Josh’s Pov
I couldn’t understand what he was saying, none of it was making sense especially since he had a gun pointed at my face. Out of nowhere, there was blood coming out of his nose and mouth. He was begging to freak me out. He held his head like he was trying to think but I could tell he was in pain.
Then hell broke and he dropped to the floor with a bang. I froze confused, I had no idea whether he was alive or dead. The gun was sprung across the room, while his body was on the other side. I hesitated whether to pick up the gun or not. I was not a gun person but he had just bashed into my house and pointed the s*upid gun on my face, I needed to defend myself.
He began trembling with foam and blood coming out of his mouth like he was dozing. I had seen such a scene before when I was a teenager. I had just knocked off from school and found my mother sprung across the floor overdosing on drugs. I had to turn her to her sides in order to prevent her from choking to death.
That was the exact scene in front of me but the only difference was that it was my enemy lying on the floor. The man responsible for my horror was on my floor choking to death on his own blood. Was it Karma? I was not obligated to help him, after all, he had broken into my house and pointed a gun at my face, and made my life a living hell.
I began panicking as I watched him. It was always my dream to see him dead, he was the mastermind of my demise, and with him, out of the picture; Amber was mine but then I remembered he said something about kidnapping Amber. I quickly came to my senses, I was everything but not a murderer. Even if I helped him he was still going to die. I needed to find out why he bashed into my house claiming I had kidnapped my own daughter.
I quickly turned him to his side and began hitting his back for everything that was clogged in his dying body to splash out.
Out of nowhere, the door opened and Nestor walked in pushing me off the crazy p*ycho , “What did you do!” He yelled at me.
I raised my hands in the air, “Nothing, he just bashed in here pointing a gun at me and collapsed,” I explained.
Thalia walked in crying, “no no no, you killed him!”
I could not believe them, they were all aware that the p*ycho was sick but somehow in their heads, they thought I beat him up or something. Nestor continued pressing where I left from while I stood up trying to recover from the circus around me.
They both managed to stop him from choking and looked up at me.
“I was actually saving him before you shoved him off,” I explained.
They looked at each other like I was not in the room, I could not read what they were thinking but I saw a hint of confusion.
“We need to take him to the house, he needs the machine,” Thalia said, ignoring me. She could not even say a thank you for giving her s*upid boyfriend some few hours on earth.
“Wait a minute, the p*ycho bashed in here accusing me of kidnapping the baby?” I asked.
Thalia got up and walked to where I was standing, she looked me straight in the eyes. I could see panic and fear in her eyes. “Please Josh I will understand if it was you, I will make sure that police will not get involved,” she cried out, tears rolling down her cheeks.
I began putting dots together as I stared at her, “What… are you talking about? Where is Amber? Where is my little girl?”
“They took her, you did not take…her?”
“No, I did not, who took her?” I began panicking and yelling. “Who took my baby?”
“Stripers, Brandon thought you hired the strippers to kidnap Kendra,” she replied.
I couldn’t understand what she was saying. Nestor got up and handed me his phone. There was a video, I clicked on it as he carried the p*ycho in bridal style out of my apartment. I watched the video in shock, a group of strippers kidnapped my Amber and took off in broad daylight.
To be honest I had thought about running off with her but the security and number of guards made me think twice. However, the main problem was subjecting my angel to a life of running without money. I wouldn’t get far. But the strippers made it seem so simple, they were in and out in seconds.
“This… is not me, I have been here studying since I left your house,” I replied.
Out of nowhere she held my hands and began begging me. “Please I promise you won’t get into trouble, Kendra is on medication, she needs to take her medication at 4 pm,” she cried out.
“Thalia I did not kidnap her, I swear on her life and my mother’s, I did not take our baby. I wouldn’t endanger her life like that,” I assured her.
Nestor walked back in, “Thalia we need to go, he did not take her,” he said. Thalia looked in his direction.
“He is a coward to do that, in fact, I always gave him an opportunity to run with Kendra but he never did,” he added.
Thalia turned, glancing back at me, I did not know how to react. I was supposed to get offended by Nestor’s statement but my mind was focused on my missing baby.
“We need to take Brandon home,” he added. Thalia followed him while I quickly put on my shoes and ran after them. They were about to start off when I banged on the car for them to let me in. “I’m going with you, that’s my daughter,” I reminded them and got in the front seat. Thalia and the p*ycho were in the back seat though he was still unconscious and lying on her lap.
Nestor drove quietly as thalia kept sobbing, however, one question was eating me up so I had to ask. “Where were you all while my daughter was being kidnapped?” I asked.
“This is not the time to blame each other, we need to put our heads together. I already have men locking airports, bus stations, and subways,” Nestor replied.
“No this is the time to ask questions, that maniac pointed a gun at me, he almost killed me!”
“We were… having dinner… in the back garden, it was our first date,” Thalia replied in between s*bs. I turned my eyes to the back seat and found her brushing her hands through the p*ycho hair.
“Thalia you do not need to explain yourself to him,” Nestor cut in.
“No, I should have stopped June, I bumped into her on my way to the gardens but I had my priorities for dinner,” she cried out. She kept blaming herself all the way to the mansion. Nestor had run out of comforting words while I just kept quiet.
