Crazed: A Blood Money Novel (2 page)

Chapter One

One Week
Earlier
Boston

Casey Faraday was sick and fucking tired of watching his family come to harm.

He paced the cobblestone alley from which his youngest brother, Adam, had been kidnapped barely an hour earlier. He’d already called in a few quiet favors with nearby airports and local authorities, floating Adam’s description—
twenty-six years old, five-eleven, athletic build, shaggy brown hair, gray eyes, darker skin, probably wearing a T-shirt with some sort of nerdy pop-culture reference, likely in the company of three men of Latin descent
—and asking for a direct call if he was spotted.

That was the key detail Adam had managed to share with Casey before the fighting broke out. Fighting Casey had heard with too much clarity from the other end of the phone; Adam had left the line open during the struggle, keeping up a running dialogue and trying to give Casey as much information as possible to go on, the stupid little genius.

“Cuándo la última vez que fue a la confesión,
amigo
? I haven’t been to mass in...ever.”

Followed by,
“Three against one, and all more jacked than me. You dudes have a bullshit concept of what constitutes a fair fight.”

“Ugly motherfuckers. Island shirts and board shorts? This is Boston, assholes.”

And then,
“Come at me, lefty. Come at m—
oof.
”
What sounded like a gut punch, and Adam’s wheezing breaths as a scuffle ensued, more flesh-on-flesh strikes before the call had abruptly ended.

Casey’s heart had stopped during that dead air.

“Hey, boss.” Hand outstretched, Finn crossed the alley to where Casey stood. In his palm was a slim cell phone with a cracked screen. Adam’s. “Found this around the corner, at the Hanover Street intersection. Bastards probably had a vehicle waiting.”

As the director of Tactical Operations, Casey liked hiring ex-military, as evidenced by former Marine medic Finn and his partner, Henry, an Air Force officer, who’d served alongside Faraday Industries’ private pilot, Captain Reid Okumura. Part of it was Casey’s service history as a Combat Applications Group sergeant in the US Army—he just inherently trusted fellow soldiers more than civilians. They followed orders, kicked ass and never flinched under fire.

Casey took Adam’s phone from Finn’s grasp, touched the power button. The broken screen flickered to life, demanding a passcode. He’d have to add it to the rest of the busted hardware he needed Della Quinn’s special touch to repair. Of course, cousin Della—until recently Adam’s second-in-command—had relocated to the new Faraday Chicago location as of that very morning, so a trip to the Midwest was in order, probably as soon as he finished here. “I have yet to see a working camera monitoring this alley.”

“Traffic cams on the intersections are all functional, though,” Henry told him. Meaning they could maybe get an image of the vehicle Adam was taken in. “Do you want to go the legal route and make a request of BPD, or do we hack the footage ourselves?”

Casey grunted, for once not sure how to answer. Usually he’d go the less-than-legal route...but it was Adam who he’d demand do the hacking. The Faradays weren’t necessarily on great terms with the Boston Police Department, either. “Let me think on it.”

Glancing around the alley again, his penlight dancing from one dark, dirty corner to the next, he realized he barely needed any footage of this place to know what happened. Adam’s back had been to the rear door of the Thai restaurant, where he’d hidden a messenger bag filled with the tablet and external hard drive he had deliberately broken prior to the fight—anything to prevent crucial Faraday intel from falling into enemy hands. That messenger bag was now slung across Casey’s shoulders.

Displaced dirt and puddle splashes indicated what path the fighting had taken, and the two distinct sets of blood splatter, evident beneath the glare of Casey’s light, told him Adam had gotten in at least one solid hit. “Finn? We got blood.”

Immediately, the medic was at his side, tugging out his kit to sample the two sprays. Letting him work, Casey rose to walk to the end of the alley, Henry falling in next to him. “Made up your mind about the traffic cam footage yet?” the former lieutenant asked.

“Did Finn kiss and make up with Jaime Redding yet?” The supervising detective of BPD’s Forensic Technology Division had a long history of naming Finn as his personal nemesis, and until Finn cleared the air with Redding, it was highly unlikely the man would do Faraday Industries any favors, such as pulling footage files.

Henry sniggered. “Nope.”

Casey sighed. “Then I’ll add it to the list of shit I need Della to do before she sleeps tonight.”

“Didn’t she
just
get to Chicago, like, today?”

