Chapter 5

Mitch

It was almost midnight when we made our descent behind the house. I could see the lights on around the garage. When the plane landed, I walked down the stairs then Jax and I got in the car that was waiting. The driver pulled around and stopped at the garage, where I saw several police vehicles sitting out front. Jax and I got out of the car and stood there for a moment. I could see the wreckage that once was Ophelia's truck already sitting inside.

"Mitch. I am so sorry about what happened. I know you want to handle this on your own, but some of my deputies would like to help. Figured you may need some extra manpower," Chief Miller said as he shook my hand. 

"Chief, I have an army. I have military grade drones and more weapons than your department has ever seen. Thank you, but I don't need your deputies. Besides, I won't be turning anyone over to law enforcement, so it's best your men stay out of this." 

"I understand. Just thought I'd offer some help." 

"Well thank you, but we're good." 

"Is there anything we can do though?" he asked.

"Yeah. Take your guys and go. This is a family matter. We'll handle this our way.” 

That was probably a little harsher than it should have been, but I really wasn't in the mood. We needed to formulate a plan and I didn’t want outsiders around right now. 

"Okay. Guys, let's go." Chief motioned to his deputies to leave as he got in his truck.

I took a deep breath, walked into the garage, and saw all my men standing there. Some of them are still looking half asleep. Noah and Oliver stood from their seats, walked over, and stood next to me. They seem to have calmed down for the moment. 

"Have you called Liam yet?"

"Yes sir, he's on a plane heading up here. He shouldn’t be too much longer. As soon as Ben showed us the video, I called Liam and Noah called you." Oliver murmured. 

I saw James still in his seat fighting back tears. I walked over to him and put my hand on his shoulder to console him. The men gathered around, forming a circle around me and my sons. I turned around and looked at each of them.

"Today, my daughter was taken from me. Not only did I lose my daughter, but you all lost a man as well. From what I can tell from the video, Ophelia is still alive, but the condition of Damian is unknown at this point. I have been given a timeline by the man that took them. He wants something from me, and to be completely honest, I considered giving into his demands. This organization is not more important to me than my daughter's life. The thought crossed my mind, to give him what he wanted. But as I thought about it, I remembered that I have the most highly trained private army anyone could ask for. I am asking you all, find my daughter, find Damian, bring them both home and kill any motherfucker that stands in our way. I am not going to bow down to some fucking Russian bastard who thinks that he can strong-arm me into doing something. That is not the way I was raised. I want my daughter back and I want Damian back. You know what to do.”

"Yes sir," the men roared in unison.

"Get to work and find them."

As the men walked off to start loading up weapons and ammo, Ben walked over to me holding his tablet. He was the best tech guy I had, and he knew his stuff. 

"Sir, I launched the drones earlier and have been scanning areas but right now I have not found anything. When I got the call from Ophelia, they were about thirty minutes away from the compound. I scrambled a team, but by the time we got there it was too late, they were already gone. I did some calculations and from the time that they were taken to the time that you received the video was only a few hours. They could have gotten far in that amount of time. My drones can only survey some much in twelve hours before needing to be recharged. So, we are limited on our survey time. I was thinking, I can run drones at night and the men could search during the day. That will give them time to sleep at night and I can run thermal imaging. Only downside is that it will cut battery time in half."

"I definitely don't want the men to be worn out. None of us will be any use to Ophelia or Damian if we're so exhausted that we can't execute a rescue mission. You can fly the drones at night and the men can search areas during the day. I will have them split up into teams so we can search a larger area. Try to get us a map with a search radius. We need to be able to see what we've searched and what still needs to be searched. There are a lot of unpopulated areas between here and Montreal, so it would be nothing for Anatoly to have found some secluded area and be held up there."

"I'll get right on that sir," Ben said, as he looked at his tablet and walked off.

***

Ophelia

    Trying to sleep the first night proved to be impossible, I kept waking up.  I couldn't help but think about my dad and my brothers, what they must be going through. By now they would have received the video and they would start formulating a plan. God only knows how long it will take for them to find us. As I sat there and looked out the small window at the top of the concrete wall, I started to hear knocking coming from the other side.

"Damian! Damian can you hear me?"

"I can hear you O, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay, are you okay?"

"I think so. I have a massive fucking headache though. Do you know where we are?"