We arrived at the mansion and quickly the guards helped Nestor to get the p*ycho out of the car. I could hear him asking them about the strippers but they all nodded in shame.
“What?” I asked.
“They got away, we were unable to find the van,” one of the guards stated. Thalia let out a cry as Nestor drew her for a hug. “You need to stop crying, you have to be strong for Kendra,” he kept saying as they followed the guards that carried the p*ycho.
I followed from behind as they entered a very luxurious bedroom but a bed and a machine in the corner caught my attention as they placed the p*ycho on the bed and Thalia began connecting him to the tubes.
“You shouldn’t be in there,” Nestor pushed me outside.
“What is he suffering from?” I inquired. I never asked but the weird machine got me asking. Having been in charge of Gentex I had never seen such a machine before, so I was curious.
“No one knows,” Nestor replied with a blank face.
A guard walked up to us, “The police have been here waiting for you sir,” he announced.
We quickly ran downstairs and two men in suits introduced themselves. They had already rounded up all the guards and interviewed them but they needed to take them to the station for further interrogation. Everyone was a suspect including Nestor and myself.
“The other guard is in hospital, he had a severe reaction to the pepper spray which happened to be laced with an unidentified chemical,” one of the officers announced.
“Any leads on the van?” Nestor asked, not interested in the men that screwed up.
“Not yet, we are trying to match the masks the strippers wore to any club or b*othel in the area,” the other officer replied.
“From what we gathered, the strippers were advertising a new fake club, the guards being enticed opened up to check out the invitation cards and merchandise and all know what happened next,” he added
“But we have one question? How did they know the guards were going to have a baby? Do they babysit?” He asked
“No they do not, where is June?” Nestor asked one of the guards… We all began looking around but there was no sign of the woman. One of the guards volunteered to get her while the other one denied ever babysitting the baby, June simply asked them to hold the baby while she went back in the house to get a feeding bottle.
One thing was clear, we could all see that everything looked staged. The officers played the video again, as Thalia joined us.
“What’s going on? Any progress?” she asked.
“We are just waiting for the maid, how often does she take the baby outside?” the officer inquired.
“Not without permission, she usually takes her to the gardens but we were using it,” Thalia explained.
“Was the baby having trouble sleeping?”
“No, she was actually dozing,” she recalled.
“She was asleep,” the guard spoke up.
We all looked at each other confused, why would the maid leave the baby with the guards to fetch a feeding bottle when the baby was asleep. Thalia held her hands over her mouth in shock. The other guard returned with a confused expression on his face. “June is gone, she is not in the room and her clothes are gone,” he announced.
Thalia ran to the maid’s room panicking while Nestor began searching for the security video. It appeared their own maid was involved, I had met her a couple of times. She had seemed polite and someone who minded her business, especially that she never told Thalia of my visits. Nestor scrolled to the afternoon footage and we could all see the maid leaving with a backpack.
They all ran after me leaving the main culprit, I glanced into Nestor’s direction p*ssed. The two officers quickly sent an alert arrest to the other officers on the ground as they began assuring us they were going to catch her.
I couldn’t help but feel that she was already miles away. My Amber was probably in another country because of the wasted time they should have spent locking up the place instead of running after me.
“If we are lucky, this might be a case of Ransom and the kidnappers are just looking for a way to make quick cash,” one of the officers replied.
“No, this might be a case of old enemies coming back to settle old scores!” I yelled in frustration.
“Calm down Josh,”
“No, I will not calm down, how many lives has that fool upstairs destroyed! How many enemies does she have? One of them might have come to settle and my daughter is just paying for crimes she did not commit!” I yelled.
They all looked down speechless, what could they day when they knew they f*cked up. The two officers excused themselves and asked me to have a little hope but I only looked away. It was obvious they were in the p*ycho’s pockets.
I walked outside for some fresh air because the inside of the house seemed to be suffocating me. I sat on the stairs thinking. I was studying for my scholarship exams when the fool burst into my house. I really needed that scholarship but what was the point when my daughter was missing? It was only fair to put everything on hold until my daughter was in my hands. I needed to do something and not just sit there and wait.
The s*upid officers were right about one thing, the only way of finding out the identity of the strippers was through identifying the masks they wore. I had been to a lot of b*othels and each had a special set of masks. That was where I needed to start from. I matched back into the house and asked Nestor for the photos of the masks. Sitting there and blaming whoever was at fault was not going to solve anything.
“What do you plan on doing?” He asked
“Knock on every strip club and ask the right questions,” I replied.
“Hold on,” he said and walked upstairs. He walked back with a gun in his hands.
“Hey hey, what is that for?” I inquired.
“People do not just talk when you ask questions nicely,” he said and led the way. We drove off and met up with two tough security guys for cover.
Strip clubs and b*othels were mainly run by gang members and Nestor was right about asking nicely. We knocked on every club in the city but none had ever seen such masks before most of them alluded to the fact that the kidnappers were pretending to be strippers.
That theory was not far-fetched but I had been around strippers to know when I saw one. The girls were definitely stripers or retired strippers. Disappointed and tired we called it a night hoping the police had cracked the masks but just like us, they hit a dead block. It was frustrating, every minute that went by, the further Amber got away.
