Secured Sevenfold

Arin’s POV
When Zack hung up his phone he looked at every one of us. “Don’t get your hopes up too much, but I think we got a lead.”
I saw Brian and Matt stepping towards him.
“What is it, Zack?!” Matt demanded.

“The van belongs to a company, we don’t have a personal name on the papers, but a company. We just need to find out where the headquarter of the company is and who is owning it. I don’t know if the girls will be there, but then we at least can have a closer look at who is running that business.” Zack says and for the first time I saw hope in Matt’s and Brian’s eyes.
“God, Zack. Spill it… what company!” Brian yells and Zack looks back.
“It’s Madison Inc.” Zack says and I saw the wheels turning.
“Madison Inc.” Brian repeated. “Is that this huge clothing line or something?” He asked and I saw Matt frowning then turning towards me.

“I’ll check it.” I went to my laptop and checked Madison Inc. I showed the homepage to the others and they were in a deep discussion, if anyone ever had anything to do with it.
“Owner is Trisha Madison as it says on the website.” I say and Matt narrows his eyes.
“Fuck, I never even heard anything about it. You think they really got anything to do with this? I mean, maybe these guys just stole the car from them, to try and fool us?” Matt asks and I shrug.
“That’s the only hint we got…” I click further into the site and google more to find anything about the woman behind Madison Inc., any hint that would connect the girls or their father to this company.

“I’ll will check the location and drive there, having a look at something out of the ordinary.” Johnny says and Brian looked up “I’m coming with you.”
“No, you won’t” Johnny looked stern.
“What the hell Christ, what if you find something.” Brian gets into his face.
“Back off, Haner. I’m going, when I see something strange or out of the ordinary, I’ll contact you right away, don’t worry. But I am the only one these criminals haven’t seen, am I right? I can have a look and be unnoticed, if any of you show up there, they know what’s going on. Trust me, I’ll manage.” Johnny looks at Brian but I saw that Brian wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to do something…
“That’s a good idea.” Matt finally says not giving Brian any choice than to let go.
“I know, Brian.. I want to do something, too. But I thinks Johnny is right, we need to quietly check the location, we got no clue if this company really has anything to do with it. So let Johnny have a look, he will give us hourly updates. And I promise if we think there is something to do, we will be the first to barge in there…” Matt says and Brian nodded but rather reluctantly.
“Good, so I printed the address and all the information you need, Johnny. What I forgot to tell you, I found some profile pic from the abductors from our security cams. They are not the best quality, but maybe you should take them along as well, and I will try to get into the police databank and see if I can find them there, or at least something about them.” I say and saw all the heads turned to me.
“You will what?” Matt asks.
“I..” I stuttered not really knowing what to say.
“Get going kid, what are you waiting for?” Brian shoved me into the direction of the office and I grinned.
Before heading inside the office I saw only Brian and Matt staring at each other. “You think we should call their Dad?” Brian asks Matt quietly.
“I know we have to, we need to find the connection.” Matt replied but both didn’t look happy about it.

Matt’s POV
“Let me do it?” Arin’s voice sounded from the office “I can do the other thing after that?”
“Arin, I know you want to help, but I think it’s better if I…” I started, but Arin broke me off
“Matt, I know you feel like you should communicate with Joseph, but you are too emotionally involved, let me try okay? Maybe we can just find something out, without having to alarm him about the girls disappearing”
I sighed, I knew he was probably right. I wanted to give Joseph a piece of my mind, tell him this sucked, and he was the one that caused all of this, that he was the one that made me lose the woman I loved so much. It made me so damn angry.
“Yeah, it’s better if you call him, here” I handed him my phone “I have his number saved”

The three of us walked into the office and Arin pushed the call button and then put the phone on speaker, motioning us to keep our mouths shut.
“Matthew” Joseph’s deep voice answered the phone immediately. I got this number in case of emergencies and he made me promise to never ever give it to the girls “What is wrong?”
EVERYTHING IS WRONG!! I had to bite my tongue to not yell it at him, and Arin shot me a warning look.
“Hello mr. Thompkinson, this is Arin Ilejay speaking. I was calling to ask you a few things, is this a convenient time?”
I heard Joseph hesitate, and then reply a little annoyed
“I told Matthew to only use this number in case of an emergency. I don’t want to put my girls into danger, by letting the wrong people track this phone”
“Don’t you worry about that, our line is secure” Arin replied quickly, immediately starting with the next question “We think we have a lead on the people blackmailing you, does the name Madison Inc. mean anything to you?”
“No” His answer came to quick and Brian, Arin and I exchanged a look
“Are you sure mr. Thompkinson? Don’t you want to think about it for a moment?”
“No.. Yes… I’m sure! I don’t have any connection to this company, now please don’t disturb me anymore unless there is something wrong with my girls. Goodbye mr. Ilejay”

