I grimaced and considered trying to swim the lake. If I didn’t drown, Trevor’s thugs would have plenty of time to boat across and either pick me up on the way or secure the opposite shore before I got there.
Option three: offer to become Trevor’s servant for life. And die anyway.
“Donatti.”
Jazz’s whisper pierced my thoughts. I refused to look at her. “I don’t feel like talking anymore,” I said through clenched teeth.
“There’s something you should know.” She continued to whisper, as if Conner couldn’t hear her. The wire leading from the sound vent probably connected to a microphone somewhere up front.
“Whatever it is, I don’t care.”
“Tough shit. I’m telling you anyway.”
I faced her slowly. Her expression, grim but determined, bore no trace of the sadness she’d exhibited earlier. “If you’re having an attack of conscience, it’s too late,” I told her.
“Fuck you.”
“No, thanks. Tried that already, and look where it got me.”
“You . . .” Jazz closed her eyes, opened them. “Look, it’s real simple. I love my son, and I would do anything to keep him safe. Anything. Understand?”
I flinched. “You mean, Trevor has . . .”
“Yes. He does.”
I forced my mouth shut against a flood of profanity. Could the sick bastard sink any lower? “He was at your place when I called. Wasn’t he?”
She shook her head. “I was at his.”
Conner banged a fist on the partition. “All right, that’s enough. It’s lovely that you two kissed and made up, but now it’s time to shut your fucking mouths. Or I’ll shoot her. Trevor only wants you alive, Donatti. Think about that.”
I pressed my lips together and winced when fresh pain shot through the split corner. That was stupid. Resolved to keep better track of my injuries—without doubt, there would be more to come—I looked at Jazz. Her sorrow had returned. Her eyes shone with it, threatening to spill over.
I’d never seen her cry. Didn’t want to now. If she broke down, I might follow her lead.
Momentarily forgetting the handcuffs, I moved to touch her face and succeeded only in scoring my wrist when the chain jerked taut. I swallowed a curse, lowered my hand. She released a slow, controlled breath and faced forward.
I eased over and slipped my fingers between hers, trying to convey with gestures what couldn’t be said. Not that I enjoyed being turned over to Trevor, but I understood why she had to. She faced me, her mouth forming an O before settling into a small smile.
I held her gaze for a moment and looked away to refocus my rage. Trevor had her son. Our son. I’d make sure the bastard didn’t hurt him, even if I had to die for it.
Unfortunately, I had a feeling that was exactly what I’d end up doing.
FIVE, SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT. DEFINITELY A NEW RECORD. AND THE night was still young.
Not all the thugs on Trevor’s porch had guns. One carried an aluminum baseball bat. Another held a Taser. The seventh and last had enough mass and muscle to qualify for his own zip code. No external equipment required.
Conner removed the cuffs, then drew out his pistol and offered it handle-first to the nearest goon. Criminal protocol demanded that we all be subjected to a pat-down. The guy with the bat collected Conner, and Taser Boy claimed Jazz with a grin that said she wouldn’t escape this with her dignity intact. Since the firepower had to stay in place, that left me to the land mass.
Lucky me.
Several minutes later, shoeless and with a few extra bruises to catalogue, I joined Jazz to be marched inside and led to a spacious and richly furnished den complete with indoor columns and a full-sized dry bar—Trevor’s sitting room. There, we found Trevor, sitting.
With a prison-style buzz cut, hard features, and dark eyes that held the promise of fucking you over, he should’ve resembled a gorilla stuffed in a suit. But Trevor wore his Italian silks and English wools like a birthright. He’d blend right in at a country club or a yacht party, until he started shooting the other suits for looking at him funny.
And the bastard wasn’t alone. A small boy with a riot of silky black curls perched on his lap, half-dozing, a tiny thumb thrust into his mouth.
“Cy!” Jazz lunged forward, only to be stopped by an arm as thick as a roof beam and just as solid. “God damn you, Trevor. You were supposed to bring him home.”
