—
“Brandon, you’re overthinking again,” Stan snaps at me.
I shut my eyes. “I can’t help it.”
“We got Oliver, and Silvanus didn’t succeed in taking Pauline back; that’s all that matters,” he tells me.
“But we’re not done yet. We haven’t “Does it matter?” Cary joins in. I look at him. “He’s just another pawn. Your real enemy is out there. Even without Silvanus, Alfio is still after you. If we don’t get his son now, we cannot do anything about it because we’d be wasting our time. The mission was to get Oliver, and we didn’t fail. You I run my hands through my scalp. I don’t know about that. Did I really not?
“Uh, guys, I’m finally getting a signal,” Harry says.
We all surround Harry and look back at his monitors. There’s no movement coming from the building, but there’s a stuttering radio wave from Foxtrot’s line.
“Does anyone copy this?” Stuttering. “Hello? Hello?” It’s a woman’s voice now. “This is the Huntress.”
“Yes, we copy,” I respond. “Huntress, can you hear us?”
No answer.
“Huntress!” I almost shout.
“Two Wolves are down!” she says. “We need to fall back. Can you hear me? We need to fall back!”
“Ah!” A man’s scream echoes in the background, and a series of gunshots after.
“Arianna, what’s going on?” I demand.
“Silvanus isn’t here. We’ve been duped!” she says.
Another gunshot.
“Fuck!” Cary and Stan curse at the same time.
I seethe under my breath. I want to shout at her and tell her to look around, that maybe Silvanus is only fucking with them, but Cary is right. We’ve got no more time for this. Cassius, Alayna, and Casey are heading to Lawrence; Oliver and Pauline are in critical state and need proper care. I won’t risk it.
“Huntress, let’s meet at the airline as planned. The Wolf is on his way there with Pauline. We’ve got Oliver now. Abort the mission,” I instruct.
“Roger!” Another gunshot is fired before her line cuts off.
We look back at the frame on the screen showing the old motel building and finally catch sight of the Huntress and her team.
Cary signals the driver to move toward Upper Manhattan, where Jason and Pauline are heading.