Kidnapped By Her Dad's Best Friends

By Julie Piper

Everything's about to change on my eighteenth birthday…

 

For a start, there's the kidnapping. Pretty sure no one expects that. Taken by two mysterious men, who I've never seen before in my life.

 

They claim to know my father. Claim to be best friends with him.

 

My father's kept a lot hidden from me – more than I ever understood. He had a whole secret life that he never let me in on. Part of that secret life involves Hunter and Connor. Best friends from the past, whisking me off the streets.

 

At first, I was scared. At first, I wanted to escape.

 

Then I began to understand exactly what kind of danger I was in, and that these two men were the only things potentially keeping me from death's door. The tangled web my father stuck himself in feels like it's slowly closing the walls around me. And these two men – killers by their own admission – are my only hope.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Julie Piper
• Release date: Dec 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215974650

Book preview

CHAPTER 2

Hunter

When the boss summons, I respond. Whatever he tells me to do, I do without question. That’s the rule. That’s the deal. That’s my prison.

It is either that or die. To think I spent years in the Navy, with life or death occasions bringing me to the brink of insanity. After all of that, after finally returning to Seattle’s shores, I wasn’t about to throw away my life because of some bastard who left me for the wolves.

You don’t abandon your comrades. It’s a sin. Unforgivable.

Yet it happened to me. Jason Gallagher, another army buddy, a person I should have trusted to have my back at all cost, set up a business with me. A nice little warehouse business with good profits after the first two years – or so it seemed, anyway.

Turned out that rat bastard was playing it dirty on the side, seizing all his money from a mafia boss known as Konstantin, and using it to pump up the earnings, before spending that profit on questionable life choices. He came into work sloshed on occasion, boasted about his cocaine and his hookers, and how he was finally glad to see the back of the Navy. I assumed at the time he was an idiot, but not that he was gouging and hiding the true record of the company’s losses. One day he turned tail and left, and suddenly the business we were in turned out to be thousands in debt. Konstantin came knocking within the week, black bagging me and taking me to an undisclosed location, where I was given two options.

Death, or this. I remember how Konstantin’s cold gray eyes bore into me like an arctic winter. I saw it in his face, his posture, his familiarity with death.

I chose this, sick to my stomach at the thought of being indebted to a mafia boss. How could this happen? I used to be the person who fought this type of corruption back then. I went into the Navy believing I was doing it for the good of my country.

I didn’t see any other alternative, though. I wanted to live, and I was trapped in this man’s snare. The business I used to run got shut down, of course. It couldn’t sustain itself with both the main owners out of commission – one trapped, one hiding.

At least my first task was to find and kill my ex-partner. I admit I did that with glee. Vengeance burned strong, and the person who left me to die and tank his losses – he had what was coming.

He deserved it, and he became the first of many. There’s a lot of blood on these hands. Wicked blood, for the most part. There’s a lot of seedy bastards in this shadow world, trying to stay ahead of their assassins. Sometimes it feels like I’ve done better in this role than I ever did in the Navy. Sometimes it’s the opposite, and I’m so stained, there’s no hope left of redemption.

After all, in the eyes of the law, I’m nothing more than a criminal.

I glance at Connor. The other unexpected gift of this sordid endeavor. A childhood friend, also working for the mafia. Our boss discovered this and chose to place us as partners together on hits, seeing how well we supported one another.

He’s a strange one, this boss. Capable of utter ruthlessness, showing no mercy, and in the same stroke, letting us work together. Inquiring sometimes after our health. Rewarding us for our efforts and successful missions.

Maybe there’s a heart there, somewhere deep under his black soul. I doubt it, though. He’s a snake in human skin who’s learned to imitate some of the human emotions. What better way to confuse the people you imprison than to make them think you like them?

Good to see you two on time, as usual. Konstantin gives us both a thin smile. He steeples his hands under his immaculately trimmed gray beard. I trust you enjoyed your week off?

Great, I say, though it wasn’t, really. I hit the clubs a couple of times, met up with Connor where we both got wasted, but really, it was just sheer release for a week until returning to the underworld. Ready to kill more people under a command from the boss.

You two are among the best I have, so I trust that you spent your time well. I have a new target for you. The corruption this time stems from our own ranks, unfortunately. I require you both to eliminate this target.

He reaches into the desk and pulls out a small manila enclosed document. I seize it before Connor reaches out, and, under the glinting, cold gray eyes of our boss, examine the picture, name, and brief of the new target.

Jonathan Powell.

I stare into the dark eyes of a man who looks close to my age and feel a shock course through me.

Jonathan Powell.

I keep my expression blank, though the shock continues to well up. The boss can’t know what I’m really feeling.

It’s been years, but there’s only one person I know with that name in the Seattle area, and it’s too much of a damn coincidence for me to not notice. Powell’s gained some weight since then, cut his now graying hair short, but the coincidence...