The boy perked up. His eyes widened, and his thumb left his mouth with an audible pop. “Mommy?” Cy wiggled and slid down to the floor. Trevor made no move to stop him. “Mommy, I wet.” He toddled toward the forest of thugs, eyelids drooping as he walked.
Trevor gestured. The land mass moved aside, and I saw the silencer-fitted Ruger .45 the seated man had been holding on the boy.
“Was he that dangerous, Trevor?” Somehow, I managed to speak evenly.
“Insurance, Mr. Donatti. You understand, of course.”
“Oh, God. Cy . . .” Jazz fell to her knees as the boy neared and swept him against her. She buried her face in his curls, rubbed his back. After a moment, she directed a look of absolute rage at Trevor. “He’d better not have so much as a hangnail, you sick asshole.”
“Not to worry, dear lady. The boy’s been an angel.” Trevor rose and passed a hand over his shaved head, then brushed at a damp spot on his tailored slacks. “He is, however, wet.”
Jazz scooped Cyrus into her arms and stood. The boy snuggled against her with a contented sigh, and his thumb migrated back to his mouth. “Is there some reason you sent your puppet after me? I told you I’d bring him in.”
Trevor moved two paces forward, the gun held casually at his side. “I don’t believe in trust. I believe in control.” Frigid green eyes settled on me for a moment and then languidly scanned the rest of the group. “Conner. Come here, please.”
The cop approached Trevor, his expression neutral. “What’s up?”
“Where is our friend in the trench coat?”
“Still in her van. He’s dead.”
Trevor stared at him. “You must be mistaken.”
“Uh . . .” A flicker of unease penetrated Conner’s features. “No, he’s gone. I shot him a few times, just to make sure.”
“Did I tell you to shoot him?”
Those flat words were Conner’s death sentence. I knew it. Conner did, too.
“Wait.” Conner stumbled back. “Trevor, I—”
Trevor’s arm jackknifed up to press the gun against Conner’s forehead. He fired without hesitation. The silencer allowed a whining snap, no louder than a breaking branch. Trevor didn’t even blink when the cop’s blood spattered his face and his pristine linen shirt. The body dropped to the floor. Trevor released a short sigh and shook his head.
“Leonard. Dispose of that, and tell Mari to bring me a new shirt and clean the carpet.” Trevor lowered his arm, stowed the gun in a back pocket, and started on the buttons. “His car has to go. John, bring it to the docks . . . wait, take this and burn it somewhere first.” The last button released, he stripped the shirt off and held it out. Bat Man ambled forward to take it.
I blinked more than a few times at the intricate mass of snakes tattooed on Trevor’s chest, stomach, and upper arms. The work was unusual—done in shades of black and brown, it didn’t look so much inked as burned into his skin. In addition, a pendant on a thick silver chain hung around his neck. The medallion was etched with symbols that once again seemed strangely familiar. The thing looked a few thousand years old, like a coin from a forgotten Chinese dynasty. But it gleamed as if it had just been minted yesterday.
With the shock of the emotionless execution wearing off, I tore my gaze from the strange markings and looked at Jazz. Her eyes hadn’t left Trevor. Cold fury radiated from her and promised retaliation, while her arms formed a shield around Cyrus. The muffled shot hadn’t freaked the kid out too bad, but he whimpered and squirmed against Jazz.
The land mass, otherwise known as Leonard, crossed to the body
and produced a folded plastic trash bag. The fact that he apparently carried them around just in case chilled me to the core. If I didn’t pull a miracle out of my ass soon, I’d end up right where this sorry sack was headed—in a thirty-gallon plastic coffin at the bottom of the lake. Leonard opened the bag and drew it over the corpse’s head. He tied the bag closed at the waist, lifted the body as if it weighed no more than a bag of leaves, and tossed the eternally surprised Conner over a shoulder.
Trevor watched the giant leave the room. He’d made no attempt to remove Conner’s blood from his skin. The spray had darkened to a tacky maroon, creating an almost tribal pattern across one side of his face, up his skull, and down his neck. Even his ear bore the gruesome freckling. He bestowed a benevolent smile on Jazz. “Don’t be troubled, now. You’ve met my expectations, and you’re free to go.” He addressed two of the gun-toting thugs. “Pope, Harmon, bring the lady and her child back to her vehicle. If there is a body, collect it. If not, call for reinforcements.”