Just before he could hang up, I took a split decision.
“Joseph, wait!”
“Matthew? What kind of games are you playing! I have enough going on in my life to deal with this kind of nonsense!”
I felt anger boil inside of me, he took off somewhere, leaving his daughters behind, not thinking about how much danger they were in, and now he had no time for this ‘nonsense’? His girls disappearing was nonsense?
“THIS IS NO NONSENSE, JOSEPH!” I yelled at the phone. “Both your daughters ARE in danger, because you put them there! What did you think would happen if you leave your girls to be the only thing for that ‘Mr. Smith’ as a connection to you? HUH? WHAT DID YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN?!”
I felt Brian’s hand on my arm, trying to calm me down, but I was fuming with anger now and I couldn’t believe the man!
“What is going on?” Joseph’s voice sounded icecold, guess he caught my mood, huh?
“They are gone Joseph, gone…” I heard the old man gasp, but before he could say something, I continued “Madison Inc. is the only lead we have. I know you were lying just now, so you better tell me what the hell is going on”

“I… I… Guess there is no way out of it now… I will tell you… But promise me Matt, promise me you will get my girls back.”
My heart skipped a beat. I wanted to be mad at the man, but I just couldn’t, the hurt in his voice reflected the hurt in my heart, I just wanted my Joe back.
“I promise, now spill, so I can do my job”
“A little while ago…”

Joe’s POV
“Cut it out, don’t forget who you are working for” the female voice sounded angered and the men stepped away from Jacky and me.
“We didn’t forget that, of course, miss. We just wanted to teach them some discipline.” The guy next to Jacky said and narrowed his eyes on her.

I knew that this wasn’t the last of us seeing these guys, but hopefully they listened to the woman still standing in the dark of the doorway.
And we wouldn’t have any problems with them afterwards, when she left again.

She finally made a step forward and I frowned at the woman, she looked familiar but why?
Her hair was a shade darker than mine, but a shade lighter then Jacky’s, her eyes looked like I had seen them before.
She was young, at least… She looked pretty young, she held her head up high, her nose too, as far as I could tell after the first impression.
Before I could analyze her some more Jacky began to curse already.
“What is this all about? Who are you? And why don’t you leave us the fuck alone?” Jacky yelled and the woman narrowed her eyes on her.
“Who I am?” She laughed, the sound making me cringe a little.
“You will get to know who I am soon enough. And what this all is about too.” She says her eyes wandering from me to Jacky and back.
“Jacqueline and Josephine… thought we would meet under different circumstances, but… It never came to that.”
“What the- fuck?” Jacky yelled again and I saw her trying to get rid of those bands around her wrist but the guy took a step towards her, shoving Jacky back, making the woman narrow her eyes.
“Get out!” She barked at the men and both looked a little confused.
“I said get out of here!” She yelled again and both men turned to leave but not without throwing a glance over their shoulders and mouthing at us‘we will be back’.
I shivered seeing that and looked over to Jacky who narrowed her eyes at the now closed door, she wouldn’t give up, never would… she always had been the fighter.

The woman started pacing, stopping in front of one of us, every once in a while, studying our faces. When she stood in front of me for a few minutes, it gave me time to have a closer look at her face too. Her eyes, the shape of her mouth, it was all so familiar, but I couldn’t remember seeing her before. I thought I might try a different approach, maybe that would trigger her to tell us more about all of this.

“Are you working for ‘Mr. Smith’?”
She let out a cackle, looking at me as if I was the crazy person.
“If I work for Mr. Smith?! I AM Mr. Smith, Josephine!”
Jacky let out a giggle “Never thought I would meet a cross dressing criminal”
“SHUT. UP!” the woman got into Jacky’s face, spitting the words at her, before she stood up straight and started pacing again.

“You two think you are so great, so above all other people. Daddies little girls, getting every fucking thing they want. Daddy will buy it for you. You are rich party princesses and other people have nothing! Absolutely nothing!” She was muttering word after word and I wasn’t even sure if she was talking to us or more to herself. I opened my mouth to correct her, telling her I had my own business, but before I could say anything she already continued.

“Let me tell you two a little story about a woman named Anne. She was a waitress in a high end restaurant. She waited on a man and his wife for several years and they came in often. The man was very nice to her, and one night, he came in alone, his wife had died and he looked for comfort. The woman felt sorry for the man and took him home that night. The man took advantage of her. ADVANTAGE of her KIND HEART! Only weeks later, she found out she was pregnant. She tried calling the man, telling him he was expecting his child, but the man didn’t want ANYTHING to do with her”

A cold feeling started to take over my heart and I just didn’t want to see what was right in front of me, I didn’t want to believe it for one second. I shook my head, trying to get the disturbing thoughts out, but the woman went on and on.

“The man told her to live her own life, he even gave her money, pittance to what he himself had to spend. But the woman build a name for herself, making a lot of money, and when later on, she was successful, she looked him up, trying to introduce him to his child, his BEAUTIFUL daughter, but he just denied. Telling the woman he only had two daughters and that the other one wasn’t his”

I couldn’t deny it anymore, the familiar features, the story… I had to face the facts, and I could sense Jacky was getting there too.

“But I’ve been talking for so long and I haven’t even introduced myself… Where are my manners? My name is Joanne, and that was my mom’s story. I should have been in that castle with you two, getting everything that you two had… It would have been nice us growing up together, wouldn’t it?”

She looked at Jacky and me pointedly “Because that’s what it’s supposed to be, right? Living together? Growing up together? Like normal sisters would?”

My gut feeling became true. This maniac girl was my sister?! I looked at Jacky who was also beyond confused and then, just before I finally I found my words back, Jacky yelled the words that had been forming in my mind

“YOU ARE OUR SISTER?!

Notes

Did you guys see that coming?!
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