Chapter 20
"Ok-" Wolf paused to take a breath, in attempt to stay calm. "Let me get this straight. This Yasmin person is holding the C/O's kids hostage and my sister took out a bank loan to pay the ransom?" Wolf asked as he, Sasha and Tom stood outside Daniela's room with Meylan. He looked past the man to Daniela who was being checked over by the doctor and put through more cognitive tests.
"In a nutshell, we can't tell the police or Mike." Meylan said avoiding any question as to what happened today. He just had a vague plan taking root in his head and it required a lot of volunteers to walk a fine line and ask little to no questions.
"We have to tell Mike." Tom said, it unsettled him to be discussing this without his best friend involved.
"Why would she do this?" Wolf asked Meylan, he thought he understood Daniela but this just didn't make sense. He didn't see what value could be reaped by endearing herself to Mike. It made him wonder how badly he read his own flesh and blood.
"Tom, Mike is our friend but there's a reason why Daniela kept this to herself. So we should trust her experience in this instead of trying to do it our way. She knows how to deal with these people without starting a war." Sasha said, she knew Meylan well enough that he had a plan. She trusted Meylan and Daniela to make whatever it was work.
"She is trying to do a solid by Mike, he helped her by cutting through a lot red tape to let her come to the States and stay. If she hadn't been attacked, we never would've known. Now we do, we can help her and Mike's kids." Meylan said answering Wolf's question.
"He has a right to know." Tom said arguing with Sasha about Mike and whether he should be involved.
"He does but we have no proof or even an inkling of where the girls are." Sasha argued.
"Daniela said if we start sniffing around Red Circle for them, then we could lose the kids for good. It'll destroy Mike." Meylan said cutting into their conversation. Sasha nodded in agreement.
"Tom, I'm sorry to be harsh but remember what happened when your kids were kidnapped. Do you really believe that any of us were in that position that we could remain calm and in control?" Sasha asked him, Tom's heart tightened as he realised Sasha was right. He had barely been able to control himself when Alison Shaw took his kids. He still struggled with how he lost control and shot her after Tex's death.
"I hear you. How long until this all goes down?" Tom asked them, letting it go as he decided to concede on not telling Mike. He just hoped it all worked out for the best as he didn't feel confident in himself to take lead like Meylan and Sasha were doing.
"Sometime in the next few days, which is why we need her phone or her calls forwarded to another phone." Meylan said looking to Wolf. He was the only one out of the four standing there who could actually do something about it.
"Right, I'll call the coppers and see what the G.O. is on my place and the evidence they may have taken." Wolf said as he pulled out his phone.
"Wolf, you can't tip the police to Red Circle. Daniela said something about having insurance that keeps her alive but it looks like a delicate balance to maintain. Tipping the police off could put her and the girls in jeopardy." Meylan told him.
"Look, I'm pissed but I know what's at stake here. I won't fuck it up." Wolf assured him.
"Ok, you and Daniela will need a place to stay until your place is released by the police. You can stay at mine." Meylan told him.
"With respect Sir, I think I'll crash with Burk. It's up to Daniela where she wants to stay." Wolf said with a wry smile before he walked away to make the call.
"Ok, do you have a plan?" Tom asked Meylan.
"Some of one, but I think we need Daniela in on this for the finer details. She knows how Yasmin would operate, how this scenario will play out as it's turned personal." Meylan added.
"So the price could go up?" Tom asked.
"Most likely and the debt is a problem, it's going to be high. I have savings I can chip in." Meylan said.
"Same." Tom replied but Sasha shook her head.
"Put away your wallets, I got the tab on this." Sasha told them.
"You don't even know how much it is." Meylan argued.
"Doesn't matter, I'll cover it and I can access it almost immediately but we need a plan." Sasha said as Wolf rejoined them. They all looked to him.
"Phone is out but I spoke to the service provider. It took a little finagling but all her phone calls will be redirected to my phone." he told them.
A couple hours later, they all sat around Meylan's living room. Daniela was ensconced in one corner of the lounge. Sasha was perched on the opposite end while Wolf and Tom sat in dining chairs opposite them.
"Are sure you don't want to rest?" Sasha asked her, Daniela looked so drained but she shook her head.
"I just want to get this over with." she replied, Meylan pulled a throw blanket from the back of the lounge and wrapped it around her shoulders. "Thank you." she told him.