My skin crawled. Why would Trevor think there wouldn’t be a body? An instant later, I realized Skids must have reported exactly what happened at the garage, and if Trevor even half believed it, the vigilant son of a bitch was just covering his ass.
With a defiant glance at Trevor, Jazz approached and stopped in front of me. The boy in her arms stirred, blinked sleepily . . . and a lump lodged in my throat when my own blue eyes looked back at me from the small face that bore a striking resemblance to Jazz’s.
In that instant, I would have died a hundred times for both of them.
Jazz attempted to smile. It didn’t work. “Try to stay alive, Houdini.”
“Ga,” the boy pronounced.
“I think he likes me.” I summoned a grin, though I imagined it looked as if I’d just dropped something heavy on my toe. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”
“Let’s not give the lady false hope,” Trevor cut in. “As I believed my former associate mentioned to you earlier this evening, Mr. Donatti, that isn’t likely to happen. Pope, if you would.”
One of the goons grabbed Jazz by the shoulder and steered her away. I watched them escort her out in silence, too furious to release the useless barrage of insults and threats building inside. At last, I faced Trevor with fists and jaw clenched and waited.
Trevor smiled, this time without benevolence. “Take Mr. Donatti downstairs, and let him hang around for a while. I have a few matters to attend to before we begin. Mr. Donatti, I suggest that you consider very carefully what you’re going to tell me, and make sure I like your answers to my questions. I have many of them.”
Two of the remaining thugs flanked me. The one with the Taser moved in front. While the others held me, the third thumbed a trigger on the pronged device and produced an ominous buzzing crackle. The insouciant grin he’d flashed Jazz outside resurfaced. He thrust the posts under my ribcage and held.
Tasering didn’t feel like sticking a finger in a light socket. It felt like swallowing a box of sewing needles, then being thrown into a giant blender to get them moving around.
Five long seconds into the shock treatment, I sagged in the thugs’ grip. Taser Boy gave me another quick jolt for good measure and finally left me to droop. They dragged me across the room opposite the direction everyone else had left, toward a tall black door.
I could hardly wait to see what was on the other side.
CHAPTER 8
Split lip, bruised balls, fried ribs, and now, shredded wrists. My running tally of injuries insisted on playing itself out in my head like a demented game show. And what do we have next for our fine contestant? Why, it’s a drawn-out and brutal death, accompanied by a fabulous voyage to the bottom of the lake!
“And the crowd goes wild,” I muttered. Hysterical laughter bubbled just beneath the surface. I couldn’t let it out, or I’d never stop.
Downstairs was a basement, where the thugs had strung me from the rafters like so much meat. Dim lighting revealed enough to confirm that this room had only one purpose: to inflict pain. I scoped the scenery, automatically looking for possible escape routes. My initial analysis proved less than encouraging.
I had to give it to Trevor. The place had atmosphere. I’d done a brief stint in a Cuban jail, and though those quarters had been less than modern, they’d been a four-star motel compared to this. The stone walls glistened with just enough moisture to dampen the already stifling air, and the slab floor that chilled my feet through my socks showed layers of blotched stains, the ghosts of fluids that couldn’t have been water.
I knew he was into torture, but I never imagined he’d elevated it to an art form.
The light came from a dense cluster of flickering candles at various stages of melted, arranged on a small curtained table. Wax buildup, the thick and blackened kind that could only have come from years of burning candles in the same spot, clumped along the edges and descended in stippled waves down the fabric draping the sides. It reminded me of the bless-me-Father-for-I-am-fucked displays common to low-income ethnic neighborhood churches. I’d seen plenty of them growing up. Nobody’s Aunt Maria ever recovered from cancer because of them. Nobody won the lottery. And nobody’s parents miraculously returned from the grave, either. I knew—I’d spent every Sunday afternoon for two years confessing sins, regurgitating Hail Marys, and lighting those damned candles. They were false advertising.
