Chapter 7

Ophelia

    It's been four days since we were taken, each day is worse than the day before. I can feel the swelling in my face and eyes. There are marks all over my body, my throat hurts badly I can hardly speak. My arms and legs are covered in bruises. There is dried blood over most of my body and between my legs. I haven't had a shower since I was taken and the smell of myself makes me want to vomit. 

    They bring me one meal a day and one bottle of water, usually at night. It looks like slop with a piece of bread, it's disgusting but it's better than nothing. I have not heard Damian since the gunshot. I am guessing that he is dead, and I am all alone in here. My body is exhausted and weak as I have not hardly slept since I've been here. As I sit here looking up toward the window, it suddenly hit me, today is my 21st birthday. WOW, hell of a way to spend my birthday. I sat in my corner and cried as I thought about my family and friends. I cannot even begin to imagine what my father and brothers are going through. It was beginning to get dark outside, yet another sleepless night in this fucking prison. I closed my eyes for a moment before being awoken by the sound of the door to my cell slamming against the concrete wall. In walks a tall Russian with a depraved grin on his face, he closes the door behind and walks over to me. Fuck not again. 

***

Mitch

          "Where the fuck is she? Why can't we find her? I want fucking answers!” I screamed at the men standing around me. I was starting to lose my patience. My daughter has been missing for four days and it was driving me insane. It has been so long since I have dealt with blatant retaliation towards my family. This asshole had fucking balls I’d give him that, but I cannot wait to get my hands on him. 

The men have been searching during the day while Ben and James run drones at night. James isn't big on guns and fighting but he still wanted to help, so I told Ben to put him to work. Once we searched everything around the compound, I made the decision to go ahead and move north to Montreal and start searching those woods. As night fell, I had this sudden realization. Today is Ophelia's 21st birthday, I closed my eyes and grabbed my chest as pain radiates through my body. The pain of losing a child is unexplainable. I hate this feeling; we must find her soon or I may very well lose my mind.

I walked up to the main house while the rest of the men went to the bunkhouses. I went to my office, walked over to the bar, and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. I grabbed four glasses and went to the kitchen where Liam, Noah and Oliver were sitting at the table discussing search areas for tomorrow. 

Standing at the head of the table, I set the bottle and glasses down. My boys stopped what they were doing and looked at me. I could see the pain and anger in their faces. I opened the bottle and poured a little in each glass, I slid a glass to each of them.

“Today is not a good day. This is not how she was supposed to spend her birthday. We need to find her soon; she doesn’t deserve any of this.” 

Noah took a deep breath before taking a sip of his whiskey, “We’ll find her soon; it’s taking a little longer than we thought it would. But we’ll find her.”

“I can’t take this much longer; she needs to be home.”

Oliver brushed his hands through his hair, “We know, we’re doing everything we can to find her.”

“I know you are.”

I sat down at the table and listened as my boys made their plans and mapped out new search areas. Ben’s map was giving us a good idea of areas to search. As each team cleared an area, we would mark it off. If we found any buildings, we would mark them on the map then search and clear them. There was not much around this area, a lot of forest and not many abandoned buildings. Ben and James headed out in one of the Knights to Montreal. He has made a miniaturized command center and it’s more efficient to launch the drones closer to their search area. That way the drones have more flight time before needing to be recharged. 

After they made their plans for the next day, I got up from the table and went up to my room. I showered and put on a pair of sweatpants then laid down in bed. Most nights have been sleepless, and tonight is no different. I could not imagine what Ophelia was going through. My sweet girl was paying for the sins of her father and it killed me inside. I laid awake for hours rethinking every decision I ever made. My lifestyle puts her in danger, because of me someone chose to come after her. There is no option to quit this though. I can only press forward, find her, and put an end to those who would challenge me.

The next morning, I got up, got dressed and headed downstairs. I walked into the kitchen where Henry was cooking breakfast. I took a seat at the table and Liz brought me my coffee and a plate of food. As I started to eat my sons came into the kitchen, fixed themselves a plate of food and took a seat at the table.

 We sat quietly and ate our breakfast; the whole house was quiet. Ophelia's absence was not only affecting us, but the staff as well, it has been days since I saw smiles on anyone's face. Suddenly my phone rang, I pulled it out of my pocket and saw the caller ID. Everyone stopped what they were doing and listened as I answered the phone and put it on speaker. 

“Ben, what do you have?”

"Hey Boss, we’re heading back from Montreal. I found some areas of interest. James is sending the coordinates now. I also found a few abandoned buildings, but before I could get a closer look the drones had to turn around for recharge. There is a lot of abandoned shit north east of Montreal, I would like the search teams to continue in the area today."

