It felt almost typical, really. Pace arrived with her daughter and Robert Brodell at the specified location—a popular tourist stop at a cultural museum in the capital city. She expected a joyous reunion with her son. Instead, she met a woman holding a young boy. A woman who had silent tears running down her face.
Typical of her life. Another loss, another trial to endure. Initially the weight of it almost crushed her, but after a moment or two of absorbing, her mind distributed the load so she could bear it. She numbed to the point of no feeling.
"Pace?" Robert asked, placing a hand on her shoulder. "You okay?"
She nodded. "I'll be fine. It's not like I wasn't prepared for something like this when he ran off in the first place." Getting so close, and then losing him just hours before she arrived—that did hurt. At least, it should've...
If Ticey weren't there, didn't need her to be strong, she might've crumbled immediately. At the first mention of Dallas' fate, her daughter started to sob and sob, just like she had in the days following his hasty departure months ago. Robert, the man who'd come with her for 'morale support,' attempted to comfort the nine-year-old girl, but she turned away from him, reaching up to her mother until the Pace gathered her up in her arms.
"Your name is Jack, isn't it?" Pace asked the grieving mother before her.
Jack was tall for a classic human, but slender. Her hair was a dark brown, her eyes green. A few wrinkles at the corners of her eyes gave away her age, and Pace respected the fact that the woman allowed her wrinkles to show. Most classic humans had access to medical technology that would keep them looking young for decades. Pace and her family struggled to get assistance for medical emergencies.
The little boy Jack held in her arms squirmed to be put down. He seemed unaffected by the disappearance of his two siblings. Perhaps he was too young to realize the seriousness of what happened to them.
"My husband will be home soon from work. I need to consult him before we act. He has—history—with police forces and their operations. He'll know what'll be the best course to take in order to keep the kids safe," Jack said, struggling to keep her voice steady.
Pace nodded, grateful for the fact that this woman realized the potential problems that could result if Dallas were to fall in the hands of Empire authorities. Without contacts to mask his eyes, he might be shot on sight.
"What about your husband?" Jack asked, using one hand to take a Kleenex from her pocket and wipe her nose. "Will he want to know what happened to Dallas?"
The question caught Pace off-guard. For a number of seconds she considered her husband's possible reactions to Dallas getting kidnapped, absently rubbing the rings on her right hand with her thumb.
None of the potential options impressed her.
"I wouldn't know how to reach him," she said, a cold wave washing over her chest. She couldn't deal with marital problems and losing her son in the same day—it just might kill her. "My sister-in-law might know how to find him, but the last time I spoke to him, he made it abundantly clear he has no interest in playing father figure to my son. Unless he's changed his mind since then, I'm not going to bother him with my family's problems."
"Who're you talking about, Mommy?" Ticey asked, her tears slowly drying and her arms still clasped around her mother's neck.
"No one, sweetheart," Pace replied, stroking her daughter's hair. "No one at all."
Jack brought Dallas' family home with her, in case the kidnappers gave notice for a ransom. Riddick didn't know if he approved of that move or not—he'd fallen too far into shock to care.
Cam and Rachel, his son and daughter, taken without warning or reason. He'd fought with Rachel just that morning, and he hadn't seen Cam at all.
They'd received a short, cryptic email—nothing more. Had someone found him? Someone who held a grudge? Had the people looking for Dallas found them? If so, why take the other two kids? Why not kill them on the spot?
All Riddick could do was speculate, and it did him no good. He sat in a chair with Jack and Kyle on his lap and tried to comfort them, make them feel safe. The thing he desired most was a simple task, anything that would put his energy into motion. He needed to do something to correct this massive injustice. If he didn't find an outlet soon, Riddick didn't know to what lengths hi rage would drive him.
Feelings he hadn't held against other men since his days in slam welled up anew. At one point in his life, this never would've happened. These assholes who decided to fuck with his family had no idea they'd just jumped head-first into an Olympic-sized pool of shit.
If only he knew where they were, so he could strangle them with his bare hands.
Rick could only blame himself. He should've made the smart move and left Dallas for dead in the back halls of that casino. Slow and stupid—that's what he'd become. What had left him so senile and oblivious? A false sense of security that no one could reach him on New Mecca, perhaps? Stressing over work? Obsessing over his newly discovered physical weakness?
The message that came was from Cam. Riddick's son sat bound in a chair. The room behind him was too dark to make out. No bruises marred his face, but he appeared tired, worn. Broken...
