by KD Ellis
The third man was a stranger.
With his long, dark hair tied back in a ponytail and shredded blue jeans, Teddy could have passed him on the street without a second look. He was as tall as the pair beside him but lacked their breadth, slender in hip and shoulder, which should have made him less threatening. It didn’t.
Teddy shivered at the calculating expression on the stranger’s face as his eyes scanned Teddy, then seemed to dismiss him as a threat.
“This is Teddy De Luca?” the slender man asked, voice strangely blank. Bored, like he haunted alleys for fun every night.
If he worked for the cartel, maybe he did.
“Yes, sir,” Mike answered. His voice was crisp and professional. Teddy almost expected him to snap a salute at the end.
The slender man pulled out his phone, glancing on the screen before he tucked it away. “Get him in the van.”
Teddy instinctively looked to the alley’s mouth then back to the doorway, tracing his escape route. Barefoot, he would be slower, and God only knew how much broken glass littered the pavement, but if he headed inside, he could make it. His muscles stiffened, pulling taut, but he restrained himself, except to clench his hands into fists.
They knew where he lived, so his escape would only be temporary. Likely, the punishment for running would be worse than meeting with Julian anyway.
Mike and Hugo approached from the sides. Their hands, heavy as hammers and just as capable of breaking bones, gripped him by the biceps, tightening almost unbearably. A whimper escaped his tightly pressed lips as their fingers dug into his flesh.
“I…I can walk…” Teddy said, but they ignored him, frog-marching him to the back of the SUV. It had to be stolen. His eyes caught on the sticker on the rear-view window, a stick figure family complete with dog.
Hugo’s grip tightened as Mike’s released, keeping him in place as Mike popped the hatch. It opened and Teddy’s breath choked in his throat.
A bundle of rough-hewn rope.
A roll of duct tape.
A spade.
Teddy wasted a moment wondering if being a month behind was bad enough for the cartel to make an example of him, then shoved the thought away. He yanked at his arm, struggling to free himself without success. Hugo just grabbed for his other arm and lifted him clear off his feet.
Teddy kicked out, his bare heel colliding with Hugo’s hip. The man grunted as it landed, but Teddy didn’t have the leverage or training to do enough damage. “Get the rope,” Hugo snapped, shaking Teddy like a doll. A second later, he spun Teddy around and forced his wrists together. Mike twined the rope around them tightly, knotting it off, then worked the rest around Teddy’s chest and hips. The knots dug into his skin, constricting his breathing, and Teddy panicked, kicking out again.
Mike, unlike Hugo, cursed, though the kick didn’t even land, then slapped Teddy hard across the face. His head snapped to the side, his vision blurring with tears. “Knock it the fuck off,” Mike cursed, grabbing the last length of cord. He snagged one of Teddy’s ankles and yanked it forward, binding his legs together. He didn’t seem to care that the ropes were too tight.
“Please, don’t do this. I’ll ride in the back seat, and I’ll be quiet, you don’t have to do this. I’ll be good,” Teddy rambled, pleading. However, the only thing his words did was remind them he could speak.
Hugo tossed him roughly onto the coarse carpet behind the back seat and grabbed a rag, shoving it into Teddy’s mouth before Teddy could clamp it closed. It reeked of gasoline and Teddy gagged at the chemical taste where it burned his tongue. Before he could spit it out, Hugo tore off a strip of duct tape and plastered it over his lips.
Teddy’s cries were too muffled. He tried to enunciate his pleas, but all that came out was a garbled moan. Hugo backed away then slammed the hatch closed. Teddy flinched back, the metal missing his face by inches, rustling his hair in the breeze.
The SUV rumbled to a start, jolting back and forth as it turned around in the cramped lot. Teddy rolled, his shoulder blades digging into the sharp edge of the shovel, then rolled the other way when the SUV sped up, smacking his face into the back.
Tears slid down his cheeks, dampening the edges of the duct tape, and he struggled to breath through the snot caking his nostrils when the panic set in. He pulled at the ropes, but the knots only tightened, digging into his joints. He would have welts later—if he lived long enough to care.
