This Cruel Love

Then he hung up the phone and made a grab for a drawer, pulling out a hammer and smashing the phone into pieces on the dining table. When he was satisfied that it was useless, he pulled the SIM card from the wreckage, and a cigarette ligh

ter from his pocket. He held the tiny plastic sim card in his fingertips as he started to burn it, then dropped it onto the table, letting it smoulder and shrivel to nothing.

A buzzer noise sounded on the laptop and I looked down to see the clock had stopped and time was up.

“Show time!” Ed sang and rubbed his hands together again as he came over to see what price he’d managed to get on his vile online auction. “Are you excited to find out who your new owner is?” He leant closer into me. “I heard Jackson say on the video that he hadn’t taken your ass yet. But just so you know, your new owner won’t be so fussy. He’ll make sure to take you any fucking way he wants.”

I shuddered at his words and the stale breath that he feathered over my skin as he spoke. He made my skin crawl, and I prayed for a miracle, anything to get me away from this evil. But I wasn’t going to go down without a fight. He would have a hell of a job getting me out of the apartment and delivered to wherever he needed me to be. It was show time, indeed.

He had her. That evil, vile fucker had my girl, and the thought made me want to tear down brick walls to get to him and kill him. I couldn’t bear to think about him being anywhere near her, touching her in any way. If he laid one finger on her I’d make him suffer like the animal he was. Ed Morris needed to be put down.

“Cill, get in here now,” I shouted, grabbing fistfuls of my hair as I waited for my emails to load up.

Cill stomped into the room. “What now? Has Steve given Luca’s men the slip?”

I saw the email from Ed and clicked on it, fighting down the urge to smash my laptop against the wall in blind fury.

“He’s got her. Ed fucking Morris has got Ryley, and he’s just sent me this.”

Cill came up behind me as the page Ed had set up appeared on the screen. You wouldn’t find this website on Google. No, this was classic dark web stuff. The darkest. The kind it’d be impossible to trace, and there were seconds left on the countdown clock.

“Holy shit. Can you stop it? Make a bid? Jesus, Jax, do something.”

I tried, but as I clicked on the bid button, the page refreshed and the clock timed out.

“Fuck.” I picked up a glass of whiskey and threw it at the wall instead.

“I’ll get Paul back in, he won’t be far. He might be able to trace the IP address for that site.” Cill raced out of the room, scrambling for his mobile phone as he did to make the call to Paul.

I couldn’t even focus on breathing, I was so consumed with finding this fucker and ending him. He’d picked the wrong guy to fuck over this time. I’d spend every day until the day I died finding her, and him. I’d never give up.

I heard a commotion coming from the corridor outside, then Dennis appeared at the door, looking flustered.

“I tried to stop them, boss, but they were kinda insistent. I wasn’t sure you’d want me manhandling your girl’s family.”

Travis pushed past Dennis and stormed into my office, his face awash with fury and his fists balled tight, ready for a fight. His father followed behind, looking just as vicious, but more successful at keeping his emotions in check.

“I don’t have time for your bullshit today,” I snapped, but Travis was having none of it.

“What the hell did she ever see in you?” He sneered at me like I was a piece of shit on his shoes.

I already felt shitty enough, I didn’t need his derision. “I’m asking myself that same question right now, Travis.” I could tell from the grind of his jaw he wasn’t impressed with my answer.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? Where is she?” He slammed both of his palms down on my desk and leant forward in a show of dominance, trying but failing to intimidate me.

“I don’t know, mate, but I’m trying to find out and you coming charging in here isn’t helping.”

“You don’t know where she is?” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Did she finally come to her senses and dump your sorry ass?”

“No, she fell into the wrong hands and if I don’t do something right this minute, none of us are seeing her ever again. I’m not joking, Travis. Your timing is really fucking shitty. Let me do my job and find her.”

I stood up from my chair, ready to drag them out of my office with my own hands, but I stopped when Ryley’s dad put his hand on my chest to halt me in my tracks.

“I don’t know what’s going on here, but what the hell do you mean my daughter has fallen into the wrong hands? What exactly is going on?”

I debated fobbing them off with some bullshit, but I figured they deserved to know the truth as much as I did. So I showed them the website, told them the story about Ed and what he’d done. I left the part about my own revenge out of it. I felt that muddying the waters wouldn’t help at this stage. That was an issue for another time. Right now, it was all about Ryley.

“I fucking hate you.” Travis went to hit me, but his Dad held him back. “If she hadn’t met you, none of this would’ve happened.”