"Joseph filled us in on what's going on. Wolf has got your phone calls forwarded to his phone. So right now we need to figure out where this meet will go down and how to cover our bases." Sasha said as she gestured to the map of Norfolk on Meylan's coffee table.
Daniela pushed forward on the lounge and winced from the pain but it didn't stop her from what she needed to do. "I know the borders of the Prowler MC and Red Circle. There's a long strip of no man's land. My understanding is that they are both fighting for real estate to push the other out. They suffered a lot heavy losses, so called a truce to negotiate the distribution of territory." She said.
Sasha rose from her spot and moved to the floor and picked up a pen. "Tell me where to draw." she told her, Daniela gestured to the map and under two minutes they had the map divided. They all looked down at it quite surprised.
"Prowlers have made their mark." Tom remarked as the map was nearly all blue with exception of Red Circle's territory. Now it was drawn on a map one could see that Yasmin was not as powerful as she made herself out to be.
"They have allied themselves with other MCs, they are very pro take back America; driving out Cartels and other foreign led gangs. Once they succeed; they will turn on one another. But for now it's favourable to us as we can use it, but we shouldn't involve them as it will break the truce." Daniela said pragmatically.
"Navy can't be seen to getting involved either. It would cause a lot of problems, not just legally and politically speaking." Tom pointed out.
"This is why I kept it to myself." Daniela said.
"Not an option anymore." Wolf told her before Meylan could. "So how does this exchange go down?" he asked.
"She calls, I get a text with GPS coordinates and roughly less than an hour to meet. I go to the meet. She'll be a pain in the ass, patting herself on the back for finally having power on me. She'll attempt to bleed me for more money or information that only I possess. She'll try to keep one of the girls. I just need something to lord over her, then she'll become more agreeable..." Daniela drawled as she looked at Tom.
"Why are you looking at me?" Tom asked.
"You're a big American hero. How good are you at lying?" she asked him, the others looked to him wondering what Daniela was thinking.
"I prefer not to but in a pinch I can be convincing. But I don't want to paint a target on my back." He told her.
"You painted a target on your back when you pissed off the Russians and Immunes. But if we pay then there will be no issues." Daniela assured him.
"You ok?" Sasha asked Tom as they drove away from Miller and Burk's place after dropping Wolf off. They had a rough outline of a plan. They just needed to meet up with Meylan's friend in the morning, gather some volunteers from the Nathan James crew. Then it was all about fine tuning their plan and waiting for the call to come in.
"Yes, but I still believe we should tell Mike." Tom told her, it just didn't sit well with him that they withhold such information from his best friend. He knew Mike would never forgive them if something happened to girls especially if they all knew and didn't tell him.
"I know, I feel the same but it's easier to keep him out of it until we have the girls." Sasha said.
"If we get the girls." Tom corrected her.
"If we lose them then we can go at it hard. Daniela might not have been too forthcoming with details about Yasmin but she's in a precarious position. What she knows and her silence is the only thing that has kept her alive all these years." Sasha argued.
"She should tell us everything." Tom told her.
"She doesn't trust us enough to and the only person I'd say is close to being able to get her to open up; is Meylan. But for him to use her like that would destroy their relationship and all the progress Daniela has made." Sasha argued, she felt confident with the plans they had sketched out.
"I think it's worth it." Tom said.
"Are you kidding me?!" Sasha asked him, she knew it wasn't fair to be annoyed a him but she was as Tom didn't know the strides Daniela had made or how happy Meylan and her were together. Didn't take a genius to know they loved one another even though they hadn't been together long.
"She put herself on the line, if her giving us everything she knows can give us an edge then she should do so. If Meylan can't handle that then it's his fault for not realising what he-"
"Or we could trust her, know that she's telling us anything that is pertinent." Sasha said,
"Look, I hear what you're saying but we're putting a lot on the line here. I want to go in with eyes open." Tom said, Sasha couldn't be angry at his reasoning.
"I don't deserve you." Daniela told Meylan as they laid in his bed. He smiled down at her and she warmed as he had every reason to walk away from her. But he was here. He was sticking it out with her, he was taking care of her in a way that no one ever had for her before.
"Not true." He said as he interlaced their fingers and kissed her knuckles.