“She’s an hour behind now. Gives her more time to get shit done.”

“You’re a sadist.”

“And yet you still work for me.”

“Never said
I
wasn’t a masochist.”

Somehow finding the ability to chuckle, Casey paused at the mouth of the alley and stared out at the nearby intersection. On his phone, he made note of the street names and the locations of the red-light cameras. Finn walked up behind them, DNA evidence safely stowed in his kit. “Got what you need?”

“Yup.” Finn paused. “Did I hear you mention Redding?”

Another snicker from Henry, but Casey was done laughing. “Fix whatever you broke with the detective, buddy. Your little feud has finally interfered with my life, which means I’ve lost patience.”

“He’s the one who dumped my baby sister,” Finn grumbled.

“I can’t even tell you how much I
do not care
right now.” He didn’t mean to snap the words, but each second he stood there, crafting and discarding possible plans, the farther away Adam got from him, from home.

Finn instantly sobered. “I’ll go back to the compound and run these samples, see what pops up. Henry?”

Car keys jangled in Henry’s hand. “I’m driving. There’s nothing else we can do onsite, right, boss?”

Sad but true. “Listen up. This situation with Adam goes no further than us.”

“You mean—”

“Not to Frank,” he told them, naming his father, the intimidating Faraday patriarch. “Not to my mom. Not to anyone but myself or Tobias.” His other brother, the company’s chief counsel and financial officer, was about to get a call from Casey, anyway, so he’d know soon enough. “There’s no need to worry my parents unnecessarily.”

Though he could tell Henry and Finn disagreed with his decision, they didn’t naysay him, instead nodding their goodbyes and slipping around the corner to where they’d parked minutes after Adam had disappeared.

With a heavy sigh, his chest weighted by rage and fear and sorrow, Casey stalked the length of the alley once more, making certain he hadn’t missed a single clue. Unfortunately, there weren’t many clues to begin with, and his heart sank deeper into a miasma of negative emotion. Yes, he was damn tired of the bull’s-eye apparently fixed on his siblings. He’d need to take stronger measures to erase it.

Gripping the strap of Adam’s abandoned bag in one hand, he exited the alley and pulled out his phone. But before he could dial Tobias, a surprised feminine voice called out to him. “Casey?”

He paused, turning, and caught sight of a tall blonde woman obviously on her way to the bar scene a few blocks over, a group of equally dressed-up women gaggling around her on the sidewalk. “Hey, Sara.” For a week or two a while back, they’d hooked up. Casual, easy, a non-demanding interlude of physical catharsis. “How’ve you been?”

“I’ve been good.” Sara sauntered closer after giving her girlfriends the signal to wait. Her smile was pretty, friendly. “You look great.”

“So do you.” And she did. Model-slim and in her early thirties, Sara carried herself with poise and confidence, a confidence that had led her to approach Casey in a Boston bar nearly a year ago. He’d liked her confidence, and hadn’t been threatened by the possibility that he might end up having deeper feelings for her, so he’d rolled with her flirting and enjoyed their time between the sheets.

But he could tell by the gleam in her blue eyes now that she was ready and willing to pick up that flirting right where they’d left off, and tonight was...not the night for that. Even if his brother hadn’t just been kidnapped, it wouldn’t have been the right night for it—the demons had been nipping at his heels lately, invading his dreams, and that meant he wasn’t fit company for anyone, not on an intimate level. “I’m sorry,” he said with a regretful shake of his head, though regret wasn’t what he was feeling, no matter that Sara was a perfectly nice woman. “I wish I had time to talk, but I’ve got a family thing.” He softened the apology with a half smile, relieved when she shrugged, her smile not faltering.

“No big deal. You’ve got my number.” She shifted back in step with the other women. “Call me sometime.” Sara and her friends moved along down the sidewalk, deeper into the heart of Haymarket, and any guilt Casey may have felt about shutting her down disappeared. A woman as great as Sara would never want for male attention, and she could do a helluva lot better than him, that was for damn sure.

Heading in the opposite direction, he pulled up Tobias’s number, not caring that it was one in the morning in London.

Tobias answered on the third ring. “Casey.” That was it—no chastisement, no frustration, just his cool voice ready to handle whatever new problem was thrown his way.

