Chapter 120: Somewhere Safe

Chapter 120: Somewhere Safe As Jamal lay on his bed in his quarters, he replayed his conversation with Ryan, and he couldn’t help but wonder if Ryan wasn’t keeping an eye on him like he was doing to his daughters. He tried to weigh the pros and cons of being the driver to that of being a secretary. He didn’t want to lose his job as the driver. Being the driver gave him more edge than being the secretary. As the driver he could keep living in the house, but as the secretary he might have to move out, and he didn’t want to. He wondered how Abigail’s conversation with Ryan was going, and he hoped Ryan would believe all they told him. Jamal was counting on that. He hoped that by the time Ryan would discover any foul play they would have been far gone in their plans. Feeling anxious and needing to calm and distract himself, he picked up his phone and stuffed his ears with his AirPod as he connected to his favorite podcast channel. As he listened to nobody’s old podcasts, exhaustion caught up with him and he began to feel sleepy. He was about to doze off when his phone rang. The moment he saw it was from his uncle, Harry, he checked to make sure his door was locked again, and then he received the call as he walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower. "How are you doing? What’s going on now?" Harry asked without bothering with pleasantries. Jamal quickly explained all that had happened to him, and when he was done Harry was silent for a moment as he processed it all. "Do you also think it was a bad idea? Telling him that she is not mute?" Jamal asked when he couldn’t stand the silence anymore. "I think Dawn is quite smart and a good strategist. You should be able to give your enemy something big to get something bigger from them," Harry said thoughtfully. "But?" Jamal asked, sensing that wasn’t all on his mind. "But I don’t think she is getting anything bigger from this. She’s playing her hand too soon. Making you secretary gives you both more time together, but how does it add to the big picture? How does it help you achieve your goal if you stop being Ryan’s eyes and ears? A driver is more valuable to someone like Ryan than a secretary," Harry pointed out. "Yeah. I was just thinking of that before you called," Jamal said with a sigh. "Why aren’t you saying anything?" Jamal heard Harry ask someone. "I’m just thinking about what he said about Ryan looking into him. We can’t take any chances. We have to take our own precautions too regardless of whatever background work Jamal and Stefan has done," Jamal heard Tom say in the background. "Tom is there with you? I didn’t know you were there, Tom. We spoke with Lucy earlier," Jamal greeted. "Yeah. I was with her during the call. I heard the conversation. Let’s focus on this for now. We have to know what that bastard is thinking and planning at every step. That’s the only way to be ahead of him." "Like we did with Henry, right?" Harry asked, and Tom nodded. "Who is Henry?" Jamal asked curiously. "A dead bastard," Harry said and then sighed, "Don’t worry about anything, Jamal. We are going to handle things and make sure he doesn’t find anything out of the ordinary when he looks into you." "How are you going to do that?" Jamal asked curiously. "We will get our bored old friend, Barry, to hack into all of his systems and monitor every of his activities. With that we will not only know who he is texting and talking to, we will also be able to find out who he is paying to investigate you, and handle it from there," Tom said, already taking out his phone to give Barry a call. "Text me everything you know and have on Ryan. Including his phone number and email address if you have it," Harry instructed. "I will," Jamal promised before hanging up. He returned into the bed and just as he was composing the message on his phone, he paused when it suddenly occurred to him he had not received a call from either Mari or Emily all day. He knew Emily was still on her way to Husla, so he wasn’t expecting a call from her. He figured that Mari was yet to call him because she was being careful and didn’t want to call him at a wrong time now. He scrolled through his messages and was a bit surprised when he didn’t see any from Mari. He could understand not receiving a call from her, but why was there no message from her yet? He wondered, his brows pulling together. She usually sent him messages almost every morning and when she failed to do so, she did around noon just to check in or she sent funny memes and videos from Instagram and TikTok, but there was nothing at all right now. Why was that? Was she okay? He thought about the last time he had spoken to her and remembered she had said she was on her way home after seeing Emily off to the airport. He decided to call her and check on her. He dialed her line, and his heart skipped a beat when it wasn’t reachable. That was weird. Why was her line not reachable? Did something happen to her? He mused as he quickly dialed Emily’s line but he immediately disconnected the call when he remembered she was not in Ludus. Having no choice, he dialed his Aunt’s line, since she was the best person to know where Mari was and why her phone wasn’t reachable, as Mari’s mom. The phone rang for some time and just when he was about to give up, his aunt received the call. "Damn, Jam! This had better be important. I had a very busy night at a concert and I’m trying to get some sleep," she said, her voice groggy. Hearing that she was sleeping and seeing how she sounded normal, Jamal relaxed a bit, "Sorry I’m disturbing your sleep. I was worried about Mari. I’ve not heard from her since yesterday and her number isn’t reachable. Where is she?" Andy sighed deeply, "You won’t be hearing from her for a while. I’m sure she told you about the situation with the Cartel. We sent her away." "But she said she wasn’t leaving. We spoke yesterday and she didn’t tell me..." "Yeah. She didn’t know we were going to do that. We wanted her to leave quietly for her safety but you know how stubborn Mari can be. So, we had to find a way to keep her safe..." "How? Where did you send her to?" Jamal asked with a frown. "Somewhere she will be safe. She has someone we trust taking care of her. She won’t have access to a phone or anything until we’ve taken care of this mess. Don’t worry about her, she is fine," Andy assured him, not wanting to give the details of her supposed kidnap. Although Jamal didn’t like the idea of not hearing from Mari for a long time, and he liked even less that Mari would be bored and lonely. He knew how much she loved her phone and laptop, and how she easily got bored without them. But, he also understood the reason her parents were doing this. It was best not to hear from her for some time than not to hear from her permanently if the bad guys laid their hands on her. "I understand. If I had known yesterday was the last time we would talk in a while I would have spent more time talking to her though. Is my Mom aware?" Jamal asked curiously. "Yes. The rest of the family is aware including Tom and Lucy. We had a brief meeting in the morning when the guys came to pick up their wives after the GEL club sleepover at my place and we all agreed it was best to send her away." For some reason, Jamal was relieved to know that everyone was involved in it. He didn’t have a doubt that the cartel wouldn’t stand a chance against the joint force of the entire family. That was how much he trusted the family. "What about you and uncle Alex? Are you both not going to lie low as well?" Jamal asked with concern. Andy sighed softly, "We are handling the situation," she said, not wanting to give him the details since she didn’t want him to be worried. "Enough about us. How are you doing? How’s everything going over there?" They chatted for a bit, before Jamal hung up the call, and he sighed deeply. He was going to miss Mari. He couldn’t help but wonder where she was and what was going on with her. Was she fine? What was she up to?