"No. I don't."

"This is some fucking bullshit."

"Yeah, apparently he wants something from my dad."

"Fuck....O, I am really sorry we're in here."

"It's not your fault, there was nothing you could do. I think Ben answered the phone though, so they know what is going on, and I'm sure by now my dad has received the video."

"I bet Noah and Oliver are tearing shit up at the compound." Damian laughed.

"Oh God, I can imagine." I chuckled.

"What’s the time frame?"    

"1 week." 

"What the fuck? There is no way in hell I am staying in here for a fucking week. Ben better get his fucking drones in the air and find us sooner," he hissed.

"Yeah, I know. At least I hope they can find us." I paused for a moment before asking him a question. "Damian, do you think we'll die here?" I asked, as tears started to run down my face.

He was silent for a moment, "No baby girl, I don't think we'll die in here. This will not be the way your life ends, I promise. I will do everything in my power to make sure that you do not die in here, even if it kills me." 

I sat silently as tears ran down my cheeks. I didn't want to die here and I sure as hell did not want Damian to die either. 

"Let's change the subject though. We need to try to keep a positive mind set, we cannot let the negativity take over." he said.

I wiped the tears from my cheeks, "Okay, what do you want to talk about?" 

"Did I ever tell you I grew up on a ranch in Texas?" 

“You did?" 

"Yep. When my dad was alive, he owned a ranch out in west Texas, we had a few horses and some cattle. I can remember getting up early before school and going out to feed the horses. I had a beautiful brown quarter horse named Browning."

"I could not imagine you on a horse.”

 "Oh yes baby girl. I wanted to ride that horse all over the place. I was about ten or eleven and I had my horse for about three or four months. I got up super early, I went down to the barn and fed my horse, went back up to the house, got ready for school and ate breakfast. Went back outside, saddled up my horse and was going to ride him to school. I had him already to go and my mom came outside and told me I couldn't ride my horse to school. I was mad as hell; I went to the house and asked my dad if I could ride my horse to school. He looked at me and he said, “Well, what did your momma say?” I was like, momma said no. He said “well, it's no.” I was pissed, I didn’t even go to school that day. I wanted to ride my horse for the first day of school. Although it backfired on me, since I skipped school, dad made me clean out the barn and lay fresh hay," he said, chuckling at the memory.

"Oh my god.”

“Yeah, my plan to skip backfired. Needless to say, I didn’t skip school again for a little while.”

"That's so funny. What happened to your horse?"

"He still lives on the ranch, he's about 21 years old now. My aunt and uncle run the ranch now. I talked to my uncle not too long ago and Browning is still doing good and living out his days in nice green pastures."

"Wow. That's awesome. I've never been on a horse. Dad was not too much into horses so that was never something we did."

"I think you would like it, feeling the wind running through your hair as you and your horse run across an open pasture is one of the best things in the world." 

"You'll have to show me how to ride a horse one day."

"I can do that. When I first moved up here, I found an Arabian horse ranch about an hour west of the compound. I used to go out there so much the old man that ran the ranch started putting me to work. It made me feel like I was back at home, made me remember those days on the ranch with my parents."

    Before I could say anything else, I heard footsteps coming down the hall and stopping at the door to my room. Keys entered the lock and the door swung open hitting the concrete wall hard.

"O! What was that?" Damian hollered out.

"O, WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?" He hollered louder.

    I jumped to my feet and backed away from the door before my back hit the wall. There were two men standing in the doorway of my room. My heart was racing when they started walking towards me. One man reached out, grabbed my arm, and pulled me off the wall, the other man grabbed my other arm and they walked me out of the room.

    "LET ME GO!”

    "Leave her the fuck alone," Damian yelled, as he pounded on his door. I looked back and saw several men standing in front of Damian's door. When they opened the door, there was a struggle and the sound of a Taser buzzing. I heard Damian grunt as his body hit the floor. I turned back around, and we continued down the hallway to a large open room. Large spotlights lit up the room and I saw Anatoly sitting at a table in the middle of the room. 

The men walked me through the room and stood me a few feet back from the table in front of Anatoly. The men that went into Damian's room came in with him as well, they had cuffed his hand behind his back with a zip tie and walked him over to stand almost evenly with me before forcing him to his knees.