22. Julian

The steady thrum of my brain pulsating with pain from the most intense migraine I"ve ever felt isn"t the kind of pain I relish. This doesn"t feel good. I"m annoyed I dumped all over Claire again and she did exactly what I thought she should do. She left.

My first call is to my uncle who answers fairly quickly.

"Julian, my boy, what"s going on?"

"I need to go fishing, Zio," I tell him.

"Yeah? When?"

"Now, if you can."

He grunts and I hear him talking to someone close to him, most likely Vinnie, his Consigliere. When he comes back on the line, I"m expecting him to have an excuse as to why he can"t meet with me. Instead, he surprises me. "Meet me at the Marina. I got some fish food and you can take the trip with me."

"Edward"s coming too," I tell him.

"I"d be worried if he didn"t." Armande laughs and ends the call.

The way my employees avert their gaze as I stalk around the cubicles in search of Edward tells me they got an earful. I hope it"s from my blowup at my father, and not from fucking the shit out of Claire on my desk.

Edward"s in the security office at the opposite end of the floor when I walk through the door, shock etching his face with a raise of his ginger red brows.

"What the fuck? You don"t knock?" he asks. The office isn"t as big as mine, but it has a similar view of the bridge. There"s one desk and a wall of monitors that connect to various parts of the building.

I glance around the space and there"s no one inside the office but him.

Edward sighs and speaks at the monitor on his desk. "I"ll call you back, Malia."

"Shit, I"m sorry. We got a fishing trip to go on," I tell him.

He nods and gets up from the desk, putting himself in front of me as we leave the building to head to my uncle"s boat.

"I"m sorry, Edward."

"It"s fine, Julian. Your parents, Charleston, really has a way of putting me in a dark space. It"s not good for me, or you. We need to get him out of our lives."

"Is that your advice or Dr. Mescal"s?" I ask him.

"Does it matter if it"s true?" he replies as we get into the car to take the short drive to a private dock where my uncle comes and goes as he pleases.

"I guess not. I did it again. Spilled my trauma guts to Claire and told her about Derek."

The anger pulsing off my oldest friend doesn"t bode well for the rest of my day. "How much did you tell her, Jules?"

"Everything, it"s the reason we"re going on this fishing trip."

"Save it." Edward effectively silences me for the rest of the drive to the dock. Uncle Armande"s boat, Shark Bait, is waiting for us by the time Edward pulls the SUV into a dark warehouse.

Armande welcomes us on board and Vinnie pulls away from dry land for the vast waters of the Pacific. While he"s dumping buckets of chum, which looks a lot like someone"s ears and fingers, I run down the issues with Charleston.

"He"s going to blackmail me, well, us, if I don"t launder the money through the political campaign. Have you heard anything about this debt he has to pay, Zio? Maybe I can take care of it and end this political shit show. Our family can"t afford to have the attention of a political race. It's a sure bet I'll run into some dickhead who's not opposed to exposing my connections to the family."

Armande shakes his head. "Nope, but it"s not all that surprising. I"ll look into it and get back to you. You didn"t actually want to go fishing, right? We were just going for a sunset tour to see the sharks, you know?"

The buckets are empty when I ask, "Do I want to know who that was?"

"No, Councilman Blackwell," Armande says, with a grin.

"Don"t you start," I warn him, shaking my head, and hoping the migraine doesn"t resurface. Armande"s about to say something but stops when my phone rings. I pick it up even though I don"t recognize the number.

"Is this Julian Blackwell?" The distorted voice immediately forces me to put the phone on speaker.

"Yes, it is. Who is this?" I ask.

"This is the person who has your girl and her friends. I need three million for the safe return of Claire Anderson, Bonnie Edelman and Danielle Edelman. Cash. Unmarked and no GPS tags. Act like you understand how to pay a ransom. You have two hours. Text this number with the exact words, "I"m ready to pay my invoice", and your head of security will be sent an address to pick up your package."

"I want proof of life," I demand from the odd voice.

There"s some shuffling in the background before I hear someone throwing out commands. A moment later, relief washes over me as Bonnie"s voice comes onto the phone.

"Julian," she huffs, "you know what time it is? We"re fine."

The abductor gets back on the line. "Proof enough? Get me my money. Tick tock. You heard your little buddy here, you know what time it is."

The call disconnects before I can ask any more questions. Armande gets Vinnie to take us back to shore at a breakneck speed.

"FUCK!" I shout to the sky as we get to the car with only an hour left to get the money together. "Bonnie said ‘you know what time it is' to me and that they"re fine."

"I have Bonnie"s watch location," Edward says, as he gets on the phone.

We leave Armande, who heads home to gather all the cash he has on hand to help me out. I only have one and a half million in my safe at the house, but with Edward putting in the last quarter of a million, I send the message that I"m ready to pay the invoice.

My heart races as we wait. "She"s the love of my life. We need to find her. We need to get her back. I need to make this right. I need-"

"You need to calm down, Julian. We have the money and I just got the address. We"re going to get them and everything"s going to be fine."

It"s not. We get to the address. The money is dropped into a garbage composter, but Claire is not here. None of the girls are here. My world is crumbling around me and I have no idea who the fuck I need to kill to get her back.