"Sounds good. Once we receive the coordinates the teams will dispatch to the area and begin their search." 

“Yes Sir," Ben said, before hanging up the phone. 

The boys’ phones buzzed, and they received the coordinates. They forwarded it to each of their teams and told them to get loaded up. 

"I want you boys to be safe out there today." 

Noah nodded his head, “We will." They finished their breakfast, got up and walked out the door to meet their teams. 

After I finished eating, I got up from the table and went to my office. I needed something to occupy my mind and figured I should get some of the work done that had been piling up on my desk. As soon as I sat at my desk, I saw the photo of Ophelia. It was all I could do to hold myself together as I stared at her photo. I closed my eyes and remembered the day the photo was taken. I wanted to get some family pictures done after she graduated, so we went to the creek that runs along the side of the property. The photographer was taking photos when she looked up and saw Ophelia standing along the edge of the creek. The white sun dress she was wearing made her look like an angel, her beautiful brown curly hair was blowing in the wind. She looked gorgeous, just like her mother. The photographer called her name and when Ophelia turned her head, she snapped the most stunning picture. When she showed it to me, I told her that I wanted it in a frame for my desk. 

I started to sort through the paperwork when I heard the doorbell ring. I heard Phil, my butler, answer the door and began talking to someone. There was a knock at my office door, "Come in."

Phil opened the door, "Sir, Chief Miller is here to see you."  

"Thank you, send him in."  

 Chief Miller walked in. I stood to shake his hand, "Chief, nice of you to stop by. What can I do for you?"

"Actually Mitch, I wanted to come by and check on you. I can't begin to act like I know what you're going through, but I wanted to see how you're doing," he said, taking a seat in the chair across from my desk.

 Truth be told, the Chief has always been a good friend to the family. After the compound was finished being built, I had a meeting with Miller, and we came to an understanding a long time ago.

"Well thank you. But I'm doing about as well as you would expect. The longer it takes us to find her the more my patience wears thin. I'm doing my best not to completely lose my shit on my guys right now. I know they're doing everything they can, but it's frustrating not knowing where the fuck she's at." 

"Your guys haven't found anything yet?"

"No, not a fucking thing. Ben is running drones at night and my boys have six teams that go out during the day to search on foot. But we haven't found shit yet. We've worked our way up around Montreal and are searching areas up there. Ben said there are a lot of abandoned buildings in that area, so we are hoping that we'll find something soon."

"I hope so. But can I ask you something?

“Sure, what’s that?”

“Are you sure she is still on this continent? Do you think it’s possible that they took her to another country?”

“Ben has a contact keeping track of all transportation routes in and out of New York and Canada. They’ve been pulling traffic cameras along the highways trying to find anything suspicious. She hasn’t gone through an airport, bus station or train station. She’s around here somewhere, it’s just taking us a little longer to find her.”

“Did Ben check with border security?”

“Yeah, he did. There were vehicles that went through there that matched some tire marks found at the crash site. It was rented vehicles and the names and IDs they used were fake. Ben tracked them as long as he could then they disappeared. There were no traffic cams to pull from and we lost them.

“Damn. Are you sure there isn't anything we can do? Do you need any extra men? I have several deputies that would like to help?" 

"Thank you, but like I said before, I think I got plenty of manpower. It's not the manpower I need anyway. I need bigger drones and my own fucking satellite or something."

Chief laughed, "Man, I wish I could help you with that, but we don't even have half the shit you do. So, all I can offer you is manpower."  

"Well thank you for the offer, but we got it covered. We'll find her soon."  

Chief stood up from the chair, "Alright. If you need anything, anything at all, you know where to find me."

I stood and we shook hands once again, he opened the door and walked out. I sat back at my desk and continued my work. 

Before I knew it, it was dark and there was another knock at my door, "Come in." 

"Sir, the men are back." 

"Thank you, Phil." 

I got up from my desk and walked outside to the garage. Noah, Oliver, and Liam were unloading their bags from the trucks. They walked right by without saying a word and brought their stuff into the weapons vault. My heart sank to the pit of my stomach. I closed my eyes and put my head down, running my hand through my hair. 

Fuck. Yet another day of nothing. I was starting to worry that we may never find her. My mind raced with so many negative thoughts.

I had been trying to keep it together, but I was not sure how much longer I could endure this. What if he had already killed her? What if he was torturing her? What if he had taken her back to Russia? What the fuck would I do then? Was I going to have to make a deal with the devil to get her back?

I stood there consumed with my thoughts and watched in silence as my sons talked with Ben about where they had searched. Ben marked a new search area, he and James loaded up the drones and drove off.