Sutton eyeballed him.
Ten minutes passed without incident. He’d been sitting listening to Edgar give him the rundown of those to watch out for and what not to do inside the hospital when Porter and Jenkins came bursting out of the building followed by three security guards. A crowd of patients parted like the Red Sea to let them through. They grabbed Jack and strong-armed him towards the building. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Shut your mouth,” Jenkins said.
Some looked on while most ignored the alarm. They’d become accustomed to it, especially when it blared twenty times a day. Inside he was led down a series of corridors. “Take him into ECT,” Porter said to a security guard.
He had no idea what that was or why this was happening. But he soon learned. When they entered the room, he saw a long doctor’s office bed with thick leather straps. Jack dug his heels into the floor. “Hold on! No, no, no! What the fuck are you doing?”
“Get him on the bed.”
A struggle ensued. Jack managed to fight back, headbutting one of the security guards and kneeing another in the nuts, but a quick shock from a Taser and all the fight went out of his body. Within seconds they had him on the bed and his arms, legs and head strapped down tight. A mouthguard was forced into his mouth and he was instructed to bite down on it. Satisfied; they exited the room and the door closed. Jack lay there for several minutes before the door groaned open. He couldn’t raise his head to see who it was because of a thick leather strap covering his forehead but he heard the door close and then blinds drop over the double-pane glass.
A second or two and then a familiar voice. “Hello Jack.”
A figure stepped into view, just slightly off to his right, close enough that he could see him — a little under six foot, similar to Jack in age, athletic in appearance but filling out the navy blue suit — a full head of dark hair swept back, no product in it. There was a scar on the left side of his face just below his shades. The man removed them and Jack’s eyes widened. He was at a loss for words because his mind was trying to comprehend. No. It couldn’t be. It was impossible.
“Incredible thing, isn’t it?” he said running his hands over the machine beside the bed. “I thought they had stopped electroconvulsive therapy back when they decommissioned asylums but it seems that’s not the case.” He glanced at Jack. “What’s that saying, Jack? That’s right. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” He looked back at the machine with glee and fiddled with the dials and leads sticking out of it. “One hundred and eighty to four hundred and sixty volts pass through the human brain for a tenth of a second to six seconds.” He touched Jack’s face. “From temple to temple or front to back. Can you imagine what that must feel like?” He flipped on a switch and the machine let out a hum. “You know how many years it’s been since we last saw each other?”
He removed the mouthguard from Jack’s mouth.
“It’s impossible. You’re dead,” Jack said.
“No, I’m very much alive. I wish I could say the same though for the lovely Dana. Wow, now that was a loss.”
Jack cursed and clenched his jaw as he struggled within the restraints. Through gritted teeth he said, “When I get out of here. I’m…”
In a slow, methodical tone Angelo replied, “Calm down, Jack, calm down. You’ll go into shock.” He laughed and shook his head. “Oh, you know how badly I wanted to end you after that night on the dock. But I waited for the right time.” He chuckled. “By the way. Nice job with my old man. I always knew his day would come and I can’t think of someone better to have ended him than you. I was right about him, wasn’t I, Jack?”
“Let me out of here.”
“Oh, you’re not going anywhere, Jack. I know you must think this is the end of the road with the loss of Dana and all but it’s not. It’s just the beginning of pain. The beginning of paying back what you did to me.” He paused. “Do you know what it’s like to feel freezing cold water enter your lungs as you sink into blackness? No, you couldn’t. But I do. Fortunately I had a feeling you were on to me. That’s why I took measures to ensure my survival. I knew you wouldn’t shoot me. Bullets were never your thing back then, were they, Jack? The knife, water, now that was a form of torture only the Butcher of New York could appreciate.”
He breathed in deeply and walked around the bed. “I was meant to end him — my father, I mean. But no, you took away that opportunity, my future, and any hope of taking what was mine. I was going to kill you but you wound up in Rikers.” He shook his head. “Prison. You survived that. That was just a walk in the park for you, wasn’t it, Jack? And still, even after that, he took you back. But me? I was left to fight for every inch of what I have today. We were friends, Jack.”
“Friends? You turned. Went in a different direction. I told you not to do it. I warned you but you wouldn’t listen.”
“My father would have never stepped down.”
“You don’t know that,” Jack shot back at