"I'm a bad person." she told him, feeling the need to be honest. "If you knew me, the things I ignored-"
"Daniela, no one has clean hands in this world except for our children. We all have broken laws, turned a blind an eye to the actions of others. The lines blurred during the pandemic, so we're all given a second chance to redeem ourselves." Meylan told her.
"Am I your redemption?" She asked, she felt herself panic as she couldn't handle him thinking of her that way. But luckily he shook his head and she was relieved.
"No, you're my girlfriend; and you're special to me. I think about when I wake up in the morning and before I fall asleep at night. You can make me smile for no reason at all and there is no one I'd rather spend my spare time with. I wouldn't change a thing about you." He told her.
"No improvements?" She asked teasingly.
"We all have room for improvement." he assured her, the perfect answer in her view.
"You don't." She told him earnestly, he snorted a laugh.
"I disagree-" He stopped as a knock sounded at the door. He rose from the bed and went to the front door when he heard a thud. He looked through the peephole and saw nothing amiss. But he opened the door just in case it was a package delivery, as he did a small body of a teenage girl slumped in the doorway."Daniela!" he called out.
He pulled the girl through the door way and closed the door. Daniela rushed into the hallway, she knelt down on the floor and brushed the girl's hair out of her face.
"Oh my god, it's Mike's eldest." she murmured, Meylan checked the girl's pupils and pulse as Daniela moved to the front door and looked through the peep hole.
"Courtney? can you hear me?" Meylan asked, the girl murmured in sleepy manner. She wasn't drunk, by the state of her dirty clothes and skin to bone appearance- she hadn't been treated well but she didn't look physically abused, no track marks which meant she ingested the drugs. "She's been drugged. Get the phone and call an ambulance." he told Daniela, she did as he ordered and went for the phone as he continued to try and wake her up. "Courtney? can you hear me? Where's Hannah?" he asked her.
Courtney barely responded, but a ringing tone sounded through the air. Meylan and Daniela exchanged looks as it was coming from Courtney.
"She's got a phone on her." Daniela said, she passed the phone to him, he placed it to his ear waiting for '911' to pick up. Daniela searched for the phone. She pulled it out of Courtney's back pocket and flipped it open. Pressed for Speaker and even with her injuries, there was a fierceness to her demeanour.
"Yasmin. I paid for two girls not one." Daniela said tersely at the phone.
"I got a better deal, but given we're such old friends and now I know who you associate with- well I know you can afford it. I'm going to let you give a counter offer. My buyer is offering $750,000. You have 24 hours to get back to me." Yasmin drawled, Daniela was about to respond but Yasmin hung up.
"The bitch." Daniela said before let forth a varying string of curses in Spanish.
"Hey, it's ok." Meylan told as he could see she was beating herself up over it.
"No it's not." Daniela told him, she gave a growl of frustration and anger. "Fucking hell!" she exclaimed.
Half an hour later, Mike raced off the elevator to the Paediatrics floor of the hospital. His heart was in his throat, his gut clenched in anxiety. He'd kept hold on the hope of finding his family, he knew it was stupid but he hadn't been able to give up, but he never actually prepared for the eventuality of seeing them. The phone call had been a complete shock, but his eldest was alive.
"Mike," Meylan said greeting him. He obviously been waiting for him, the good man and friend he was.
"Where is she?" Mike said with no patience.
"She's ok, this way." Meylan said as they started walking towards where his eldest daughter was.
"What are the feds doing here?" Mike asked as they passed Daniela and Sasha talking two men who were wearing suits.
"Long story, short. Your daughters were picked up by the Cartel faction here in Norfolk. Daniela has been trying to negotiate a trade with the leader. There have been some issues." Meylan said, Mike stopped and looked at him. "I only found out today. Feds and CIA showed up half an hour ago thanks to the Police investigation into Daniela's assault. They want her to cough up intel and turn the negotiation for Hannah into a sting operation to entrap the leader." Meylan told him.
"No way in hell will I let that happen." Mike told Meylan, he'd tell the government agents later to take a hike as his priority in this moment was Courtney. They made it to a room and walked in, there on the bed was his daughter. It had been three years since he'd last seen her.
"Courtney." Mike breathed in shock, she looked so thin and pale on the bed. A doctor and nurse stood over her, they stopped what they were doing and looked to Meylan and Mike.
"Doctor, this is Captain Slattery, he's Courtney's father." Meylan said making the introductions.
"How is she?" Mike asked.
