I heard voices even before my eyes opened. Deep, baritone voices with the edge of coldness that I had learned to pick up from even the strangest of strangers. People like that spoke with a dull, dredged voice that curled under skin. Voices like that had no good intentions. Or maybe I was just overcompensating again, like always.
My head was aching. Wait. Correction: everything was aching. Every part of my body, from the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes, hurt. The pain was greatest in shoulder. Before I opened my eyes, I shifted slightly out of instinct to get more comfortable. I got the opposite. A bubble of pain tore through my shoulder like a hurricane and the ground I laid upon was hard but warm and wet. Was I lying in a pool of water?
No. I was lying on a pool of my own blood.
I saw the color when I finally opened my eyes. Blood had a very strange color up close, the dark crimson almost brown against the dreary grey of the cement. I saw the puddle of red against my face, felt the wetness drip down my cheek as I moved again, kicking out uselessly. My movements were languid and slow, like my feet were bound with rope and a thick metal taste lingered in my mouth.
When I glanced down, I saw that they were. Heavy tan nylon rope around my ankles and my wrists. Gaining my senses back, I sat up in a panicked daze. The binds were worse than handcuffs. They were thick and the coarse fibers itched and the pressure they exerted on my skin was enough to leave a rope burn. My movements were limited. I straightened my spine and rested my back against the cold wall, the shock of it all finally numbing me down to a silent and barely malfunctioning human.
I tried to clench my hands into fists but one hand protested heavily. I remembered how Elliot's boot had crushed down on them. The fingers of my left hand were broken. They were stiff and I couldn't bend them, but it didn't hurt. Yet. The shock was blocking the pain from registering inside my brain.
As expected, I tried to get myself free, although I saw little point in trying. One arm was shot with a bullet and the other had a hand with fingers that were cracked like glass and the ropes were tight to the point of it being unbearable, around my wrists and ankles. And I was too weak to try and use my teeth to untie them.
The room I was in appeared to be some sort of dungeon, a basement-like area of a factory. It was cold and dark and empty, something out of the horror set of a movie. A soft buzzing insistently sounded from somewhere, along with the drip-drip like ticking clocks.
I wasn't going to freak out. I was going to think this through like the rational human being that I was.
Yeah, right. Screw that. Cue the hysterical sobbing and screaming fits.
But hell if they thought I wasn't going to fight back. I would- even if it cost my life.
The ropes were strong, but they weren't unbreakable. Even fiber had a weakness and I was determined to find it. I didn't know when Ade or Elliot or some other vengeful idiot was going to come busting through that door with a gun but I had to at least try. Wolfe would have wanted me to try. He'd be disappointed if I sat quietly while they planned my execution. I'd picked up several survival skills from him as well. One of the things I learned was that you didn't always need muscle to overcome an obstacle- just intelligence.
My eyes swept around the room. It was large, with a door and a corner that rounded into a small hallway-like thing and then another area, this one filled with large ventilators and heaters and power lines. I was under some kind of warehouse maybe, or perhaps a public building. I looked upward. Giant tubing lines and insulation stared back at me. A single lightbulb was on the ceiling. There were several vents on the walls, about three or four feet off the ground. The small hatch doors were rusted brown. I glanced warily at the door and then forced myself to scoot towards the closest vent.
My muscles and bones protested with the movement but I wasn't going to lie down in a pool of my own blood and take my death with open hands. I could feel blood drip down the second bullet wound in my arm, leaving a messy trail behind me. The small hatchway to the vent had a tiny padlock, but it was so rusted and ancient that it was almost falling apart. I raised one foot and slammed it against the padlock, the old metal instantly breaking under the heavy sole of the hiking boot.
The vent door fell open, greeting me with the darkness that was inside. The area was big enough to accommodate my size and weight...hopefully. But first, I needed to get myself untied.
The vent door was thin as paper but metal, the edges like a knife.
It didn't take very long for me to get myself free. I sawed the middle of my binds back and forth on the vent edge, the sharpness easily cutting through the heavy duty rope. Several minutes later, they split down the middle and I pulled the rest of it off with my teeth. I took a moment to rub my sore wrists, which were burning bright red from the binds. Watching the door carefully, I quickly untied my ankles with my good hand and stood up.
The vent passageway was dark, and judging from the decrepit state of the rest of the objects in the basement, I was willing to bet my journey was going to be no less pleasant. I didn't even know where the vents would take me, or if the thin, almost aluminum foil-like walls would hold my weight. I didn't know if I'd even make it, given how much every little movement shot needles of pain through my body. But I'd have to try. It was either that or wait for whatever twisted thing Ade and Elliot planned for me. And there was no way in hell I was going to let the second scenario happen.