"I'm fine, Rachel and Dallas are fine. They say they won't hurt us as long as we don't fight them. These people want ten million common for each of us, and they say one of us will die in exactly six days if you don't come up with the money. They'll tell you later where to deliver it. They're monitoring your financial activities, so they'll know when you have it."
That was it, the message ended. Every adult in the room let out a breath they'd held during the brief message. Jack reached out and touched the monitor where their son's face had been just a second before. She bowed her head, grieving for their lost child.
"We don't have that kind of money," Pace said softly, tears working their way down her pale cheeks. "We don't have enough to get a loan for ten million common. Not even close."
"Neither do we," Riddick admitted absently, his mind scrambling to piece together some solution to this problem.
"Maybe I should call the authorities," Jack said, looking around to judge the reaction to the suggestion.
Riddick noted Dallas' mother stiffened in her seat, just as he did. After that, Jack mentioned it no more.
A foreboding silence fell over the living room, broken only by the sound of Kyle's soft breathing. The boy slept in his mother's arms.
The doorbell rang and Jack gasped. Before Riddick could speak, his wife left their young son on his lap, dashing off to answer the door.
"Who are you?" Jack asked the person at the door.
"I need to speak with you and your husband," a young male voice insisted. He must've pushed past Jack, because her protests followed the young man into the living room.
Riddick gently pushed Kyle from his lap and got to his feet, eyeing the young man who'd come into his household uninvited. Rick recognized him from the casino, when he'd first met Dallas. It was Chris-the-probable-merc.
"Who are you," Riddick said, demanding instead of asking. "You almost fooled me once, but this time your story better be damn convincing, because if it isn't..."
'Chris' immediately came to attention, head up, chest out. Perfectly professional in every way. "Lance Corporal Christopher Valence, of the Empire Special Forces. I go by the alias 'Killer Cody Vale.' I'm AWOL from a classified unit called the Tiger Sharks, and working as an independent enforcer," he responded sharply, not bothering with any bullshit this time around.
Riddick snorted at the kid's snappy reply, just restraining himself from letting his features shape into a sneer. "Let me guess. They trained you to hunt down and capture dangerous men in order to keep the fine citizens of the Empire safe."
A ghost of a smirk graced the young man's features. "Actually, sir, they were trying to keep the Empire's citizens safe from me. I got the name 'Killer Cody' while sitting on death row in Slammer Six," Vale said, not in the least intimidated.
Riddick's cool gaze never left the face of the deceptively guiltless young man standing in the middle of the room. The kid wasn't innocent. The little freak didn't even appear to be exaggerating.
"Didn't know they let non-humans into the military," he commented, basing his assumption of the boy's species on the fact that NO classical human EVER got sent to the numbered prisons.
Vale smirked. "They don't. The day I began to serve, I ceased to exist, sir."
Riddick nodded, wondering just how cautious he needed to be with this new arrival.
What the fuck had he brought upon them?
"All right. Now I know who you are. Why are you here? Why should I allow you to continue breathing?" he growled. To his own ears he sounded threatening. Vale's expression didn't change an iota, but the boy tucked his chin maybe a millimeter, giving the impression of sending a defiant glare in Riddick's direction.
"My sister-in-law must've hired him," Pace said coldly, her angry gaze focused on Vale. "What I really want to know is the whereabouts of your partner, Cody. My son is missing, and I feel we should discuss our options—together."
"I'm the face of the team, you talk to me," Cody responded, his voice equally cool. He gave Pace a look out of the corner of his eye, and crossed his arms over his chest to put emphasis on the finality of his statement.
Riddick hadn't taken much notice of this woman, Pace, before that moment, but suddenly he realized the error he'd made there. She was dangerous. He could see it in her blue eyes. When she asked a question, she expected answers, not a runaround. Airs of authority like that didn't come to a person naturally.
"Vale, if he's here and you don't tell me, I will end you. You know the skill set I have. Don't make me use it on you," Pace growled, her eyes flashing with a madness Riddick had only seen up-close a few times before.
Johns gave him a look like that one on more than one occasion—but then Johns had been a complete sociopath.
So had Conte.
At that moment a shadow in the hallway shifted closer to them, and the sound of heavy, deliberate footsteps interrupted their conversation. "You won't have to do that, Pace. The kid was a Shark. You can't threaten a Shark into giving you information—we've already been to hell, and clawed our way back."
Speak of the devil, Rick thought, his chest tightening upon hearing that voice.
Dominic Conte stepped out of his cloak of shadow, and back into the life of Richard B. Riddick for the first time in over twenty years.
If he'd had a weapon in hand, Riddick would've killed the son-of-a-bitch on sight.