Back to the inventory. What basement torture chamber would be complete without the requisite instruments? Despite the high-tech gadgetry controlling the fortress upstairs, Trevor remained downright medieval in his choices of pain-causing devices. A pegboard displayed a collection of pliers, good for the wholesale yanking of nails and teeth. Ball-peen hammers ranging in size from miniature to skull-crushing marched down the right side of the board.
Restraints seemed a common theme, too. There were chains, cuffs, collars, and lengths of rope, like the one keeping me suspended in place and rubbing my wrists raw. A bundle of smooth rods stood in a far corner. From here I couldn’t tell what material they were made with, but it looked as if they’d hurt. An enormous gilt-framed mirror hung on the wall to the right of the stairs. He probably liked to have his victims watch themselves being tortured.
Best of all was the long table encompassed by a sectioned wooden frame, complete with an oversized gear and a crank handle. A good old-fashioned rack.
I couldn’t wait for Trevor to come down. What fun we’d have.
A whispered rustle of sound crept from a shadowed alcove to my right, at the opposite end of the room from the stairs leading up. I squinted in that direction, but the candlelight refused to penetrate the blackness there. The sound didn’t repeat. Maybe I’d been hearing things. Might have been a rat or some other basement-dwelling creature.
Another sound commanded my attention. Measured footfalls on the stairs. Oh, good. Time for pain.
I tried to hold the guttering hope that the alcove, with its mysterious noises, contained a way out. A crumbling wall, a secret passage, a sewer grate. I wasn’t picky. Since I didn’t intend to tell Trevor anything just yet, he wouldn’t kill me right away. Maybe the rope would loosen or weaken while he beat on me. It could happen.
So could Armageddon. At least that would take Trevor, too.
Trevor entered the room alone. A point in my favor—no thugs to witness my forthcoming screams. He’d cleaned himself up but hadn’t bothered to button his fresh shirt. He still wore the pendant. The snake tattoos seemed alive in the flickering candlelight, writhing hungrily over his torso, devouring him. His eyes shone with carefully contained insanity. And he’d brought the Taser.
I was so dead.
He stopped in front of me. “Mr. Donatti.”
“Present.”
Trevor jammed the Taser against my thigh and pulled the trigger.
I went limp. Fortunately, the rope held me up. He kept the jolt short, and when he pulled back, I gasped. “Jesus Christ. Aren’t you supposed to ask me a question first?”
T
revor shook his head as if he was disappointed. This time, the damned thing juiced the side of my neck.
The charge exploded in my head, blinding me. My mouth opened. No sound emerged. I figured smoke would start billowing out, but saliva foamed over my lip and dribbled down my chin instead.
This was Trevor’s subtle way of telling me to shut up. It worked. Couldn’t speak if I wanted to.
“If you had my item, Mr. Donatti, you would have given it to me by now.” His voice wavered and splintered against my pounding eardrums. “Eventually, you will explain what happened. I’m not ready to question you yet. At this point, your job is to listen.”
“Listenin’,” I slurred, slopping more drool onto the floor.
Trevor zapped me again. I screamed.
“You believe if you don’t cooperate, I’ll kill you. I won’t. You believe if I leave you alone long enough, you’ll find a way out. You can’t. You believe torture is the worst that can happen to you, and death is preferable.” He moved in and brought his face inches from mine. “It isn’t.”
I believed that.
Had to pull myself together. I drew several deep breaths and tried to calm my jittering muscles, aware that short Taser bursts didn’t cause death. Only temporary paralysis and incredible pain. My legs responded slowly, and I managed to hold a little weight with them. I lifted my head. “You’re not . . . giving me a lot of . . . incentive.”
Trevor grinned. There were icebergs in his smile. “I don’t have to, Mr. Donatti. You see, I don’t need your cooperation.”
“What?” My voice cracked. If he didn’t need me, why hadn’t he just shot me?
He acted as if he hadn’t heard me. “Regarding other things I don’t need, your lovely friend Jasmine is a liability. The boy, too.”
“Don’t you touch him,” I snarled—seconds before my brain worked out that I’d chosen the wrong pronoun. Oh, Jesus, no . . .
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