Sometimes, a girl can't wait for her knight in shining armor to come rescue her. I'd have to rescue my own damn butt.
With a deep breath, I crawled into the passageway and closed the vent door behind me. I was pretty sure that the trail of blood I left behind from my original space to the vent and the pile of sliced rope at the door of the vent was a dead giveaway to where I was, but I could only hope that I'd be long gone by the time Ade or Elliot stopped by.
The duct was cramped, musty, and filled with many horrors. At one point I had to crawl past a spider web. It wasn't the web that made me almost turn right back around. It was the enormous black spider that nested in the spider web, complete with wrapped carcasses of past creepy-crawlies. A shiver crawled down my spine and I quickly dragged myself past it.
Traveling on all fours was a job all on its own. The duct wasn't as dark as I expected, as each ten feet was interrupted by a window of light from below. The vent floor started on a slope but evened out to a straight line with vent doors on the floor. I was traveling through the tubing I had seen before, somewhere along the ceiling of the rooms beneath me. With each vent window I passed, I glanced down. Most of the rooms were barren and too dark for me to make out anything. Definitely a warehouse, an abandoned one at that.
I crawled along for about five minutes, carefully inspecting each room through the grates of the vent to find a suitable place to jump. Most of the rooms had a dirt floor, way too far for me to make a safe landing as I was traveling along the duct that lined the roof of most of the rooms, although I was willing to jump down into a room if there was an unlocked exit nearby.
And I still left a blood trail behind me. I was surprised I made it this far.
I crept along quietly for another five minutes until I finally heard voices. The words were too faint for me to make out but the deepness of the voice made me assume they were male.
Carefully, I crawled to the nearest vent window, absolutely terrified of making any noise, and peered down. My heart was in my throat and I had to stiffen every muscle in my body so I wouldn't tremble.
A brown curly head of hair greeted me. It was Ade.
And standing right beside him was Elliot.
"I really don't think this is a good idea." Ade murmured from below.
I listened with bated breath, my every nerve on edge.
"Well, it's the best choice we've got." Elliot responded. "We've run out of moves. Preston took off. He's gone. I knew we shouldn't have gone to him. That cop blood runs in his veins, the kid can't kill her even if his shitty life depended on it. We have to do this ourselves. I think we overestimated ourselves, to be perfectly honest."
Preston was gone?
"I know. And now he's coming here." Ade said quietly. He sounded worried. "I know we originally planned to kill Wolfe. That was the plan, wasn't it? I didn't think he would bring anyone else along, especially the snipers. Admit it, El. We fucked up. If he's coming, he's bringing backup. We don't have anyone else. It's down to me and you. Rosario's boys are gonna watch and Rosario's gonna keep a close eye on us, but he wants us to do this ourselves. He's not going to help. It's not worth it. I don't want to die."
"I don't either, man. Rosario's dirty, but he's not as dangerous as Sterling. It's either take on the Crowns and or take the deal. If we bring Rosario his head, we'll be the most powerful men in the world. But I don't even think we're gonna make it that far." Elliot growled. "We need to accept his offer. Sterling will give us protection, I know it. It's better than looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives. Even if we take out Wolfe, the rest of the Crowns will come after us."
Ade was silent for a second. "Unless they want to join us first."
Elliot shook his head. His hair was similar to Ade's, whereas Ade had brown curls and he had black. "Not a chance. They're too loyal to Sterling."
"Rosario's gonna kill us. He's been looking to take down the Crowns for two decades now." Ade muttered, running a hand over his face. He sounded frustrated, angry, and scared all at once. Whoever this Rosario was, he seemed to have a real impact on the both of them.
"You win some, you lose some. If we kill Wolfe, those guys will hunt us down for blood. Face it. No amount of money is worth that kind of anxiety. Rosario's gonna have to find someone else to do the job he couldn't. Mom would be disappointed in us if we took such a risk. It's not worth it. It's not worth it."
Mom?
Ade and Elliot were...brothers?
"And Florence?" Ade spoke through gritted teeth.
"What about her?"
"What happens to her now?"
"I don't know." Elliot shrugged and I got so angry I almost cursed out loud. "Get rid of her."
