Page 27 of Capture (Primal #3)

A ll went well,” Mikky poked his head into my room, and he seemed in good spirits, which surprised me. “I told her about Annika, too.”

I grimaced and clenched my jaw. “How did that go?”

His black eyebrows cocked. “Better than I imagined. I warmed her up to it, and she kinda got emotional thinking about what she went through as a baby.” he lowered his gaze as he spoke, and I knew Annika captured him like Gunner and me.

His anger toward her was waning, and I felt a sense of relief. It wasn’t her fault. None of this was her fault. She was caught up in an adult world of mass manipulation and blackmail.

“Do you think Sylvie might come around and maybe even accept Annika back into the family?” I asked to see how he’d react, while reflecting on what Annika said when she didn’t realize I was listening.

She thought she was talking to Gunner, or the ghost of Gunner, if she was going mad or half asleep.

Maybe she could see him there, but then tapped on the wall as if she genuinely thought he was there.

It was evident she was deeply concerned about where he was and hoped he wasn’t hurt. She’s a nice girl.

He chuckled and shrugged. “You never know. It’s hard to tell with Sylvie.

Besides, it was a phone call, so I couldn’t see her facial expressions as we spoke.

Anyway,” I sensed a quick subject change coming, even though I wanted to put an idea past him that maybe Annika could be given a share of the business and be employed here in an administration position.

There were more pressing issues to discuss, but I won’t forget what I heard her say last night when she thought she was alone.

“Poppa,” he started flatly, unemotional, “Serg Popov. The man who died in a car crash nineteen years ago.”

“Organized by Lars?” I assumed, since it wasn’t uncommon for the Kaisers to squash a bug when it was getting on their nerves.

“Of course, but ah…” he waved his hand dismissively, “sounded like he was a problem.”

“He had a kid?” I pressed, wondering why Mikky brought it up.

“Yeah. Guess who?” he quipped.

“Annika,” I resigned as everything fell into place. Now it was making sense. “He was a shit father and a shit husband to the crazy cop, so the perfect man to have an accident.”

“Basically,” he sighed, checking the time on his phone.

“Kept forcing Annika’s mom back on the game.

Every time she got clean, he was on her back again, wanting her to hit the streets.

So after several months, Lars solved Annika’s mother’s problem by organizing a fatal accident.

But it wasn’t enough and, in the end, Annika’s mother asked Lars and Sylvie to take her away for money. ”

“She sold her kid?” My voice rose higher than I intended because I hadn’t heard that part of the story.

“Desperate people do desperate things. And I guess she was smart enough to notice that Lars and Sylvie would give Annika everything she needed and more,” he stated, standing up from his chair as I noticed a change in his demeanor. “I’ll head to the kitchen and grab a plate for Annika.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to do that?” I teased as a smirk appeared on his typically severe face. Yep, he was falling down the Annika rabbit hole hook, line, and sinker. Captured.

“No, it’s fine. I’m more than capable of serving the girl,” he stated, glancing at me from under his eyelashes, smugly eager to get down to see her.

“Fine,” I laughed, leaving the room as his phone went off, and I heard him answer it as he walked down the hallway to the elevator. But stalled and caught my attention by clicking his fingers, and then pointed to the phone pressed against his ear.

It was an Ivanov representative relaying their demands to Mikky, asking if we would ever see Gunner again.

“Where is he?” Mikky asked sternly, showing no fear. “Give me a location.”

The conversation lasted two minutes, and the caller did the majority of the talking. When Mikky swiped off, he seemed calm and in control.

“And? What do they want in exchange for Gunner?” I asked, keen to get Gunner back. It hadn’t been gone long, but it felt much longer, and we didn’t know what state he was being held in.

“As we suspected, they want the club back,” he replied flatly, then added, “For free.”

“Fuck off,” I snorted. “They can get stuffed. You bought fair and square. It’s their problem if they’re shit with money.”

“They also want $30 million clean cash,” he said nonchalantly as if it didn’t bother him because we had outsmarted them anyway.

I laughed. “Good try, bros. But they might have better luck pursuing a different career than being crime lords.”

“They’d have better luck being street cleaners,” he joked. “Juvenile.”

“So, have you decided what the plan of attack is to get Gunner back?” He’d been coy as to what he had decided: either go pick Gunner up, or allow Tindale to do it.

There were pros and cons to both, so it took careful consideration.

We had a location until the GPS signal cut out, and Google Maps showed it to be open farmland with a handful of houses scattered across the land.

If the van kept going that way, they’d end up at the river, but I had a sneaky suspicion that he was hidden in one of those houses.

It made no sense to hide him too far away from the city center and from where we reside.

