Even with Rex jumping out of his car and running up the walkway to him, AJ didn’t pause. He walked purposefully into the house and up the staircase. When Rex caught up with him at the top of the stairs he opened his mouth as if to speak. AJ beat him to it. “While I was dressing they came and took Brian. I wasn’t fast enough to catch them.” He said it simply, in a voice gone hard and cold as marble.
He heard Rex freeze behind him but still AJ didn’t pause. There was no time to stop. No time for anything but going after Brian. There was nothing more important than that. Every minute they had him was one minute too long. AJ went straight to the bathroom to grab the dirty clothes he had worn for his little scouting mission. He was in the middle of pulling the pants on when Rex stepped into the bathroom.
Rex didn’t argue. He didn’t ask stupid questions or waste AJ’s time with anything like that. He simply stood there and said “I’m coming with you.”
For a split second AJ debated arguing with him. A big part of him didn’t want to bring anyone along that might slow him down. But that cold part of his brain had been triggered, the part that ran off survival. That part of him said that the extra hands and eyes would be beneficial. If it raised his chances of getting Brian back then there was no way he was going to refuse. “You follow my direction.”
“Of course.”
“They’ll know we’re coming.” AJ added as he pulled the tank top on. He adjusted all the handles on his knives to make sure they were easily accessible. “So we don’t have the element of surprise. But that doesn’t mean that we have to go in the way they want. First we need to find out where the hell they took him.” Sitting on the toilet as he spoke, AJ pulled on his socks and boots.
The buzzer on the door rang, echoing through the house. AJ tied off his laces, grabbed his leather jacket and headed down the staircase. He didn’t particularly care who was at his door but he needed to get rid of them so that he could plan and prepare. Rex shadowed behind him, but AJ was used to that sensation. Bodyguards were a part of life and he could almost zone him out back there.
All thoughts drained from AJ’s brain when he opened the door and saw who was standing there. For a single moment be was gripped by shock; then a rage like he had never known came over him.
“Hello, AJ.” Jeff said with a smirk. His thumbs were hooked into his front pockets, his whole posture meant to be casual. “Hello Rex. Fancy seeing you here. We seem to be one short for a party, though. Where’s the little girlfriend?”
Like the strike of a snake, AJ’s hand darted out and grabbed Jeff’s shirt. He pulled, yanking Jeff in so hard that he sent the man to the ground and sliding down the entryway. Before he even stopped sliding, AJ was stalking after him. Rex calmly shut and locked the door.
Jeff tried to scramble up to his feet. “What the hell?” he snarled out. A fist to the jaw cut his sentence off and had him flying onto the floor again. This time AJ was on him before he could even lift his head from the ground. Straddling Jeff, AJ socked him in the face again. The sight of Jeff’s blood didn’t bother him in the least. All he felt was his rage.
Groaning, Jeff brought his hands up to try to get free. He froze when he felt something press against his temple and heard a familiar click. Slowly, carefully, Jeff’s hand moved to lie on the ground on either side of his head.
The fear on his face satisfied AJ. Inside he felt cold and hard. He stared down at the man underneath him and felt that icy anger grow. With one graceful movement AJ was on his feet, his gun still trained at Jeff’s head. “Get up.” He ordered. Even his voice sounded cold. He didn’t care. None of that mattered .Only one thing mattered and this man right here was going to help him get that one thing back. “On your feet, hands in the air, or I swear to God I will shoot you where you stand.”
Wisely, Jeff rose to his feet slowly, his hands extended into the air on either side of his head. “What’s going on here?” He asked in a voice quite a bit less cocky than before. “Put the damn thing away, AJ.”
“You’re not the one giving orders here, Jeff.” AJ reminded him. Without turning his eyes away, AJ said to Rex “Come search him. I want him without a single weapon.”
With calm efficiency Rex search Jeff and stripped him of all his weapons. He didn’t pack nearly as many as AJ did, but he packed some. Once he was free and clear of weapons AJ felt it safe enough to step forward, though he didn’t lower the gun. “Where is he?” he growled out.
“Who?” Jeff snapped. There was anger mixed with fear in his eyes.
The fury inside of AJ was barely leashed. He was close enough that he just snapped his hand out, hitting Jeff in the side of the head with the butt of the gun. The man slammed against the wall, barely managing to catch himself, swearing loudly. “Fuck! Jesus fuck, what was that for?”
“I asked you where he is.” AJ’s voice was still calm, still cold.
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!”
Something on his face had AJ going still. If there was one thing that he’d learned early on, something that was part of his survival instincts, it was how to read people. Everything about Jeff said that he was telling the truth. One look over to Rex showed that Rex felt the same way. If he really didn’t know then this whole thing was pointless. But he still had to try, just in case he was reading things wrong. “Brian. Where the fuck did they take him?”
A flash of surprise went across Jeff’s face and that was answer enough on its own. He didn’t know. But maybe, if he asked the right questions, phrased it the right way, he might get around to the answer he needed by a totally different route. It took everything AJ had to keep a lid on his fear.
