OBLIVIONThe Debt Collector 13
Jon Mills
Copyright © 2019 by Jon Mills
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The Debt Collector 13: Oblivion is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Contents
Also by Jon Mills
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
A Plea
Readers Team
About the Author
Also by Jon Mills
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Undisclosed
Retribution
Clandestine
The Debt Collector
Debt Collector 2: Vengeance
Debt Collector 3: Reborn
Debt Collector 4: Hard to Kill
Debt Collector 5: Angel of Death
Debt Collector 6: Prey
Debt Collector 7: Narc
Debt Collector 8: Hard Time
Debt Collector 9: Here Last Breath
Debt Collector 10: Trail of the Zodiac
Debt Collector 11: Fight Game
Debt Collector 12: Cry Wolf
Debt Collector 13: Oblivion
Lost Girls
I’m Still Here
The Promise
True Connection
Prologue
The Butcher of New York crouched at the corner of the auto store, scanning the darkened crossroads that separated him from the boarded-up red tavern. All around, a thick green forest swallowed the rural town of Apalachin in Tioga County; a tiny community that the world wouldn’t have known had it not been for the huge mob bust back in 1957.
“You sure this is it?” Jack asked the gangly kid with holes in his jeans. He didn’t expect him to be certain but one thing he knew, small-town kids rarely lied, especially when money was at stake. Upon arrival he’d taken the old-school approach of seeking out information. He didn’t have the luxury of lingering, and he sure as hell didn’t want whoever was behind Dana’s disappearance to know he’d arrived, and yet he couldn’t ignore the gut feeling they already knew.
The boy nodded. “Positive. It’s been empty for months. My old man asked the realtor. It’s had no interest. Yet, I’ve seen men coming and going from there for over two weeks, mostly late at night.”
It was a shot in the dark but in a town of this size, small details were hard to overlook.
Jack nodded, fished out of his pocket a fifty dollar bill and handed it to him. The teenager’s eyes lit up as he stretched it out. “And I’ll get another if I’m right?” he asked, not taking his eyes off the green.
“Sure, kid.”
But first he needed to find out. Three days. Three days since he’d arrived in upstate New York. Teased by the words of a dying man, his drive to find answers had taken him on a long journey northeast across multiple state lines. Over a thousand miles from Arkansas, cutting through sleepy towns, he had thought of nothing else but Carl Bianco, the head of a notorious syndicate that ran out of New England.
None of it made sense. Bianco was dead. Jack had personally watched the life fade from his eyes as he squeezed his neck with his bare hands, then decapitated him and dumped his remains in brown paper bags at locations in Providence. It was a savage attack; one that had earned him the nickname — the Butcher — but that was when he was twenty-one and the mob was his life. Twenty-three years later it was just a vague distant memory.
An hour of waiting and no sign of anyone.
All he could do was hope that this was it.
In all his years of tracking and dealing with the worst of society, nothing had rattled him more than tracking Dana. It was personal, and one way or another, whoever was behind it would pay.
“I’ll meet you back at the café tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? I thought I was getting it tonight.”
“I’m good for my word, kid. Now you should get going.”
The kid looked pissed but he took off while Jack crossed the street heading for the tavern, nothing more than a silhouette in the night. He removed a Glock from his jacket and held it low. All the windows were boarded up. The two-story, weathered structure looked as if it needed to be demolished, not sold. He circled the faded wooden building searching for a way in while at the same time keeping an eye on Pennsylvania Avenue. Making his way around to a side door, he turned the handle expecting it to be locked only to find it open. Huh. Inside it was pitch dark. Jack stood there for a second listening, anticipating an attack, but it was silent. Jack pressed in, making his way down a corridor that was in shambles. The wooden floor had suffered from rainwater getting in. It was as if the owners had left the place to rot. A rat darted across the creaky floor, startling him. It scurried beneath the dusty furniture.
Thin rays of moonlight seeped through cracks in the warped wood paneling, providing just enough light to see his way into a larger room. At the center was a small stage with a long bar that was off to the right. There were multiple long tables, each one covered in upturned chairs on either side of foundational posts. A musty smell, a mix of dust, spilled alcohol and rotten oak, attacked his senses. Jack listened for movement, his eyes
