“Yeah?” He looked at me warily.
“I need you to go and spill that ice cream on that man.” I pointed to Joseph.
“What? For real?” The kid shook his head.
“I’ll give you twenty dollars.”
“Okay.” His eyes lit up as if it were Christmas.
“Here you go.” I handed him a twenty and sighed. I should have offered him five. Twenty seemed like an awful lot of money just to dump some ice cream. “Now go.” I watched as he ran up to Joseph and threw the cone at his face. Trust me to choose a hooligan. I saw Joseph chasing down the kid and I walked quickly to the building, avoiding looking in their direction as I hurried into the building. My heart was beating fast as I made my way into the elevator. I’d made it. I exited the elevator quickly and hurried to David’s apartment. I tried opening the door without knocking. I grinned as it opened easily. He needed to get his locks fixed. The bottom lock never locked the door unless it was slammed it hard. I crept inside the apartment and froze as I heard two voices coming from the study. I walked slowly and crept up to the door that was slightly ajar and peeked in. But no one was there.
“What are you going to do, Jakob?” David’s voice said clearly, and I froze.
“I’m still deciding,” Jakob responded gruffly.
I looked around the room in confusion. Where were the noises coming from? No one was in the room. Then I saw the small AM/FM transistor radio sitting on the floor next to the desk. I crouched down and picked it up—the sounds were coming from there.
“You’re a fool, you know that, right?” David’s voice was full of static as I held the radio to my ear. Where were they? I hurried out of the study and looked around the rest of the apartment quickly.
Beep beep. I grabbed my phone to see who had texted me.
Smart girl. It’s Steve again. I’m glad you went to David’s apartment. Go to the TV in his bedroom. Turn it to channel 1003 now. I told you to trust me.
How do you know where I am?
Don’t worry about that. Go to the TV in David’s room now.
What’s going on? I texted back as I ran into David’s room and turned the TV on.
All will be revealed in due time.
Where is Jakob? I asked, my heart pounding as I fumbled with the numbers on the remote and changed the channel to 1003.
You’ll see. Steve texted back immediately.
I sighed at the message and then looked at the TV screen. My heart dropped as I saw Jakob and David in a dark, dingy room somewhere. Jakob, with a grimace on his face, was standing next to David, who was tied to a chair and looked panicked.
“The papers were at Larry’s wife’s house, just like she said.” Jakob’s voice was cold. “You didn’t tell me she was Larry’s daughter.”
“I didn’t know at first.” David’s voice was bitter. “Not until you were on the island.”
“You know Larry is Maxwell?”
“What?” David’s jaw dropped. “That bitch never told me!”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of her.” Jakob walked to the side of the room and I could barely see him in the darkness.
“You got what you wanted. You can’t keep me here,” David grunted. “You won’t get away with it.”
“It’s nearly done now.” Jakob slammed his hand down on the table. “Everything is working out perfectly. I’ve done what I had to do. What’s hers is mine and what is mine will be hers.”
“What do you think she’ll do when she finds out?” David’s voice was low and he smirked at Jakob from his seat. “You’ve got me tied up here so I can’t leave, but you’ll have to let me loose at some point.”
“We’ll see about that.” Jakob’s voice dropped to a low rasp and I shivered. “I might never let you loose.”
“Bianca will find out, you know.” David sounded scared now. “She’ll find out the truth.” My heart stopped as I watched them both. What truth was David talking about?
“What truth is that, dear brother?”
“She’ll find out that the kidnapping was your idea.” David’s voice cracked as he struggled in his seat. I could see the tightness of the rope around his wrists and I felt my own wrists scratching as I remembered the feeling.
“Why would she find that out?”
“I think it would make a big difference to her to know I wasn’t the mastermind behind the kidnapping. When she finds out it was all your idea. Did you like tying the rope around her body and her wrists?” David hissed. “You’re a sick fuck, aren’t you? I know she has a cute little—”
“Shut up.” Jakob slapped David across the face and I gasped. I was starting to feel woozy from watching the screen and took a step back.
“Or what? You’re going to kill me?” David laughed. “Killing me won’t stop the truth from emerging. Wait until she finds out that it was you who wanted her out of the way. Wait until she finds out that it was your company that bought Bradley Inc. That it’s you who doesn’t want her stopping the merger.”