"She's malnourished, dehydrated but she will be ok." The doctor assured him.
"No," Daniela said flat out to the two Government Agents. She couldn't remember their names so she just called them Harry and Ike in her minds as they were pretty fucking useless to her.
"We can compel you." Harry told her, in what was supposed to be a scary imposing attitude. But Daniela wasn't impressed, if anything she was bored and frustrated. All she wanted was to have a bowl of ice cream and as much Tylenol that her body could have without going into toxic shock.
"Compel me?"Daniela huffed a laugh as it was the funniest thing she'd heard all day. Today was feeling impossibly long. "Your people tried for four years to 'compel' me. I also have an immunity agreement that protects me from such treatment." Daniela told him.
"It can be revoked. You did gamble which is illegal." Ike pointed out.
"Prove it." Daniela dared him.
"We have you coming out of Little Korea's most famous dens." Harry said.
"Oh, he's talking about where I went to a late dinner with my friend. They have the most delicious BBQ, I have receipts." Daniela told him with a smile, while the two looked annoyed. "Also, I'm not scared. You need to change tactics and decide on what you truly want to accomplish here. I can tell you now that Yasmin is a more achievable goal for you. Much so, than trying to compel me. All I care about is getting that little girl back." she added.
"Then tell us what we need to know." Ike said.
"I've told you everything I know." Daniela told him. Sasha stood at her side, silently supporting her as she had already tried to deal with the men more diplomatically before they decided to try to pump Daniela unsuccessfully for information.
"I don't believe you." Ike argued.
"Then I pity you." Daniela informed him, the two men looked about ready to lose their minds with her. But before they could lay out the future for her, Mike came back from his daughter's room to join the group.
"I'm Captain Slattery. Who wants to tell me what is going on." Mike demanded.
"We're discussing how best to-" Harry stated but Daniela cut him off.
"Taken down Yasmin, the child will be collateral damage or do you suits call a child's death acceptable loss?" Daniela asked Harry and Ike, the two men were weasel like in the presence of Mike's stature and presence.
"Respectfully, we're trying to ascertain the situation to find an amicable outcome for both Ms Soto is withholding information." Harry said as diplomatically as he could.
"I'm pretty sure neither of you could ascertain your way out of your own asshole; even with a map and a flashlight." Daniela told him in a patronising manner before Harry or Ike could comment Sasha cut in first.
"We're going to pay to the ransom and get the child back. Yasmin is barely worth your consideration as she's bullying Daniela for money. It's because she is greedy and knows a parent is desperate to do anything for their child's return. Right now, she doesn't know that the child she is holding is that of a Naval officer. When she does, it won't be money that she looks for. It will be access to resources usually outside her grasp." Sasha told them.
"You can't order us to stay out of it." Harry told her.
"Actually, it's up to the parent as to what they want to do and who will be involved. It's not illegal to pay a ransom especially given the extenuating circumstances. We also didn't ask for your assistance, so perhaps you should go before someone sees you talking to us and relays it back to Yasmin." Daniela told them scathingly.
"I agree with Ms Soto, we'll give you a report after the exchange has happened. What you do with it is up to you but I refuse FBI and CIA assistance." Mike told them.
"Sir-"
"My child, my decision. I won't have her in the crossfire." Mike said to the two men.
"You can't use the Navy-" Harry started but Mike cut him off.
"I know, I used to be a cop. I know how this works and the stats on if you guys stick your nose in it. So respectfully, I decline your offers of assistance and ask you leave us be."
"Yes Sir." the two men said in unison. Mike waited until they left the floor before he turned his attention to the women. He zeroed in on Daniela. She looked like she had gone ten rounds and lost. Yet she was still on her feet; barely but she was here and she had managed to recover one of his daughters.
"How long did you know?" He asked her, he couldn't stop the ripple of anger that rolled through him. He felt she should've told him the moment she knew something but he couldn't stay mad as Courtney was down the hallway.
"It doesn't matter, I was trying to do it my way which is a lot harder when I'm poor. You have one daughter. Trust me, I can get Hannah back." Daniela implored him.
"You two better have a good plan." Mike told them, he would never beg them or ask the details as it would crack the veneer of the mask he wore. He needed to show strength and be a father.
"We do." Sasha assured him, he gave a curt nod and walk back down the hallway. Daniela turned to Sasha, they shared a look that was a mix of relief and apprehension.