Part of him wanted so badly to just run out of his house and find Brian, no matter the costs. To just go blasting in wherever he could and taking people down until they gave him back Brian. Yet another part of him wanted to curl up and cry. Just break down. Images of what they might be doing to him kept cropping up in AJ’s mind, threatening his control. One thought kept trying to come forward and was ruthlessly shoved back every time. Would Brian still be alive when he found him?
Pushing that back, AJ used that thought to make him colder, harder. “Let me make one thing clear right up front, Jeff. I know who you are and I know why you were hired. I know quite a bit more than you think I do. I know who sent you, too.”
“You don’t know anything.” Jeff said, a note of false bravado in his voice.
AJ just tipped his head to the side a little. “Alarico.” That one word was all it took to have the color draining from Jeff’s face. He trembled only for a second. “How do you know that name?” He croaked out. There was honest fear there now. Good. Fear was something AJ could work with, easily. “I told you that I know things. But you’re going to answer some questions for me about things I don’t know.”
“I won’t tell you a thing.”
With a soft smile on his face that had Jeff shivering, AJ passed his gun to Rex before pulling out two of his knives. Rex said nothing, only held the gun trained on Jeff, not a quiver in his hands. There wasn’t an ounce of concern on his face or hesitation in his hands. He held steady and firm as AJ advanced on the now shaking form of a man who had already tried to kill them.
Bringing one blade up, AJ drove the point of it into the wall only a half inch from Jeff’s head. He was pleased to see the quiver run through Jeff and to hear the squeak that slipped past his lips.
“Now, Jeff, you and I are going to talk. By the time I’m done, you’ll tell me everything…”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Darkness seemed to make up the whole of Brian’s world. That and the ache that had settled into his shoulders, knees, and hips. Not to mention the pounding headache. He indulged in a soft moan as he lay there, trussed and blinded. There was a bag over his head that kept him from seeing anything. Though he was almost positive that he was in the trunk of a car right now, so seeing wouldn’t have been possible anyways. With his hands and wrists tied together behind his back, there was no way he could pull the bag off or even really move. It made his muscles burn to stay like this.
How long he’d been lying there he had no idea. But in the time since he’d been stuffed in the trunk he’d had plenty of time to curse himself roundly. God, he was an idiot! How the hell could he have let them get the jump on him like this? He was a fucking idiot.
He’d come out of the bathroom downstairs, cleaned and dressed, and had started to try to clean things up. The table had been a complete loss, but well worth it, so he had simply gathered up the chunks of it and headed to the garage to store them in there until they could get them to the dump. But when he’d stepped through the door that connected the house to the garage he had seen that the garage door was open.
A little chill had run down his spine but he’d ignored it. Told himself that Rex had probably left it open when he’d went on his supply run. God, if only he’d listened to that little feeling, none of this would have happened. If he had turned around and gone back in the house and straight upstairs. But no, he’d been an idiot and had just brushed it off and walked in there.
They’d sprung out at him from behind the car; three men that he saw before they were grabbing him, slipping the bag over his head. He fought with everything in him but it hadn’t been enough. They’d punched at him to try to shut him up. For a split second the bag had dropped and he saw he was outside. He’d taken advantage of the moment to yell as loud as he could and pray to God that AJ would hear him.
But the bag had been back on his head almost instantly, with a solid punch on the side of his head added in, and he found his hands and feet tied before he could stop to think about it. Then he had been lifted and thrown inside of something. He’d heard the sound of something shutting, which he now realized was the trunk lid, and then they were speeding off down the road.
How long ago that had been he had no idea. It felt like only moments ago, and yet hours. He wondered how long it would take AJ to find him. Deep down inside he quivered a little as he wondered if he would be alive when AJ found him. There was no doubt in Brian’s mind that AJ would come after him or that he would find him. They had no idea who they were up against with this one. But he worried about what might happen to AJ when he arrived, and what might happen to himself in the meantime.
They were going to use him as bait. Even he knew that. Bait to lure AJ, and then leverage to hurt him with. They would want to break him down, have him hurting, begging, so that it would hurt AJ all the more. That would mean that they wouldn’t kill him.
He thought about that and realized how right it sounded. They would want to kill him in front of AJ to hurt him even more. But in the meantime they would most likely do everything they could to hurt Brian and to try to break him so that what AJ found when he arrived would be something to piss him off and to hurt him.
In a place inside of him that Brian hadn’t known existed he found a well of strength. No matter what they did to him, he vowed to himself that he would not break underneath it. He would do his best to hold his screams inside and to stay strong. AJ would come for him. Rex would come with him. These people thought it was going to be easy? They had no idea what was coming for them.
What little hope Brian had, he pinned on AJ. His lover would come for him and he would get them out of there. He just had to hold on until AJ arrived. He could do that.
The car suddenly stopped. Moments later Brian could hear the trunk open. He took a deep breath and steeled himself both inside and out. He could do this. He would do this. Just until AJ arrived, that was all. AJ would come for him. He held that thought closed as he was yanked out of the car and thrown straight into hell.