Every Second Counts - Part 3
Pairing: Russell Shaw x F. Reader
Summary: One date with your best friend’s brother leaves you wanting more, even though his questionable job and vagabond lifestyle make you want to guard your heart. When your brother falls into trouble, however, Russell is the one you trust to help you find him.
AN: *Deep breaths* Are you ready? 😉
Word Count: 4.4K
Tags/Warnings: Angst, protective Russell, perilous situations, violence, character death, and another (literal) cliffhanger…
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Part 3: "Timer Starts Now"
As he drove away from the museum, Colter could see it even more clearly.
“You like her,” he said, giving his older brother a smile.
Russell glanced at him, then rolled his eyes.
“Focus on the road,” he said.
“Just admit it. You like her,” Colter smirked. “And the fact that she called you for help isn’t a coincidence.”
Russell made a sound of annoyance and shook his head. At this point, he knew Colter wasn’t going to drop the subject.
“All right, we went out on one date,” Russell held up a finger. “It was fun, but we agreed that I’m just not relationship material.”
Colter sobered at that, at the wry tone of his voice. It sounded like Russell liked you even more than he was willing to admit.
“Do you have a timeline on that brewery?” Colter asked.
Russell chuckled humorlessly. “Yeah, I’m just a few dollars short on that one.”
He stared out the window for a while, but he eventually turned back to his brother.
“She called me because her brother’s a vet. Because I know what it’s like to deal with the assimilation process, coming back to civilian life. Trying to figure out where you belong, you know?” he said.
“You think you’ve assimilated?” Colter asked.
Russell shrugged. “Best I know how, anyway.”
“You can’t really call yourself a civilian though, can you?” Colter pointed out.
Russell shot him a look. “Yeah well, neither can you, Colt.”
That created a kind of tension in the car. A call from Bobby, Colter’s analyst, mercifully broke the silence. He’d gotten some useful information on Eddie Mendez, the man Charlie was supposedly working with, or for.
“Well, he’s not the most upstanding citizen,” Bobby said. “He’s a cocaine dealer by trade. Other fun items on his rap sheet include illegal gun possession, theft, and domestic violence.”
“All right, thanks, Bobby,” Colter said.
Great, Russell shook his head. Just what had your brother gotten himself into?
They were getting closer to the bar, and it mentally brought him back to his date with you.
Okay, maybe he did like you. But he also respected and understood your reasons for cutting things short that night. Usually, he was okay with being in a new town every other week, the occasional one-night stands, the skeevy motel rooms and the fast food. It was all with a goal in mind, and that made the hustle easier.
He’d started to wonder though, what it would be like to set down roots somewhere. Doug made it work with his wife and still did his contract work, even if there were some major pros and cons to that too…
Russell was only broken out of his thoughts when he got a call himself, from Dory. He answered it and held the phone to his ear.
“Hey, D. What’s up?” he asked.
“Russell, something’s wrong,” she said. Her voice was panicked.
He frowned, his brows furrowing. “What? What happened?”
The more he listened, the more his eyes widened in shock. He looked to his brother.
“Colter, turn around. Now.”
Russell and Colter arrived back at your house, where Dory was parked out front. She came out of the safety of her car when she saw them. Russell got to her first. He laid a hand on her shoulder in the driveway.
“What happened?” he asked.
She tearfully explained that she found your purse in the bushes, but your phone was missing. She had just picked up your call when it suddenly cut off.
“But I heard her scream,” Dory said, with a stifled breath.
Russell’s mood darkened in response, and the longer he took in the scene. He looked over at Colter, who also wore a frown.
The tracker examined your car and driveway first. Already he found signs of struggle. He noticed a couple pieces of dark glass on the pavement, and when he scrutinized his surroundings further, he picked your broken phone out of the grass. The screen was cracked beyond repair.
Next, he climbed the three short steps of the porch, up to the front door of the house. There were marks on the doorknob, likely scratched by a key. He spotted the Ring Camera next.
Good. He took it right off the wall.
“Do you have her keys there?” he asked his sister. Dory handed them to him and he let himself in. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”
The three of them entered your house and found it dark and empty. Colter switched the lights on and got to work, after going back to grab his laptop from the car.
Russell stayed with his sister on the couch, a supportive hand on her back. He tried to shove his anger and upset deeper below the surface.
Meanwhile, Colter had Bobby retrieve the data from the camera. Within a few minutes, he sent Colter a video file, which Colter then played on his laptop. The three of them watched you approach the door.
Someone with a man’s build grabbed you from behind, wearing dark clothes and a mask that obscured his face. You screamed and tried to fight, but the man dragged you away as you struggled.
