“Please tell me you’ve got something. Because there’s fucking nothing on this goddamn island.”
“It isn’t very much, but enough for our security team to do their thing,” he said.
“What is it?”
“I found a tie between Gianni and the mob.”
“So those fucking rumors are true?” I asked.
“They are. I’ve got a surveillance photo of him shaking hands with some mob enforcer named Johnny Eightball.”
“Are you fucking serious?” I asked.
“Yeah. I have no idea if it’s related to Sydney’s disappearance, but given the lunch conversation you had and what I gave to Legal, coupled with the fact that this sighting took place late last night, let’s just say our team is checking it out.”
“I’m going to kill that son of a bitch.”
“Take a deep breath, Kevin.”
“Deep breath? Some fucker took the little white bow right out of my daughter’s hair and sent it to my house, and you want me to fucking breathe?”
“I want you to watch your words,” he said. “That’s all.”
“Oh, that was the G-rated version. The scenarios running through my head would make the mob look like pansies.”
Sydney’s face flooded my mind. Her little legs skipping along the beach. Her hair billowing behind her and her eyes twinkling with excitement.
“When I think about them with my pretty little princess—”
“We’re going to find her, Kevin. I swear to you,” Owen said.
“She’s gone,” I said, breathlessly.
The world was spinning under my feet as I hit my knees again. My chest was constricting, and my arms were growing numb. My cell phone fell to the ground as people rushed to my side. Hands were all over me and someone was wiping at my brow. Someone put a bottle of water to my lips, and I was aware of someone rubbing my back.
“Sydney!” I roared. “Where are you?”
Then I collapsed to the pavement. The world rushed by me as people picked me up and carried me. The cool breeze of an air-conditioned hut hit my face as someone began to blot at a spot on my head. It stung, but I didn’t move. I drank water from a straw pressed to my lips. Sweat was dripping off my body and I was shaking uncontrollably, and I could feel a pinch in the top of my hand.
Tape securing a tube down.
Lights flashing in my eyes.
I saw my children giggling, coming down the waterslide, and swimming around in the ocean. I saw Brooke standing there in her bikini, cheering them on with her hair piled high on her head. I saw Morgan standing beside her, elbowing her and grinning.
I caught my children in my arms as they came down the slide.
Someone was leaning me back onto a hard surface as a ceiling came into view. I was hoisted in the air and being moved without my consent. But I didn't care any longer. I didn’t have the energy to fight back. My mind was swirling with memories of my family. Memories of smiles and laughter, of Christmases and Thanksgiving dinners. Of sleepless nights, and fights, so many fights.
So much screaming.
But always the three of us.
Hell, always the four of us.
But three dropped to two and four dropped to three, and I was ripped back into reality. I was slid into the back of an ambulance as the sirens began to wail. I tried to protest, but my tongue wouldn’t work. I tried to swallow, but my throat wouldn’t move. I was entombed in the catacombs of my own body, pulled between memories of the past and the current reality I was facing.
Battling.