Maybe his tears would loosen the duct tape enough to free his mouth, but he knew it was unlikely. Even if it did, he doubted he was flexible enough to reach the knots with his teeth anyway.
When he got out of there, he was starting yoga.
It was hard to tell how long they drove for. The sounds of Austin traffic dwindled, the stop-and-go of traffic lights and stop signs smoothing out into the steady rush of the expressway before slowing. The road grew rougher. He felt it in the bouncing of the struts beneath him that sent him rocking back and forth painfully, heard it in the pinging of gravel against the SUV’s peeling paint.
Eventually, the van lurched to the side, pulling off the road into…somewhere. All he could see through the dark windows was what looked like tree branches. They were in the woods, somewhere outside the city.
Teddy’s panic, briefly abated by the length of the drive, flared back to full force. He cried out as the brakes screamed and the van abruptly stopped. He couldn’t keep himself from colliding with the back hatch again, his cheek smacking into the metal. He grunted at the pain.
He heard the doors open then slam shut. There was nothing but silence for several long seconds—silence and the ragged sound of his breathing. Then the hatch opened.
Mike and Hugo were two dark, looming silhouettes against the night sky. Teddy felt like a mouse trapped in a cat’s house…or an ant, about to be ground beneath their heels. Then the larger shadow bent over him. He cowered back but couldn’t escape the hands that gripped him like vises.
He huffed out a whimpered breath as Hugo—it had to be Hugo from the glint of reflection of the crescent moon off his scalp—threw him over his shoulder, crushing his ribs with the impact, knocking the breath free from his lungs. Tears resumed their wayward course down his cheeks.
He couldn’t see much from his vantage point. Just the blades of grass that looked black in the darkness, and the occasional scattering of stones. If they were on a path, it was one rarely used.
They were carrying him into the wild.
Teddy fell without warning. One moment, his body swayed precariously, jostled with each step Hugo took farther into the desert, then he was falling. He landed with a pained cry, stones biting into his flesh. He supposed he should be grateful that it was the only injury he suffered, but all he felt was pain and terror. He looked up with wide eyes, his vision hazy around the edges. For a second, the looming silhouette stretched and twisted, morphing to a monster with dagger claws, but then it crouched. Moonlight glinted on the sharp knife held in Hugo’s hand.
Hugo sliced at the ropes. They parted with only a moment’s protest, falling to the ground. Teddy pulled his arms inward and tucked his knees to his chest, furtively rubbing at the raw, tender flesh of his wrists but unwilling to take his eyes off the man in front of him.
He lifted his hands to pull the duct tape free, but Hugo swatted them, shooting him a stern look. “Leave it.” Teddy tried to plead with his eyes, but the man was unmoved. After a second, though, his eyes softened. “I’m real sorry, kid, but you brought this on yourself. You should have made your payments. I warned you. Didn’t I warn you?”
Teddy nodded hurriedly, afraid of making him angry. He flinched as heavy footsteps approached. Mike stood over them. “You just going to sit there, or can we get this show on the road? I got shit to do.”
Anger passed over Hugo’s face, but it vanished, fleeting as a shadow on the moon. He stood and dusted his jeans off. Mike threw the shovel down between them. It clattered to the ground by Teddy’s knees and he flinched.
; Teddy’s eyes darted between the men and the shovel, heart a thundercloud in his chest. He tried to plead through the gag but it came out a pathetic whimper. For a moment, nobody moved.
Then, Mike grumbled and leaned down, twisting his fingers roughly into Teddy’s hair and yanking, dragging him to his feet. Teddy cried out as stones dug into his bare feet and several strands of hair separated from his scalp.
Mike let him go with a glare. “Grab the shovel.”
Tears slid down Teddy’s cheeks but he shook his head. He didn’t want to touch it. He didn’t know what they wanted him to do with it, but he suspected, and he wasn’t ready to die.
Mike’s palm cracked across Teddy’s cheek, hard enough that it tore off the duct tape. Teddy cried out, feeling the layer of skin separate. Before they could cover his mouth again, Teddy spat the rag on the ground, his cries no longer muffled.
