Criminal Dynasties: The Faulkner Syndicate

Chapter Seven

*Quick Note: Gang can be spelled with a capital 'g' when I'm referring to a de Wilde Gang member.*

 Claire Richter's POV

 "How do you know that no one's following us?" I asked Mark and Sean. I meant for it to be a simple question with a one-sentence answer. But nothing was ever that easy since neither of them seemed to have thought of that before.

"We don't know that," Mark admitted after a long pause.

"Do they know where your house is?" If they did, following us didn't matter.

But apparently it did. "No," Sean said. "At least, that's from what I've heard."

"Stop the car," I told Sean immediately. "There's a black car following us." I froze as I took in the scene behind us.

"Which black car?" Sean asked, peering into the rearview mirror. "There are at least three behind us!" Then he looked at me with growing horror in his eyes. "No way."

"Yes way," I said grimly. There were three black, tinted cars following us.

From the backseat, Mark turned around. "I'm not sure diplomacy is going to work now. Our best bet is to lose them." He turned to Sean. "Take the turnpike to New Jersey." That was actually pretty easy since Mark explained that they lived near Route 73, which was where we were traveling on right now.

"I'm not going to New Jersey!" Sean protested immediately.

Mark gritted his teeth loudly. "We're not. They are." Then he started explaining the plan, "Just keep driving in the middle lane and as we approach the turnpike, move closer to the exit slightly. Just before we reach the exit, swerve left sharply. Got it?"

"Got it, boss," Sean muttered as we approached the turnpike. We were getting closer and closer and I wasn't sure if we were going to get creamed by a tollbooth or spin off the road and cause an explosion.

Finally, just before we got to the road leading to the turnpike, Sean's white-knuckled hands twisted the wheel in a sharp left. With a screeching sound, the car obeyed and before I could blink, the car was making its way shakily across the highway.

"Well," Mark said. "that was cool."

I refrained from giving him a look and instead focused on the road behind us. All three cars were now in line at the turnpike and honking madly. I smiled slightly. Then I turned my attention to Mark as Sean was still pale and driving. "So who were those following us?"

Mark tensed. "Well, we can assume that they were from the de Wildes, still after the package."

"What's in the package anyway?" I asked.

Mark tossed me the package. "Find out."

It was pretty small. Inside it was a velvet box stamped with a big-name jewelry brand. And inside the box was an engagement ring with a really, really big diamond. "Woah."

"That's Kaiden de Wilde's mother's ring," Mark told me. "It's supposed to be a de Wilde family heirloom and it's really worth a lot."

I didn't say anything as I examined the ring. It really was beautiful and the ring itself was very heavy. But how did the de Wildes lose it? I asked the question out loud and this time, it was Sean who answered me.

"Long chain of events, Trista," he said. "But it went out of the hands of the de Wildes when I stole it."

Before I could ask, he continued, "The Mob contracted me to steal it as blackmail and that's how I got Tanya." He patted his car. O...kay.