And Casey found himself at a loss for words. He didn’t know how to tell his brother about Adam. Didn’t know how to confess that another of their siblings had been targeted and harmed. After what Beth had been through a few months ago, and the danger Tobias himself had faced at the hands of the Russian mob, Casey knew they were all ready for things to be calm for a while. “Tobias,” he began, but his voice cracked, croaked.

Immediately, Tobias went on the alert. “What’s wrong?”

“Adam. He’s been taken.” Quickly recounting the known details and the steps he’d already taken, he unlocked his vehicle and locked himself in, shoving the key into the ignition and peeling away from the curb, heading for home.

Bluetooth kicked in and Tobias’s tense tones filled the interior of the Jeep. “We meet at Beth’s, then. You need Della to get inside the hardware Adam left behind.”

“Family meeting?” Family was the five of them, their core unit, and now that the unit was missing a key member, a meeting was a necessity.

“Yes,” Tobias agreed tightly. “We get Gillian on a secure video link, and then...”

The fine hairs on Casey’s forearms rose. “Then
what
?”

A controlled exhalation from the other end of the line. “Then I tell you what I had Adam investigating, off the books.”

Anger flashed, ping-ponging between Casey’s temples before he breathed through the rush of emotion. He knew better than to loosen the white-knuckled fist he kept clenched around the more violent of his feelings, not when his dark days outnumbered the light as of late. Plus, he couldn’t afford to be mad at Tobias. “You had him working on something and didn’t loop me in?” Well, would you look at that—some of the mad seeped through anyway.

“I’m not discussing it over the phone, Casey. But I promise you’ll hear it all when we get to Chicago.”

We
. “Chandler’s coming?” Chandler McCallister, the formerly disavowed British spy who had double-oh-seven’d her way into Tobias’s heart this spring. Tobias had recently bought a flat in the city and planned to make the UK his home base, in order to be with her. Casey had been on the fence about the tiny blonde dynamo, but after the shit that went down in Russia and learning how bravely—and ingeniously—she’d saved Tobias’s life from a truly terrifying Moscow mobster, he had mad respect for his brother’s beloved. Putting her in the same room as Beth, however... “Has she talked to Beth or Vick since the, uh, incident?”

“No, but it has to happen sometime, and Adam’s kidnapping means ‘sometime’ has arrived.” His brother’s statement was harsh and unforgiving. “Faradays are being hunted, Casey. We won’t survive infighting.”

That was the truth. “The plane’s here, so you two are on your own getting to Chicago.”

“We’ll manage. I’ll send you the details when I have them.” There was a pause. “Casey?”

Yeah. He understood the rage in Tobias’s voice, all too well. “We get Adam back, and then
we
do the hunting.” The call disconnected with a press of a button on the steering wheel, Casey’s fingers flexing as he sped out of the city. He tried to remember the breathing exercises he’d been taught, the ones that were supposed to help him manage the more high-strung of his emotions, but more often than not the exercises failed.

Casey was a high-strung kind of guy, always had been. Some diaphragmatic breathing wasn’t going to change that.

A quick call to the pilot was next, the jet needing to be ready within the hour, and he hung up as he approached the Faraday property line. Waving to the security guard, he drove through the open gate, up the winding drive that extended nearly half a mile onto Faraday land. The compound, as it had been called for generations, housed not only the original eighteenth-century Faraday homestead, but also a large converted warehouse, a tricked-out barracks-style dormitory, two centuries-old barns—one in good repair, one decrepit—one multilevel garage, two cottages, two cabins, a state-of-the-art recreation facility complete with climbing wall, lounge and movie theater and lap pool, and the Queen Anne Victorian mansion in which Casey had been raised. Technically, one of the cabins was his to use, but lately, whenever he’d been stateside, he’d found himself crashing in his childhood bedroom.

He ditched his vehicle in the garage, pausing to request a ride from the family chauffeur in fifteen minutes’ time, and hauled ass to the house, heading straight for his bedroom on the second floor. He’d long ago taken down the movie posters for
Escape from New York
and
Big Trouble in Little China
, and other Kurt Russell flicks that had decorated his walls when he was a kid. No trophies on display, no athletics awards, because Casey hadn’t participated in any team sports other than the casual pick-ups played by Faraday employees on the secured compound. Part and parcel of being homeschooled, he supposed, but the lack of camaraderie, the lack of a tangible physical outlet had made him incredibly eager once he turned eighteen and enlisted.