“Please, I’ll pay the money. I’ll get it. Please don’t do this. Please don’t do this,” Teddy rambled, stumbling toward Hugo with a whimper. Of the pair, Hugo was the one he’d spent the most time with and the one who seemed the most sympathetic. He’d barely touched Hugo’s shirt before Mike grabbed him by the hair again and pulled him back.
“Shut the fuck up,” Mike barked, spit flying from his pudgy lips, joining the mess on Teddy’s face. “Grab the fucking shovel or I will. And I’ll shove it so far up your tight little ass that you’ll choke on it.”
Teddy—crying, aching and petrified—stumbled back. He scrambled for the handle of the spade, yanking it toward him and holding it to his chest, like it could shield him from their anger. “Please…” He tried one last time.
Hugo sighed, “Sorry, kid, but we got our orders.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Mike snapped, stepping forward menacingly. Teddy cringed, but the man just glared. “This ain’t a date. You don’t got to warm him up first. Either fuck him, or let’s get on with it.”
Hugo glared at the shorter man, his fists clenching, but nodded. Teddy’s last thread of hope that they would change their minds withered and died. Mike gave a feral grin and turned back to Teddy.
“Dig.”
He did.
Teddy’s shoulders burned as he heaved a small shovelful of dirt over the tall side of the hole. Deeper than his elbows and wider than his waist, it was the biggest hole he’d ever dug.
Grave.
His mind rotated the word around it, rolling it around on the tips of his tongue and the back of his throat, no amount of burying it keeping it down. He was digging a grave.
He shuddered at the thought, nausea burning at the base of his ribs. He didn’t realize he’d stopped, leaning on the shovel to keep himself upright, until Mike cursed from his position on the edge.
“The fuck you stopping for, boy?”
Teddy cringed and glanced up at the same time as he stabbed the point of the shovel into the dry, cracked dirt. Mike was alone. He’d snapped at Hugo some time back to ‘Go get the box,’ and since then, he’d been a statue looking down on him. The furtive glances Teddy shot him showed him staring at the illuminated screen of his phone with a frown, his pistol held loosely in his other hand.
Now, Mike looked eerie in the pre-dawn light—shadowed, except for the hazy reddish light that outlined him like fire. Teddy gripped the shovel and flung the dirt onto the growing pile. Mike watched then glared at his phone again.
Teddy tightened his hand on the blood-and-sweat-stained shovel. He wondered if he could get enough leverage to make it a weapon… He couldn’t reach Mike’s head, but maybe he could strike the knees, take his feet out from under him and run.
As if sensing the thought, Mike looked up at him again, his eyes narrowed. Mike lifted the pistol, aiming it at Teddy’s head. Teddy went still, fear freezing his muscles into unmoving ice.
“Bang,” Mike crowed, his hand flexing around the grip, and Teddy flinched. No bullet tore into his flesh, but still, it left him a quivering mess. “Get back to work.”
Teddy quickly stabbed the ground again, frantically hurling clumps of dirt over the side, thoughts of escape dwindling. He’d end up with a bullet in his spine before he could even make it out of the hole.
He flinched when something thumped above him. He glanced up instinctively, but it was just Hugo. Teddy dropped his gaze again. Mike dragged him out of the hole and tossed him onto the scratchy grass.
Teddy yelped when a scorpion scuttled by his nose and disappeared into the craggy bush nearby. Mike laughed.
“You think it’s deep enough?” Hugo said quietly, speaking over Teddy’s head.
“Ain’t like they going to be bringing out dogs or nothing, right? You think someone’s going to miss the fucker?”
Hugo didn’t answer.
The pair turned to Teddy. He cowered away, scuttling on blistered palms and heels to no avail. Mike just grabbed his arms and yanked him back.
Mike forced him to look at the pine box. It was maybe three foot by four, and half as deep, closer to the size of a suitcase than a coffin, and for a second, Teddy’s hopes soared. Maybe they weren’t burying him, but just contraband—something illegal, something they didn’t want their sweat on.
