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Jack would never forgive himself.
Not as long as he lived.
There was a reason people in his line of work tended to be loners. To deliberately hold themselves apart from other people.
They were dangerous.
He was dangerous.
And now he’d brought the danger back home with him.
Diane’s fingers dug into his arm as she clung to him, staring at the image of Riley on the screen. Jack’s hand actually shook as he reached for the computer mouse. He couldn’t remember the last time his hands had shaken.
He knew better than to tell Diane to leave the room. She wouldn’t do it. Not until she found out what happened to her baby.
So Jack let her hold onto him as he pressed Play.
At first, there was dead silence. Riley lifted her head and glared past the camera at whoever was holding it. She was only thirteen but already she’d perfected the art of the withering, disdainful death glare. On an ordinary person, it would have worked. But the people who took her were anything but ordinary.
“Say it,” a voice barked from off-camera.
“Fuck off,” Riley spat.
Heavy footsteps crackled through the computer’s speakers. Riley flinched, and Jack felt Diane’s nails dig into his arm as her hands twitched with furious terror.
“Okay!” Riley said, her voice shaking with uncharacteristic fear. “Okay!”
She swallowed and looked directly into the camera. Diane gasped and Jack’s hand curled into a fist at his side. One of Riley’s eyes was bruised and swollen almost completely shut. Her hands were tied together on her lap, her knuckles bruised and split open. She’d fought back. Hard.
“Jack,” Riley said. “These guys work for Altmann. They said you have until midnight to turn yourself over, or…”
She stopped, swallowing nervously. Jack could see her hands shaking, her nails biting into her palms. He didn’t need to hear what came next. He knew exactly what the threat would be. But he forced himself to listen.
“…or they’ll kill me.”
Jack grabbed Diane, holding her tightly as she pressed her forehead against his shoulder, gasping and shaking with fear. He was afraid too. Terrified. But he was steady as a rock. This was exactly the sort of thing he’d spent half his life training for. If anyone could get Riley back, he could. And he would. He wouldn't let anyone bench him, tell him he was too close to the situation. Not when Riley of all people was in danger. Didn't matter who he had to fight on it, he would be the one to bring Riley home.
“I’ll get her back, Diane,” he said, murmuring the words softly into her hair. “I swear I’ll get our little girl back.”
Riley had never been so fucking miserable in her life. Her head was still spinning from whatever she’d been drugged with and the ropes had rubbed her skin so raw her wrists were bleeding. The blood tricked down her arms, bound to a pipe above her head, making her skin itch. Her head was pounding, her face throbbing where they’d hit her. And her whole body was aching from being forced to stand for so long.
In spite of it, she kept wrenching at the pipe, rattling it as she dragged down with all of her weight. After hours of doing so, it still hadn’t budged, but she wasn’t about to stop trying now.
“Cut it out!”
The harsh, snapping voice belonged to the man who’d been left in the room to guard her. From the second they’d been locked in here he’d clearly been irritated at drawing the short straw, and he was only growing more so the longer Riley struggled.
But Riley didn’t care. She wasn’t about to stop now, even with this guy glaring like he was about to throttle her. She kept rattling the pipe, yanking at it so hard her wrists hurt, sharp spikes of pain traveling up her arms.
The man stormed toward her and Riley struggled even more frantically, as if this time, this time it would break and she could get free before this guy laid a hand on her.
He grabbed her chin, squeezing tightly as he forced Riley to look at him.
“I said, cut it out,” he snarled right in her face. “Got it?”
Riley bit him. Taken by surprise, he shouted as her teeth sank into his hand. He wrenched away from her, his injured hand curling to a fist that slammed into Riley’s cheek. Pain exploded across her face, the bitter, coppery taste of blood following it as she bit her tongue on impact.
“Little shit,” the guy muttered. His hands twitched and Riley flinched back, but he just turned away and stalked back toward the door, muttering furiously to himself.
“You’re lucky we’re supposed to keep you alive until we have your dad,” he snapped. Given the circumstances, Riley decided not to correct him.
She stayed much more still after that, her attempts to get free only consisting of subtle twists of her hands as she tried to work the knots loose. Her mind started to wander. To Jack. To her mom. Wondering if they'd even seen the video yet. What if they somehow didn't see it until midnight had already come and gone? What if Jack just didn't come?
And what the heck was Jack mixed up in, anyway?
Riley had always figured Jack was bad news. There was something off about him. About how he always seemed to be hiding something. Her mom couldn’t see it, no matter how Riley tried to explain it. She just said it was normal for her not to trust men after everything that had happened with her dad and asked her to give Jack a chance.
Well, she'd gotten her wish. Riley was giving him a chance now. Not that she had much choice in it.
Jack, she thought, as if her thoughts would somehow reach him. Please just get here soon.
Hours passed, and with every second that went by Riley grew more painfully aware of the midnight deadline.
She was starting to lose feeling in her hands when she finally heard it. Shouting in the distance. A loud cracking noise that reminded her of gunshots she’d heard on TV.
Riley’s heart tripled in speed at the sound. What if they’d just shot Jack the second he walked through the door? What if he was dying? What if no one knew where they were and she was going to be trapped here until they decided to just kill her too?
Her guard was on edge, watching the door nervously, hands twitching with every gunshot.
Then suddenly everything was quiet on the other side. Too quiet.
The door slammed open with a crash that shook the walls. Riley yelped, flinching against the wall as a large, imposing figure stormed into the room.
A figure she recognized as soon as she saw his face.
Jack was here.
Jack was okay.
Before the guard could even react, Jack was on him. With one swift, heavy punch to the face, he knocked the other man to the ground, leaving him in the dust with blood spurting from his nose. He rushed across the room to Riley, the injured lackey completely forgotten when he saw her.
“Jack,” she gasped, her voice breaking under the flood of relief that crashed over her. She’d never thought she would be so happy to see him.
“I gotcha,” Jack said, reaching up to untie her hands. The moment they were free, Riley’s knees gave out, her legs exhausted from hours of being forced to stand. Jack caught her, his arms circling her and pulling her close to his chest.
As she leaned her head against him, tears she’d been holding back for hours started falling. Jack held onto her tight, mumbling words she couldn’t even pay attention to into her hair.
“Jack, what’s going on?” she sobbed, clinging to him as tight as she could. “Who –”
“I’ll explain everything, kid,” Jack said as he scooped Riley up off her aching, useless legs. “I promise. But let’s get you back to your mom first.”
It was just after daybreak when Riley was finally discharged from the hospital. She’d thought she would just need a few stitches, if anything, but instead she’d spent hours being shuffled from one scan to the next, having blood taken, being asked questions about when and where she was. Then they’d insisted on keeping her for observation and getting her on fluids until finally they were satisfied that she wasn’t going to drop dead if they sent her home.
Jack had stayed at her side the whole time, along with her mom. In fact, he was the one who helped her out of the wheelchair and into the car.
She stared blankly out the window as they drove, still reeling as she tried to get her head around everything that had happened. Jack still hadn’t explained anything yet. He swore he would, just as soon as they were home. Riley wasn’t sure she trusted him to be telling the truth, but once again, she’d give him a chance. The last one she’d given him was working out fine so far, after all.
“Jack.” His name came out before she even realized she was speaking. “Thanks.” She looked up, meeting his gaze in the rearview mirror. “Maybe you’re not as bad as I thought you were.”
Jack chuckled, a warm light coming into his eyes before he shifted his full attention back to the road.
“Maybe?” he repeated.
“Maybe.”
“I’ll take it.”