Unsettled tension grips my throat as I stare at the rice-size tracking device in Rocco’s hand. It’s coated in as much blood as Rocco’s hair, revealing the men who took Roxanne didn’t just remove the device from her arm, they cut it out.
If the anxiety plaguing me is anything to go by, that’s only the start of the torture they’ll put her through. This is about more than money. Fien’s low-ball ransoms already disclose this fact. If it were solely about the coin, as Roxanne said months ago, my daughter’s ransoms would have been as extravagant as the one I placed on the table to keep Roxanne safe. They’re playing me, and for once, I’m about ready to play back.
We play to play.
We kill to kill.
And we take down any fucker stupid enough to get in our way.
After licking my dry lips, I get down to business. Annoyance is bubbling under the surface of my skin. It’s heard in my low tone when my snapped command leaves my mouth with a roar. “Send details of the van Roxanne was placed in to the teams located around Dr. Bates’s practice. If they spot it, have them relay the information directly to me but maintain a safe distance. We don’t want to spook them into doing something stupid.”
The shit I’m spurting isn’t anything new. This is how we planned to run our ruse. I’m merely implementing extra steps to ensure I reach Roxanne before any of the horrid thoughts in my head come true.
“Once that’s done, bring up the surveillance before the blackout. I want to know the position of everyone in the clinic and a block each side of it before we were kicked in the guts.” When Smith jerks up his chin, I lower my eyes to Rocco, who’s peering up at the camera in the alleyway as if he can see me as clearly as I can him. “Anything?”
He reads the unease in my one word like no one else can. “I’m sorry, D, I had to take him down. He had a gun to my head and no intention of letting me leave the pharmacy once the command to move left your mouth.”
He stuffs Roxanne’s microchip into his pocket before dragging a man who’d weigh at least three hundred pounds into the frame. Since he’s as worked up as me, he doesn’t pay attention to the massive graze down one side of his skull I assume is the flesh wound of the bullet that was supposed to kill him while propping the man in front of the camera so Smith can log his face into his facial recognition software. The reason for the man’s three bullet wounds to the chest makes sense when Smith gets an unhindered snapshot of his face. If Rocco had gone for a straight-up mafia kill, it would have made identification hard in this technology-dependent world.
With that in mind, I bring some old-school gangster tricks into play. Remembering where I came from and how I got here might finally have me one step ahead of my enemies. “Check his pockets. His tats reveal he’s a bottom dweller, so he may have been stupid enough to carry ID with him.”
After pulling a face, disappointed he hadn’t considered that, Rocco commences checking the buzz-cut man’s pockets. A few seconds later, he pulls out a retro Velcro wallet. “Who the fuck carries around a tri-fold wallet these days?”
He answers his own question when he rips open the over-used Velcro with force to discover nothing but receipt after receipt after receipt. “Fuckers with no money, that’s who.”
My jaw has only worked through half a grind when Smith asks, “Do any of the receipts have payment details on them? Or was everything paid for with cash?” After raising his eyes to mine, he explains, “He might be lax on ID, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find out who he is quicker than facial recognition.”
“Bing-fucking-o.” After holding up a receipt for a purchase at a computer store in Ravenshoe to the camera for Smith to zoom in on, Rocco pops another bullet into the man who tried to kill him. This time, his bullet pierces his brain via a hole between his dark brows. He isn’t just displaying he is pissed the wannabe gangster got a jump on him, he’s sending a message. The cartel is in town, and we want you to know it.
“Where am I going, Smith?” Rocco asks, eager to move on to his next victim.