Russell’s frown deepened as his body tensed with anger again, his jaw ticking as it clenched. And then came the self-loathing.
Rookie fucking move. Should’ve made sure she got home safe, he thought. Better yet, should’ve kept her with me.
Dory covered her trembling mouth and dissolved into tears. Russell tucked her against his side, rubbing her arm. Colter laid a hand on her shoulder as well, but he continued to analyze the footage. He couldn’t make out the attacker’s face with the mask he was wearing, but Colter saw a blue sedan in the background. It peeled off after you were hauled off-screen.
“Why would they take her? What the hell is Charlie into?” Dory said. She sniffled and wiped at her face.
“To keep her quiet after she started digging into his disappearance, possibly. Or for leverage against him,” Colter said, leveling her with honesty. “Someone doesn’t want us to find Charlie. I’m betting it’s whoever he’s working for.”
He thought it was safer if he didn’t tell his sister exactly who Charlie’s employer was.
Dory shook her head in worry. “We need to call the police.”
Colter shared a grim look with his brother. He knew Russell understood the score here.
“If we get the police involved, it’s at least a 50% chance that whoever has her and Charlie…will kill both of them,” Colter said. Dory sucked in a trembling breath.
“Our best bet is to keep digging,” Colter said.
“Let’s go,” Russell said, nodding at him. He stood, parting from his sister with a hand squeezing her shoulder.
“Where are you going?” Dory asked. She got up to her feet along with her brothers.
“Howley’s. It’s our only lead on Charlie’s employer,” Colter replied.
“Okay, but wait—” Dory reached out for Russell’s arm. It was a reflex as she tried to wrap her mind around all of this.
Russell grasped her shoulders gently enough, but he made sure she saw the sense of urgency in his eyes.
“We don’t have time,” he said. “From here on out, every second counts.”
After a beat, Dory nodded in acceptance. She let go of his jacket.
“Okay, keep me updated.”
“Will do,” he said, and he swiftly followed Colter out the door.
The brothers drove in silence to the bar. Colter noted his brother’s tension, and the grim set to his jaw.
“Hey,” Colter said, earning Russell’s attention. Colter gave him a reassuring look. “We’re gonna find her. We’ll find both of them.”
Russell exhaled. “Yeah.”
Oh, he knew he’d find you eventually, and your brother. He just didn’t want to think about how he might find you.
Once they got back to Howley’s, they started by questioning the bartender about Eddie Mendez.
“He’s not here. But that’s a couple of his friends over there,” the bartender said. He pointed them in the direction of a couple of guys drinking near the back. Three of them were sitting at a table playing cards.
Russell recognized two of them. One was the same guy who made the mistake of hassling you by the pool table. He’d gotten a bloody nose for his trouble. Russell smirked at the memory.
“Pete, make a fucking move already,” said one of the guy’s buddies.
Russell caught it as he and Colter approached them. This time, Pete seemed at least somewhat sober, even with his second beer in hand. Another bottle sat empty beside his arm.
“Hey, fellas,” Russell greeted the table. “Little Blackjack, little booze. Looks like a good night you’re having.”
“Do I know you?” Pete asked. His face showed a spark of recognition when he took in Russell.
“Well, you’re about to. We’re looking for one of your friends, Eddie,” he replied.
Pete set his beer down on the table. Predictably, he crossed his arms and closed up.
“I don’t know no Eddie.”
Russell resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
“I realize it’s hard for you, but don’t be fucking dumb. Eddie Mendez,” he pressed.
Pete glanced at his friends, then he stood from the table, drawing himself to his full height. He was a bit bigger than Russell, but a beer gut wasn’t everything.
Russell seized up the man in front of him with an almost lazy grin. By contrast, his eyes were sharp, betraying his true thoughts.
“Now remember. Whatever you start, I’m gonna damn well finish,” he said.
That sure ignited Pete’s memory. He seemed to be remembering your smaller fist nearly breaking his nose. His face fell with an angry frown. Russell smirked.
Colter laid a warning hand on his brother’s arm.
“We’re not looking for trouble. We’re just trying to find someone Eddie might know. Charlie,” Colter said. “Do you know him?”
“No, I don’t,” Pete claimed.
“Like you didn’t know Eddie?” Colter replied, raising a brow. “Where can we find him?”
“Now you are looking for trouble,” Pete spat. “Fuck off, Timberlake.”
Just then, Colter’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out and saw a text from Dory, asking for an update. He ignored the message for now and put his phone away.