It looks like Connor Riley wasn’t my only childhood friend to get under the eye of this boss. Jonathan Powell’s another friend of ours from the past. It used to be the three of us. But twenty years is a long time to not speak to someone.

It takes everything in me not to manifest the surprise. I hand the file to Connor, who looks at it with a carefully blank expression as well. I’ll be right on this, boss, I say. Even though it adds a lump to my stomach that I haven’t felt in years since I started work here.

I’m not exactly in a position to disagree. I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever that if I disagree, I’ll find myself somewhere in the ocean within the next week, chopped up and weighted down with stones. Connor will have the same dilemma, and well, I think it’ll be even tougher for him. I can’t see him ever agreeing to this if it really is our Jon.

Perhaps we’re both destined for the depths anyway. Since I doubt there’s a god willing to take us into his arms.

Either we have to go and kill our old friend, or somehow find a way out of this nightmare.

CHAPTER 3

Connor

Holy shit. Jon Powell. Hunter and I leave the office, and I see he’s shut down like me.

God. I agreed to kill him, but I’m genuinely not sure I can go through with it.

The picture looks different, but I’m about ninety percent sure it’s the same Jon Powell we both know. He used to be my best friend. I still remember the day we met. Still remember the rush of fear and tears of being bullied by Greg Clarkson and his awful pack of friends. I remember Greg kicking me to the ground, stealing my new soccer ball, taunting me with stupid insults as I lay there weeping on the concrete.

Boys don’t cry, Greg had taunted. Right before a slightly taller boy slammed into him and forced him to the ground. The newcomer kicked at Greg, and I remember Greg squealing like a stuck pig as his gang all fled from him.

I remember the hand reaching out for me, and a kid smiling a gap-toothed smile. You alright?

Turned out he was the kid who’d moved in next door to my family. Jon became one of my best friends, along with Hunter. We stuck together, did stupid shit, made sure we had each other’s back.

Hell, he even introduced me to my wife in high-school, Alma.

Once we all hit eighteen, though, everything changed. Hunter vanished into the Navy. Jon went off to college. I stayed and married Alma. The last time we were all together was at my wedding.

And a few years after the wedding, well…

I fidget with the slender watch around my wrist. One of the few things I have left to remind me of Alma. When she died, I didn’t want any of her stuff there to remind me of the loss. I regretted it later, when I wanted those memories, but at the time, I wasn’t exactly… thinking clear.

Once we’re outside of the office, and well away from any potential cameras that can pick us up, I say, Fuck, Hunter. I think it’s our Jon.

Hunter shakes his head, teeth bared in a grimace as we walk away from the office buildings and into the nearby small park. Green blooms around us, and we head toward a little pond with several ducks feeding on bread crumbs in it.

It might not be, he says, but the doubtful tone suggests otherwise, that he suspects it is indeed our Jon. We’ll need to confirm his identity first. He looks quite different. It might not be him at all. It’s been twenty years. He might look a hell of a lot different now.

And if it is? Fuck, I don’t wanna kill him, man.

Hunter glares at the ducks, quacking in the background. I didn’t think that idiot would get into the same mess we did. He was meant to be better than that. Proper college boy and everything.

Who knows what the fuck he did in twenty years, man. I didn’t expect to find you on the wrong side of the mafia either, but here we both are, I say, before checking around to make sure no one’s nearby to listen. Our occupations can draw a lot of paranoia. If it’s him, I don’t want any part in this.

If we refuse, we’re dead meat, Hunter snaps. You know the rules. We’re in debt and we’re not climbing out this hell hole until the boss says so. We don’t get to refuse. We continue walking, heading towards a local, almost always empty bar around this time of the day.

We need to talk more about this. We make it to the bar, sit in a corner of the empty room with two drinks served to us, and both look at the manila envelope’s contents. Several pictures of Jon Powell in various situations, including two that show, frankly, a damn sexy woman in the background. His young assistant, probably. He always had an eye for the ladies, I think with a sinking feeling. Hell, if the boss told me I had to kill Hunter or Jon, that would be my limit.

I’m still not certain if this is Jon, Hunter says, chewing absently on his thumb. The person does look a little different. It’s been a long time.

What course did Jon take in college again, d’you remember?

Business something. I don’t know. We didn’t really talk so much after. I was busy in the Navy. You were with… Alma. He looks away.

Business. That could lead to accountant work, right?

We stare gloomily at each other. We don’t want this to be Jon, but if it is… I can’t go through with this if it’s him. This is the one person I’m not killing.

Then we’re dead, Hunter hisses. We’re fucking dead. He ruffles his hands through his hair, tugs out a couple of strands. The boss trusts us to do this. He had no idea we know him. Hunter looks like he’s in intense agony, his eyes wide and wild.

We need a plan, I say then because I see it in his face. He doesn’t want to kill Jon. Neither of us wants to. I can practically imagine Konstantin watching us, waiting for our decision, his finger on the trigger.

That bastard must know. We need to think about what we’re going to do. How we’ll get out of this.

No one does, Hunter whispers. "No one escapes