“What kind of thing is going down?” Ezio demanded to know as he pulled off the highway and careened down the offramp. He looked at his map display on the dash—one mile on side streets. Red light ahead, nobody coming, he blew through it. Two more greens, then he had to stop for traffic. It was the longest red light of his life.
“Kane, what’s going on?”
“I’m following Bertram in. He can’t see me with all the cars.”
“I’ve got this motherfucker,” Leo whispered into his mic. “He tried to cut me with a fucking meat cleaver, the idiot. I had to get him to stop from yelling. He’s out cold. I’m trying to wake him right now. I fucked up.”
Goddammit, Leo had fucked up, now they weren’t going to get any information from the bastard.
The light turned green and Ezio passed the driver in front of him using the bicycle lane and part of the sidewalk. Asher did the same thing.
As soon as he got a block away from the warehouse, he slowed down and found Kane’s truck. He parked beside it. There was a mass of vehicles closer to the front of the warehouse. What the fuck was going on?
“Leo, your guy awake yet?” Ezio demanded to know.
“Kane, you still following Anders?” Ezio spit out the next question.
They both started talking at once.
“One at a time! Kane, report.”
“Ten meters of plain asphalt with no cover between last car and entrance, can’t follow Bertram into the warehouse. We need to go to the side or the back.”
“Leo, report.” Ezio gritted out the question.
“Found water in the SUV, poured it on him. He’s waking up now. He’ll be talking in a minute.”
Asher pulled up beside Ezio’s truck and yelled to Ezio to get in. He’d heard everything through his receiver. “We need to go to the back of the warehouse. Now!”
Ezio climbed in beside Asher.
Asher hightailed it around the warehouse. “Stop!” Ezio commanded. “Window, above the dumpster.” He pointed. It was perfect. They could peek in and see what they were up against.
Samantha watched as a man in a good-looking gray suit sauntered into the warehouse. “I want Harry first,” the man said to Ajax. “Get that gag out of his mouth.”
Ajax pulled Harry out of his chair and snatched the gag out of his mouth.
“Please, Mr. Anders, don’t do this. I have a wife. I have kids.” He was sobbing.
“Your wife and kids hate you,” the man said in a kind voice. For some reason that made it even scarier. “Tie him to the table, Ajax.”
For the first time, Samantha noted what looked like a belt at one end of the table and ropes at the other end. It didn’t make any sense to her. Ajax dragged a struggling Harry to the table, slapped him face-first on top of it, and snagged one side of the belt while still trying to hold Harry down. It wasn’t working; Harry wormed free. Ajax grabbed him by his neck.
“Don’t do this!” Harry yelled.
“I said, tie him down.” Mr. Anders commanded. “Where’s Lonnie? Why isn’t he here to help you?”
“He stepped out for a minute,” Ajax answered.
“Stepped out for what?”
Ajax was still holding a choking Harry, but it was obvious he was scared of Mr. Anders. “He forgot the knife. He was getting it from the car.”
“This is not good, Ajax. Not good at all.” Anders shook his head. “I expect better from my people.”
Anders looked around the crowd. He pointed to one of the men who had been avidly watching the scene play out. “Murphy. We need help. Find out if anybody in the crowd has a knife, then come up here.”
Murphy stepped forward and turned to the crowd. A man who had to be three-hundred pounds, wearing only a leather vest and jeans, held up a huge Bowie knife. “Here,” he rumbled. “Use this. It might not be a meat cleaver but it’s sharp.” He grinned.
Meat cleaver?
“Excellent, Leslie, thank you for that,” Mr. Anders smiled.
“If you need help holding down Harry or the girl, I can do that too,” Leslie offered.
“Perhaps you can go find out what’s taking Lonnie so long?” Mr. Anders smiled.
Leslie frowned. “But I wanted to watch,” he whined.
“You’ll get to see us cut the girl. Won’t that be nice?”
Leslie smiled. “Yeah, that’ll be good.”
Samantha’s arm stopped hurting. So did her belly. Her whole body went numb with shock. She heard herself scream, but she looked around. Nobody heard her. That’s because her entire being was locked up tight. She couldn’t open her mouth. No sound had come out of her mouth.
Cut the girl.
Cut the girl.
Cut the girl.
She couldn’t even close her eyes, so she watched as Murphy helped Ajax belt Harry down onto the table. Then they tied one of his hands behind his back, and the other hand they stretched out so that it laid flat against the table and they tied it tight so it couldn’t move.
Ajax took the knife that Leslie had given up, and sliced through Harry’s jacket and shirt sleeve so that his arm was bare. Then he looked up at Mr. Anders.
“What’s the punishment? Fingers or hand?”
Samantha stared at Harry’s arm and hand. The hair on it was thick and gray. He was an old man. Why were they doing this to him? What were they going to do to her? Could she just pass out? Wouldn’t that be better than to watch this brutality?
“His hand,” Mr. Anders said in a pleasant voice. “By being so incompetent he basically