Hearing a commotion, he quickly looked up in time to realize that Russell had wrangled Pete into a stronghold with his arm behind his back and had slammed him onto the table. Drinks and bottles rattled and spilled; playing cards fell to the floor. Pete’s friends got up with angry, threatening gaits.
“I think you can point us in the right direction before I break this meaty arm of yours. How about that?” Russell said.
“Hey! No fighting!” the bartender called from the front. “Take that shit outside.”
Colter internally sighed, but he’d have to roll with this, even though this wasn’t how he’d wanted to play it.
“I wouldn’t test him,” Colter advised. “That’s gonna be a bad break. You got good health insurance, Pete? You’ll probably need surgery, expensive bills, a little physical therapy, a few months of recovery time.”
Pete seemed to weigh Colter’s logic, albeit with an angry huff. He waved off his friends and caught his breath while pinned against the table.
“I can’t talk to you,” he said. “I’ll get myself killed.”
“I’d worry more about your odds right now, Pete,” Russell said. He tightened his twisted hold on the man’s arm, earning a strangled sound of pain.
Colter weighed the options here in record time, and he came to a decision. He grasped Russell’s arm firmly.
“Let him go,” he said.
Russell gave him a look of disbelief. “Colt?”
Colter implored him with his eyes. Trust me.
After a few more seconds, Russell’s lips pursed, but he let the guy go.
“Ah, fuck,” Pete muttered. After he was able to straighten up, he rubbed his aching arm and shot them both a red-faced glare.
Colter steered his brother out of the bar before a real fight could break out. He knew it’d become a bloody mess, and they didn’t have time for a night stay in a county jail cell this time.
“You better have a damn plan,” Russell whispered, as they neared the front doors of the bar.
“You know I do,” Colter replied.
They later sat in his truck while it was still turned off. Just waiting in silence.
A few minutes went by before the back doors of the bar opened to Pete and his gaggle of delinquent friends. As Colter suspected, one of them made a call. It lasted no more than a couple of minutes. Then, they piled into Pete’s car and pulled out of the parking lot.
Colter started up his own car, and he followed them.
You were led into what sounded like a warehouse. You couldn’t know for sure with this musty bag over your head and your wrists bound together with zip ties, but you clenched your teeth and tried to stop sniffling. Your fear made your heart pump fast and loud in your ears.
Voices echoed around you, arguing, yelling about shipments. You were shoved hard to the ground, and you gasped, instinctively throwing your hands out when your knees hit the hard cement.
“No…”
That voice was all too familiar.
The bag was finally ripped off your head, the edge of it catching in your frizzy hair. You blinked wearily at the florescent lights above, and you wiped at your tears and smudged mascara. Your breath left your lungs when you saw your brother, Charlie.
He was tied to a chair, shirtless and shoeless, beaten and bloody. Some parts of his skin even looked burned. His jeans remained, at least. But his face was hard to look at. His left eye was swollen, his lip split, his cheek cut and bloody. Both his eyes were red-rimmed, and he was sweaty and dirty, as if they’d been keeping him down here like an animal. He looked thinner too.
He stared back at you in dismay, your name falling from his lips.
You tried to scramble over to him, but someone grabbed you by the hair and yanked you back. You cried out in pain.
“Eddie stop! Don’t hurt her!” he shouted. He drew enough strength to pull at his restraints. Your hands reached back on reflex to grasp at the hand holding your hair.
“No, you did this,” Eddie said. He clicked the safety off his handgun and pointed the barrel at your head, right between the eyes. You gasped and froze where you sat.
“You couldn’t make it easy, huh? Well now, I’m making it real simple for you,” he continued. “Even more simple, now that we cut out the middleman.”
Eddie gestured to what looked like a woven potato sack laid behind Charlie’s chair, but really, that was just part of it. As your eyes scanned over, you saw the narrow shoulders of a man with a familiar dark blue blazer. It was stained red with a bloody hole carved through the back. Your breath stilled in your lungs.
Eddie glanced over at you, his lips curving. He walked over to the dead body, turned it over with his boot, and dragged off the potato sack to reveal the lifeless blue eyes of Dr. Feinman.
Your eyes widened.
You let out a blood-curdling scream that startled a pigeon out of the warehouse, from where it had been perching on a high support ledge. You leaned back on your bound hands, but you could go no further as one of Eddie’s men grabbed your shoulder, pinning you on the ground. His annoyed face told you to shut the fuck up.
Charlie grimaced and turned his face from the sight of the body. Both shame and hate filled his eyes when Eddie bent down to face him.
“Tell me where you hid the goddamn weapons,” he demanded.
