Page 16 of Run

Tommy stood, rolling down his shirt sleeves. Beside him, Arnold “Cutter” Matthews, his trusted advisor, pushed back his chair and casually swept his jacket aside to reveal his gun.

“You think I need protection from my own son?” Tommy mocked him.

Cutter shrugged, making Tommy laugh.

“Paranoid bastard,” he told his oldest friend as he snapped his fingers, and his butler scurried away to retrieve his jacket from the closet off the dining room.

Although there wasn’t one drop of Italian blood running through his veins, Tommy had styled himself, and his empire, on the portrayal of Sicilian Mafia ubiquitous in the movies of his youth. To that end, he always wore custom-made three-piece suits, favoring a silver-gray with a darker gray pinstripe and crisp white shirts. Of course, he needed a little bling too, so he wore a platinum ring on his pinky finger, and around his neck hung a medallion depicting St. Jude Thaddeus—the patron saint of lost causes and criminals. The most expensive barber in London’s West End maintained his thick silver hair, and twice a week, a girl came in to give him a facial.

Tommy James hadn’t made it to the top of his chosen career by looking like a common thug. Or by acting like one. He was smart, ruthless, and vain. And he saw nothing wrong with any of it.

As he shrugged into his jacket, he focused on his son. “Where is she now?”

“Can’t be far,” Marcus said. “They had another way out of the building, or we would have had her.”

Cutter stirred beside him. “What I want to know is how she’s managed to hide in London all this time. Right under our fucking noses.” He narrowed his eyes at Marcus. “Thought you said she’d skipped the city.”

Marcus appeared bored. “Must’ve come back.”

“Bullshit,” Cutter snapped. “She’s been here all the time; you screwed up looking for her—if you even tried.”

“I know you have problems with arithmetic, Cutter,” Marcus said, “so I’ll help you out. There are nine million people in London. Say a third of those nine million are kids, and another third men, that leaves three million women spread out over roughly six hundred square miles. You might have time to check every single one of those women to see if they’re my sister, but I’ve got a business to run.”

“You’ve got a business to run?” Cutter looked as if he was about to reach for one of his famous knives. “This search was top fucking priority, and last I checked, the business belonged to Tommy, you jumped-up little prick.”

“Later,” Tommy ordered Cutter. “We got photos of our girl?”

Abasi pulled out his phone and tapped the screen. A few seconds later, Tommy’s phone chimed. He took it from his pocket and flicked through the images Abasi had sent him. It was the first time he’d set eyes on Elle in years, and she’d changed. Gone was the waist-length auburn hair with its fiery red streaks, and in its place was a jaw-length, dyed blue mess. She wore pale purple fitted jeans, a green T-shirt with a slogan across the chest, and pink boots. Every item of clothing was too short or too tight. She looked cheap and garish.

For a second, his vision clouded with red. This wasn’t how he’d taught her to dress. Where were the designer clothes he’d bought her? The ones that covered her up and made her look classy? Like a good girl. A rich girl with privileges. Ones she’d thrown away when she turned her back on the family. In a fury, he tossed his phone at the wall and watched it smash and fall to the floor.

“Your sister’s turned into a slut,” he spat in disgust. “Just like her mother.”

Silence was thick in the room as the men tensed, hands on weapons.

Tommy adjusted his suit jacket before eyeing his son. “Go through everyone she knows. Take them all out. Anyone who’s ever helped her. Her friends. Her coworkers. All of them.”

“The cops…” Marcus said.

“Fuck the cops.” He had them in his pocket anyway. “Do what I tell you. Just don’t get caught. I want that little bitch’s life shredded around her. I want her drowning in blood by the time you get your hands on her. You understand me?”

Marcus gave a curt nod and strode from the room, followed by Abasi.

Tommy watched them leave before turning to his most trusted man. “Watch them,” he ordered Cutter. “I got a feeling in my bones I don’t like. Something isn’t sitting right. Make sure the job gets done.”

“You got it, boss,” Cutter said as he got to his feet.

7

Benson Security’s London safe house was located in the suburb of Bedfont, right beside Heathrow Airport. It was a high-traffic area, with seasonal and shift workers aplenty, which meant a bunch of new faces wouldn’t attract too much attention. The location also made it easy for them to access several different escape routes if necessary.

The house itself was nothing to write home about. Built by the government in the seventies, it was exactly like the hundreds of other government-built houses in the area—white stucco walls, gray tile roof, and a small garden. It had three small bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, and a kitchen, a second bathroom, and a living room downstairs. Benson Security had put in the second bathroom upstairs at the same time they converted the attic into a fourth bedroom. The house was boring and functional. It was also safe.

David parked their stolen car on the street, and they walked up the path to the house, where Elle let them in using the access code for the lock. Everyone except Callum was already there, and nobody seemed particularly surprised to see David enter the living room with Elle.

“What happened to your jeans?” Megan asked from where she sat curled up in the corner of one of the large gray sofas. The rest of the team was scattered in various seats around the room.

Elle glanced down at her favorite jeans. Lavender with Minnie Mouses (mice?) embroidered on the back pockets, they now had a hole ripped across the knee. And not in a cool, intentional way.