Mikky seemed in good spirits as he left to serve our girl, and I retreated to the office to find a message on my phone from Freddie.

Freddie: We need help downstairs. With Betty gone, we need someone to manage the staff. Any suggestions?

Me: I’m coming down to help.

The first person in mind was Annika, whom I could potentially train for the role, since she was family, but I needed to discuss this with Mikky later.

I ran downstairs instead of using the elevator and poked my head into the kitchen to ensure that everything was okay.

It was the lunch shift, so it was flat out, and Mikky was there, plating up for Annika, although the staff would assume it was for him.

Retreating from the frantic kitchen, I went down to the office area and found Freddie at his desk, working on the computer. “Oh, good. Here is this week’s order from the green grocer and butcher. You have to call it through by three PM so it’s here first thing tomorrow morning.”

“No problem. I’m happy to help,” and sat at Betty’s desk, noticing that her stuff hadn’t been cleared. I guess she had to flee on the fly.

I called the butcher, the green grocer, and the organic food store and placed our large order, which was already written out. Then, I went through Betty’s drawers, looking for her black diary, which she used for note-taking and staff meetings.

“So, we have a chef who failed to show,” he informed me.

“Failed to show. Didn’t even call in sick?” I was always annoyed when staff didn’t adhere to the standards we set. However, there could be a perfectly reasonable explanation, but that didn’t help us.

“Nope. I’ve called around, but no one is available, so I told the wait staff to tell the guests that there is a slightly longer wait before food is served,” he explained as my stress levels rose slightly, but this was hospitality.

“Offer the members drinks on the house to sweeten them up. I’m not much help in the kitchen, but I’ll help where I can,” I informed him, opening Betty’s desk drawers. “Where does Betty normally keep her diary and laptop?”

He shrugged, “I don’t know. The diary is either on the desk or in her hand, as it was too important to lose,” he replied, standing up. “I have to go back to the bar.”

The bar area was his territory, and he rarely spent much work time over this side of the club, so I wasn’t offended when he had to go back to work. Someone appeared in my peripheral vision, and it was one of the reception girls at the front.

“Where’s Betty?” she asked with flushed cheeks. “I can’t get the card machine to work.”

“Betty isn’t here and won’t be returning,” I told her flatly, as I stood up to follow her to the front desk. “From this point onwards, come to me if you have any problems.”

“Okay, does it have something to do with her disappearing that day?” she innocently asked, and I realized that she was the girl who told me that Betty had gone home to get something and never came back.

“Yes and no,” I said, then concentrated on fixing the card machine that had paper caught in it. Betty said we needed to upgrade the system. Well, I could understand what she meant.

I apologized to the member who was waiting for us to process his card, then, after he left, I asked her, “Do you know where Betty’s diary is?”

“Um, she usually carried it with her,” she replied as another member and his wife walked in, who had a table booked for lunch.

I allowed her to serve the members as I scanned the reception area for the extensive black diary, and then wondered if it might be somewhere in the casino area. It crossed my mind that there was possibly another traitor in our midst.

I crouched down and opened every drawer and cupboard, but couldn’t find it. I assumed she took it with her, but it was the club’s property.

“Does it have to do with Mr. Yarmouth?” the reception girl asked after the guests departed and was about to head down the hallway again.

“Mr. Yarmouth? The toymaker? Does he still come in?” We hadn’t heard from him in a while after we made a deal with his lawyer after he was found handcuffed to the wall in one of the bondage rooms and was left there for hours.

I assumed that he was happy with the deal and was too ashamed to come back.

“Yeah,” she stated, “The toymaker. She organized to have him humiliated, so he’d sue the club.”

“How do you know this?” I snarled.

Her cheeks burned red again as if she had regretted saying anything, but luckily, she chose wisely. “I heard them talking about it.”

“Them? Who was the second person?” I pressed sternly, and she looked as if she was about to vomit. “Don’t hold back, now. Tell me who the second person was.”

She swallowed, took a deep breath, and then said quietly just as another couple came in for lunch. “She was a chef.”

“Name,” I pressed her even more firmly.

“Carrianne,” she finally replied as the members came up to the reception desk and she turned her back.

I stormed out of the reception and down the hall to find Freddie had gone from his desk. Then I thundered across the empty casino floor and saw his dark head at the bar, checking the stocks of liquor.

“Freddie,” I called as I approached the bar.

“Yeah,” he startled and turned around.

“The chef who hadn’t turned up today was named Carrianne?” I pressed.

Confusion washed across his face. “Yeah. Why?”

I turned my back and walked as an elation came over me. It was a great feeling to rid the club of all the filth that had contaminated it. “Hire a new chef. She won’t be back,” I ordered him.