Your lips trembled as new tears brimmed over and streamed down your cheeks. You’d suspected the truth, but it was different from being faced with the reality. Charlie was the one who stole from the museum. He’d likely been doing a lot worse for the past few months. And somehow, Feinman had gotten in between. He’d also paid the price.
Your brother saw your disappointment, and he accepted it. But lacking an answer, Eddie pistol whipped you in the face, earning a pained cry from you as you fell back onto the ground. You had to blink the stars out of your eyes.
After his shock wore off, Charlie’s face hardened with fury.
“Oh, don’t give me that fucking face,” Eddie said. He grabbed you by the back of the neck, startling another sharp breath from you. “If you don’t tell me what I want to know, what I did to you’ll be child’s play, compared to what I’m gonna do to her. And you’re going to watch.”
Against your will, tears filled your eyes while you stared at your brother. You were terrified, and Charlie knew it. He was scared too, but he also knew then what he had to do.
“I buried them,” he admitted.
“You buried them?” Eddie repeated. He brushed back his dark hair with the same hand that held his gun. “Ain’t that ironic. All right, where did you bury them?”
“In the national forest, less than an hour out,” Charlie replied. “But you won’t find it without me.”
Eddie shook his head on a sigh. “Of fucking course.”
He gestured to his men waiting nearby. He wordlessly gave them the order to untie your brother.
“All right, Charlie. Let’s go for a drive,” he said, and gave you a sleazy smile. “You too, sweetheart.”
He hauled you up onto your feet and kept you close to him, with a hand like a vice around your arm. God, you hated a sweethearting man.
You held your breath. You could only pray that Dory had noticed you were missing…and that Russell and Colter could find you before it was too late.
Please…
It was still dark out, but the sky was beginning to lighten when Colter pulled to the side of the road. The car they followed had stopped in front of a warehouse near an industrial downtown area. Colter spotted the blue sedan from the Ring Camera footage. It was parked out front.
With a shared nod of understanding, Colter and Russell climbed out of the truck and took the time to arm themselves properly before scoping out the warehouse.
“What does a drug cartel want with museum artifacts?” Russell remarked as they were gearing up. “That’s still not adding up for me.”
“It is odd, but maybe the idea came from Charlie,” Colter said. “He had access. Maybe he saw it as a way to buy their trust.”
“Okay, then what went wrong? Why’d they take her?” Russell replied. “I don’t know, man. Something feels off here.”
Colter nodded in agreement. “We don’t have all the pieces yet.”
But they were about to get them. They moved closer to the warehouse, with Russell heading towards a side door and Colter going around the back. They saw a few men crowded around a TV in the corner of the warehouse. Behind them were crates upon crates of what surely was product. Probably tens of thousands worth of coke.
Jesus, Russell thought. It was nothing he hadn’t seen before, but still. This was a serious operation.
Colter caught sight of a lone chair under a bright corner of the room. It was stained with sweat and blood, and some cut ropes hung from the seat. He alerted Russell to the scene with a subtle gesture of his raised gun. Russell’s face turned grim. He nodded minimally, then pointed with his eyes at the group of unsuspecting men. The brothers drew in closer.
Russell fired a shot directly into the TV screen, making it crash onto the ground. The men startled like rats, but they soon faced Russell and Colter’s guns. When one of them reached for the gun tucked in their pants, Colter aimed directly at him.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Colter warned.
“Where’s Charlie?” Russell demanded. “And his sister.”
He aimed his .45 caliber M1911 at their friend Pete, who had Cheeto stains on his shirt.
“How about you, Pete. You finally wanna share with the class, before I blow your fucking face off?!” Russell shouted.
The depths of his voice reverberated widely in the warehouse. It set the tone for things to come, if he didn’t get some cooperation.
Pete shifted on his feet, betraying his nerves. His forehead was starting to sweat too.
“They’re not here,” he admitted. “They left a while ago.”
Russell flexed his finger over the trigger of his gun.
“Tell me where,” he said.
Eddie wasn’t exactly an outdoorsy kind of guy. He kicked his boot against a tree while leaning against it.
“Fucking rock in my shoe,” he muttered angrily.
He was getting more and more frustrated with the uneven terrain (and the mosquitos) the longer the five of you trekked onwards: including you, Charlie, Eddie, and two of his men, Rick and Kevin. Both of them had guns trained on your back and Charlie’s.
“I’m sorry,” Charlie said quietly to you.
You shook your head. Disappointment didn’t even begin to cover what you were feeling as you looked at him, but at least they’d given him a shirt to cover his beaten torso. His face wasn't so lucky.
