not be near anyone close for a long time, until my parents could make arrangements to move again, if they chose to. I hadn’t even got myself settled in this new place yet.
I closed my eyes and I prayed that this nightmare would soon be over. When would it be done with?
11
Tony
Saul Bannon. That was the man that I hated now more than anyone I've ever come across in my life. That was the man who was trying to hurt the love of my life. That man was a vial, dirtbag gangster who needed to be put in the ground already. And I was the man to do it. I would not rest until this man was found, until Julie was safe for good, and until I had her happy in my arms.
I sat there on the couch listening to the story that her parents told me. I didn’t want to believe any of it. All of it was so horrible. It pained me to listen. But I knew it was true. Every single word was true. And now this guy had found Julie again. I wanted to know how. I wanted to know why he wasn’t behind bars.
He was rich and powerful and had friends in the right places. Well, so did I. And I was going to find out where this guy was hanging out these days. I was prepared to do whatever I had to in order to protect Julie. She was being menaced by this prick and that made my blood boil.
Julie should have told me. She should have told me every single thing, but this guy had her under a spell of some sort and she was just too scared.
I wanted to crush his throat just for that reason.
Julie’s parents still claimed to not know where their daughter actually was. “We thought she was in Colorado Springs. That was where she said she would go next if she ever needed to, but now we don’t know. When we last talked to her on the phone, we said we’d visit her there soon and she said she wasn’t there. She didn’t even want us to know the location. She is such a wonderful girl.”
I nodded but I didn’t really believe their story. I thought they would probably know where their daughter would go, even if they didn’t want to tell me. I understood. They felt that by not knowing they were actually keeping her safer. That was incorrect thinking. I was going to have to find her myself.
When I got home, I contacted Bill Thompson, a police detective I’d become friends with years ago. There had been a security breach in one of our corporate buildings and this detective was the man in charge of that investigation. I admired him mostly because he was such a regular guy.
He answered cheerily enough. “What does this asshole want?
“I want you to spit on the toilet paper this time,” I said teasing him.
He took my joke in a good manner and said, “Wow, it has been a super long time. To what do I owe this dubious pleasure?”
“I need your help.”
“Shit. What did you do now?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I need you to find some information for me.”
“Ok, who are we looking at?”
“A guy named Saul Bannon. He’s some low life gangster thug out of the Detroit area. I don’t know if he is still based there or not.”
“Ok. What’s going on?” Bill asked.
“He is threatening a good friend of mine. I think he might be stalking her with deadly intentions.”
“Shit. Why don’t I put this in and add it to our caseload? We can get some manpower on this.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t have time for that, and I don’t want to make a public thing out of it. I’d rather take care of it under my own radar.”
“Ok,” he said. “I just hope you know what you are getting yourself into. These guys can be real piece of work.”
“I’m aware,” I said. “Can you get on that? I think time is short.”
“Ok. I can do that. I’ll get back with you shortly.”
“Thanks, Bill.”
I tried to sit down and relax while I waited for Bill to call me back, but it was no use. I was sure that Julie was in trouble right now and I needed to be with her. If this guy or one of his gang buddies found Julie, then I would probably never see her again. They would most likely kill her. She did put