His hope died when Hugo let him go to pry off the lid. It was empty. Mike shoved him forward until his knees struck the box. “Please, please, please…”
Teddy’s emotions were running too high for him to formulate any other words but a plea. He’d heard stories of people being buried alive. He scratched at the skin he could reach, arching his back as he struggled to get away, to run. He kicked at empty air.
A bullet in the spine would be better than this.
Mike shoved him forward, sending him sprawling into the box. He jolted like he’d been electrocuted, arms and legs flailing in his attempt to get out, to make it impossible for them to shut the lid. He banged his wrist into the rough edge, gaining him splinters embedded in his skin and a few precious inches closer to freedom.
He didn’t care that he probably looked like a fish flopping on the deck of a ship. He was long past worrying about his pride. It could go fuck itself with a broom, and while it died, he would live on, free and clear.
He didn’t see the fist coming until it slammed into his temple. Mike, a wild savagery in his hazel eyes, the bowstring-like cords of his neck pulled tight, leaned over him.
Dazed, Teddy watched as Mike gripped his ankles, folding his legs to his chest, arranging him like a rag doll into the pine box.
“Get the lid,” Mike ordered. His voice sounded like it was coming from a tunnel, distant and meaningless. Then, the early dawn light vanished, and the only sound Teddy heard was the pounding of a hammer, nailing him in.
Dirt struck the top of the box. It sounded like rain on an umbrella…but only if the umbrella was sealed over his face and each drop threatened to fill it until he drowned.
Teddy had been buried alive.
Chapter Twenty-One
Late the next morning, Ian sat in his unmarked black sedan outside Shorty’s Gym. Ian knew he shouldn’t be there. He should leave it to Tennyson. But he itched to do something, anything, to bring the cartel down. He was used to working in the field, not at a desk. He might only be quasi-benched, but it was enough to make him long to be in the thick of things. This was his compromise with himself.
He’d planned on observing the first mark, Hugo Ward, but the man had shown up several hours after his shift had supposedly started, dark jeans stained with what looked like mud.
Not that his mark had gone into the gym he allegedly worked at. Allegedly, because not only was he certain that the gym was a front—the only customers had been a series of men in suits, none carrying gym bags—but Ward hadn’t stepped a foot inside. He’d leaned against the brick wall, a cigarette—unlit—dangling from his lips. He looked even larger in person. Definitely, he spent a lot of time at a gym—just not here, at this gym. Not on the machines, at any rate.
When Ian had sat through his first stakeout nearly three years earlier
, his heart had pounded in anticipation, as though at any moment a window would shatter and he’d have to give chase or duck for cover. It was what the TV shows had prepared him for. Five minutes of waiting, followed by a miraculous break in the case.
It hadn’t prepared him for the five hours of sitting on his ass developing hemorrhoids, a camera poised at the ready to take photos of nothing or the fact that he couldn’t step out for a piss break without risking missing the only important thing he’d see that day, which today, was just pictures of a series of boring men in suits filtering in and out.
At least he no longer had to spend hours later analyzing the photographs and uploading them to the department servers. The latest update had synced all their phones automatically. Any photograph he took automatically uploaded, then deleted itself at midnight. Since he only used this phone for work anyway, he didn’t have anything to worry about.
Though he had laughed at the last meeting before he went undercover when his boss had scolded a pair of rookies who’d apparently forgotten about the upgrade and had used their work phones at a strip joint.
It was a few hours after noon before Hugo finally left the gym. Ian followed him through a drive-thru, where Hugo got a pair of burgers and Ian ended up with a salad. Then he trailed the large man to an apartment complex that was far too nice for a man on a minimum wage salary. The address matched the one he had on file. Ian snapped a few photographs of the man heading inside then pulled back out onto the street.
According to the dossier Ian had on Joey Alvarez, the man was a late riser. He spent his evenings prowling nightclubs for hookups, then slept well into the afternoon. Hopefully, Ian would catch him at home.
Ian had done his research well enough to know that there was a nice running path through the park behind Alvarez’s condo. Ian switched his heavy, steel-toed boots for running shoes, double-checked that his holster was secure on his ankle and took off at a jog. If he had to stop and tie his shoes just off the path directly behind Alvarez’s house, well, what were the odds?