He righted you when you struggled on the gravel and loose dirt in your ankle boots. Your hands were still tied together too.
“What the hell happened to you?” you asked, as you caught your breath.
“I needed the money,” he said, though he knew it wasn’t an excuse. “I was his bodyguard.”
“He’s a drug dealer,” you snapped. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
“He was my dealer,” he admitted, though his gaze was heavy. “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell you, but…a few weeks after I left rehab, I slipped. I never really did quit. Just got better at hiding it.”
You let out a sharp breath, and tried to blink past your tears. Another disappointment, another heartbreak for the books.
“But when he offered me a job to pay off what I owed, he wanted insurance that I’d stick around. To prove myself,” Charlie explained. “He came up with the idea to rob the museum.”
“Why was Dr. Feinman involved? Did he find out?” you asked.
Charlie nodded with a sigh. “He caught me the first time I tried to steal the artifacts. I…I lied. Told him we planned to sell them. So instead of turning me in, he wanted to be cut into the deal.”
“What? Why?” you said. Your former boss was many things—a stuffy, self-important man chief among them—but you’d never taken him for a thief.
Charlie gave you a wry look. “Owed his second wife up to his eyeballs. Alimony’s a real bitch.”
You shook your head. That explained why Charlie hadn’t yet been a suspect in the theft. Feinman had probably helped cover Charlie’s tracks. But whatever shortcomings Feinman had, he hadn’t deserved to die like that. A shudder went through your body, remembering his lifeless eyes. You breathed out slowly and tried to rid yourself of the nightmarish image. You managed to push past that to ask your next question.
“And who chose the Native American weapons?”
Charlie’s lips pursed. He glanced over his shoulder. “He did. Thought they looked cool.”
Eddie smirked and waved his gun at him, spurring you both onward. Charlie kept walking and turned his attention back to you.
“The way I figured it, the museum shouldn’t have them anyway.”
Your lips pursed at that. You sort of saw his point there, however convoluted his justification, but putting those artifacts in the hands of a drug dealer was even worse.
“And this is so much better for them,” you said pointedly.
“That’s why I couldn’t go through with it. Tried to get out of the whole damn mess,” he said. “I know what you would’ve said to me. And I knew if I ever saw you again, I wouldn’t be able to look you in the eyes.”
Your tears welled up again, when you saw the sincerity of his gaze.
“Okay, this touching little scene is making my balls itch,” Eddie said. He grabbed Charlie’s shoulder and turned him around. “Where the fuck are we going? If you’re trying to pull something smartass here, Charlie, I promise you, you’re gonna regret it.”
He cocked the safety back on his gun and pointed it at Charlie’s chest. Charlie raised slow, placating hands.
“It’s just a little further,” he promised.
“If you’re giving me the runaround—” Eddie started.
“Then what? Without me, you’ll never find it,” Charlie barked back.
Eddie’s face tightened, and he pointed the gun at you instead. You sucked in a breath.
Charlie quickly held up his bound hands again in surrender. After a beat of tension, he pointed up when he heard rushing water.
“Hear that?” he said. “I buried it on a cliff near a waterfall. We’re getting close.”
Another stretch of silence filled the clearing.
Eddie weighed Charlie’s words. When he was mollified enough, he lowered his gun away from you. At his command, Rick and Kevin kept you and your brother moving.
Charlie glanced to his right side. He realized that you all were walking near the edge of a steep hill that careened downward. Taking in a breath to center himself, he turned to you.
“I love you, you know that?” he whispered.
Your brows furrowed. You opened your mouth to reply, but you found the look in his eyes suspicious. Like he was saying goodbye.
That was when he swiftly turned. He snapped the heel of his hand into Kevin's throat and grabbed his gun while he was choking. Charlie shot him in the chest, then he clipped Rick in the shoulder.
Just as Eddie began to raise his own weapon, Charlie met your look of shock with his own determination.
He pushed you down the hill.
AN: I know, I know. Two cliffhangers in a row is cruel, but I promise we're getting to even more fun action and cathartic moments in Part 4! 😘
Next Time:
Russell called your name as he searched through the dense trees. Sunlight was beginning to filter through their leaves in dappled color on the trail. It gave him a better view ahead.
He stopped short when he saw a splatter of blood on the ground, painting the dirt and some dead leaves. A well of unease rose in his gut.
He headed toward the sound of running water, and he soon found another cliff. Just beyond it was a waterfall, and river below. Seeing no signs of life, he pulled back and continued to call your name, and all the while, pushing down his worry.
“Russell?!”
▶️ Keep Reading: PART 4
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