Heartless Lover by Faith Summers

36

Eric

“He’s not here Eric,” Aiden says, and I fume. “The guys said they can’t find him down at the club either.”

All the men are out, and we’ve all split up across the last three locations I placed Robert in. A house in Long Beach, a warehouse at the docks, and a club in Echo Park.

We’re standing outside the house in Long Beach. Alejandro is with us. The only people here are drug addicts and a pregnant woman who speaks French.

We’ve been searching all fucking day and I felt for sure we’d find him already. But something is off because we should have.

It’s also hard as fuck to track someone down without having something trackable like a phone or the reg. plates of a car. Even so we should have found Robert by now and Micah if he’s with him.

By now Robert will know his device isn’t working. It will just be a dead machine to him. He’ll also know it could only have been me who fucked it up in such a way.

“What do we do now?” Alejandro asks.

“My bots would have notified me if they’d tracked anything. Nothing’s come through,” I reply.

“I’ll get men to stay at both places just in case he comes back,” Aiden says. “Then we’ll continue to try and locate him and Micah.”

I’m sure the two fuckers are together, wherever the hell they are.

My phone rings and when I look at it and see the unrecognized number I tense up. This isn’t going to be anybody I want calling me because only a limited number of people have this number, and they wouldn’t hide their number from me.

“Who is this?” I ask when I answer the phone.

“Hello friend, long time no speak,” Robert’s cold voice replies in my ear, and I could be back in Brazil chained to those poles again with the electricity convulsing through my body.

“Robert Carson.”

Aiden and Alejandro straighten up when they hear me say his name.

“Yes, my friend. Except I haven’t gone by that name in years. It feels weird hearing it.”

“How’d you get this number Robert?”

“It’s amazing what can buy a man’s betrayal. Although, I have to say this guy was really loyal to you, it’s important you know that.”

Fuck… what’s happened?

I think of Summer instantly because I sent my most loyal men with her. I would have left them at the apartment with her even if she hadn’t gone to her father’s house.

“What did you do Robert?”

“Not that much. The price of Oleg’s betrayal was his mother’s death and the threat of his wife’s life.”

Jesus Christ.Oleg. And this motherfucker killed his mother and took his wife. “You motherfucking dog.”

“I keep telling you I’m not the one who’s the dog. It’s you. And you’re going to do as your told.”

“I’m not doing shit, friend.”

“I think you will from how I hear it. You have a new love interest. I don’t know how you knew about my device, but I give you credit for outsmarting me. It was one thing to screw with my device but imagine my surprise when Oleg informed me that the woman I thought I killed is very much alive and in your care. He sang like a canary to save what’s left of his wife, understandable as he was watching her being tortured. Every time he stalled, I chopped off one more finger.”

This could have only have happened sometime today and it explains why we couldn’t find Robert. But Oleg is with Summer.

“He didn’t know I was going to kill her anyway after I got what I wanted. Now he’s dead too.”

“What do you want?”

“You. I want you, old friend. And I think from what I hear you’ll come to me because I have your girl and her old man. At first, I arranged to go to your apartment and take her there, but this works too. Either way I have one over you tonight. So, you’re going to come to his humble abode and give yourself over. Then you’re not just going to fix my device, you’re going to make it even better than it was before. You’re going to improve it. That’s what you’re going to do Eric. You’ll come for her, won’t you?”

“You bastard.”

“See you when you get here. Make sure you’re by yourself, won’t you.”

He hangs up because he knows he doesn’t need me to answer that question he knows I’ll come because he knows me.

I look at Aiden and Alejandro and I feel like breathing fire.

“He’s at Summer’s father’s house. He has Summer and her father. He wants me to fix the device.”

“Fuck,” Alejandro breathes.

“I’m going,” I declare.

“We’re going with you,” Aiden says and both men nod.

* * *

When I get to John’s house, I see the dead bodies of my men on the ground near their cars.

I’m alone right now but Aiden and Alejandro have snuck on to the grounds from the surrounding woods at the back of the house. If they can get in, they’ll back me up that way. If they can’t then I just have to play it by ear.

I get out of my car and rush up to the door when I see Oleg lying dead on the step in his blood and Borya next to him with a blood covering his shirt. Borya is still breathing though. Barely.

“This way,” says a man who appears at the opened door.

He looks Italian so I’m assuming he’s one of Micah’s men.

I rise and follow him inside where I see the rest of men waiting for me.

This shouldn’t have happened and there wasn’t anything I could have done because Robert fucking got to Oleg.

I’m led to the back into John’s gallery. It’s a large display hall with a number of his paintings.

At the head of the room near the sliding glass doors are Robert holding a gun to Summer’s head and Micah standing next to them with a gun to John’s head. John is kneeling on the floor though and his face looks messed up.

I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do right now to save us. I’m surrounded by ten men with guns as well as Robert and Micah who also have guns. Even with Aiden and Alejandro I’m outnumbered, and we have no plan.

I look at Summer and see how terrified she is. She’s shaking and there are bruises on her face and neck, which means the fucker touched her.

He touched her again.

“Well look at this,” Robert begins. “Just like old times right. Me in charge and you at my mercy.”

“Let them go, Robert. I’m here now. You got me good this time.”

“I did, didn’t I? You know it’s interesting to see how the tables have turned. I was always in your shadow and now you’re in mine. I have big connections now. I’m the one calling the shots.”

“You’re not talking about this guy, are you?” I taunt motioning to Micah.

I’m trying to bide myself sometime.

Micah seethes and kicks John who cries out from the pain.

“Disrespect me again boy and I kill him,” Micah retorts.

Summer looks weaker just for hearing that, so I tread with care. John is already dying. I don’t want to do anything to accelerate his death. The fact they’re both still alive shows the level of desperation.

I am the answer to their problems.

“Let them go, you got me,” I repeat.

“Get rid of your guns and come over here,” Robert says.

I take out my guns one at a time and lay them on the ground.

Two men come to me to search me. When the first puts his hand on my arm, a bullet pierces through the glass doors from outside and lodges in Micah’s head. That’s going to be either Aiden or Alejandro.

Micah goes down in a flash and that gives me the diversion I needed and Summer too.

The moment Robert looks over at Micah, she elbows him in his stomach and runs to the corner to shield herself as more bullets come through the glass doors taking down a few more men.

I grab my guns and shoot the two near me but I’m going for Robert.

Aiden and Alejandro crash through the doors and go after the remaining men while I rush Robert who now sees the scales have tipped in my favor.

He runs through the doors out on to the terrace and looks back to shoot at me. He misses but I don’t.

I fire bullet that hits him in his leg and slows him down.

Another bullet gets him in his back, and he falls to the ground face first. I catch up to him and the motherfucker tries to crawl away.

I kick him on to his back and place my foot on his chest to hold him down.

In the moonlight he looks like a wounded animal.

“You got me old friend,” he sputters, coughing blood.

I crouch down next to him and tap the side of his head with my gun. I remember the vow I made back in Brazil to end him.

This is the end.

“I told you I would do this and yet it doesn’t feel like it’s enough. I could kill you a million times and it wouldn’t be enough justice for me. But I’ll just make this one-time count.” With that I fire one bullet to his head and end him. Just like I promised I would.

It’s over now.