"Sterling won't take the deal if the girl's dead. He's basing this entire plan on her, you know. I don't get it." Ade huffed. He sounded furious that his former best friend was the cause of it all. "Years and years of sleeping around and it's a waitress that manages to break Sterling. Of all the people, the places he's been, it's a girl. Wolfe's whole mantra was the whole 'avoid falling in love, don't care about anyone but yourself' and the whole shit. Such power and he throws it all away for a girl."
"I don't know. It's his life, he can fuck it up if he wants to. We'll hand her over if he's so in love with the bitch."
Aw, so sweet.
"Sounds good."
"Okay, here he comes. Stay quiet. Let me do the talking." Elliot cleared his throat and straightened up as the sound of a door slamming came from the far left side. From my viewpoint, I couldn't see who it was. The small vent window cut off my line of vision from the door. I didn't have to wait long to see who it was, though. Heavy footfalls came closer and soon, I caught the mysterious visitor's face.
It was Wolfe.
He looked calm but I could see how tense he was. I picked up on that too. Wolfe's shoulders were set back and his arms were hanging by his sides, hands clenched into fists. Even from where I was crouched, I could see his teeth were grinding themselves together because his jaw kept quirking. His red lips were pursed and his eyes were flashing dangerously, the weak lighting only making his features more menacing. He was wearing his signature black suit and grey tie. There was something red on the collar of his white shirt, though. Splatters. Red splatters of blood. When he unclenched his fists, I noticed the tips of his fingers were stained red too. Something bad happened.
Wolfe came alone but I knew from Ade and Elliot's conversation that he was not alone. Snipers watching them through the lens of a rifle from on top of a building outside maybe? I knew for sure that Brice, Dan, and Jasper were around somewhere, close by. The thought made me feel safer, which was a bit ironic because I shouldn't feel safe considering they were world-famous criminals.
I didn't see a gun on Wolfe but I knew he had one tucked in somewhere. I think Ade realized that too because he reached behind his jacket and pulled out a glock. Elliot pinned him with a glare and he sheepishly tucked it away before Wolfe saw. Or maybe Wolfe did see but who could tell the difference? His expression never changed from one of a passive iciness. I bet Wolfe was great at poker.
"Sterling." Elliot greeted him easily enough. This was not the same guy I met two or three weeks ago, who barged into the Espresso House with a tattoo on his finger and ordered me to turn the television on. Elliot Josiah, the former Crowns member, now working against his boss. Elliot Josiah, the tech nerd. Elliot Josiah, Ade Sinclair's brother. He was supposed to be friends with Wolfe. He was supposed to be working for Wolfe. His name would burn in my memory forever.
Wolfe offered no greeting. His eyes shifted over to Ade and his jaw stiffened.
Ade uncomfortably shifted behind his brother.
Elliot hesitantly walked over to a metal table that was bare except for several pieces of paper lying on top of it. He glanced at Wolfe. "Sterling." He repeated casually. "Thank you for coming. We- my brother and I- invited you over to call a truce. James Preston is no longer in the picture and we have no ways to contact him, although you are most certainly welcome to see to his demise should you be able to locate him. I don't think he will be a problem, though."
"We know you're not alone." Ade muttered from behind the protection of his brother. "That's a bit obvious, isn't it? You should know we didn't come unarmed either."
He was a coward. A hatred like never before burned my lungs. The boy who had been my best friend was the one I couldn't stand to look at. He was nothing to me anymore. But that didn't mean it didn't rip my heart out watching Ade's corruption before my very eyes. His friendship had meant something to me. In fact, a long time ago, it had meant everything to me. But now we were nothing.
Elliot pressed his lips together, shooting his brother a murderous glare. He turned back to Wolfe, who still hadn't said a word. His expression hadn't changed either. "You know who Frank Rosario is, I presume?" Without waiting for an answer, Elliot continued smoothly. "Of course you do. You must also know of the ten million dollar bounty he put on your head. Rosario is working with the Sivian cartel, the mafia you delivered your shipments of methamphetamine to. They want you dead. But I'll assume you know everything about that, too. As a peacekeeping offer, I offer you this." Elliot slid over one of the papers. "Here is all the information on Rosario. It should be easy to take him out now."
"Since you came, we presume you're open to striking up a deal, am I correct?" Ade spoke without the smoothness of his brother, but his voice was oily too. "We were hired by Rosario to kill you, but the situation changed and that is no longer an option." He glanced at Elliot. "We realize our mistake and apologize for the previous attempts on your life and Florence Remy's. Here's the deal: If you agree to remove the open contract out on my brother and I, and if you give us your protection from Rosario, we will give you the girl."
"If not..." Elliot drawled lazily. "...you'll get her back. In separate pieces, of course."
Wolfe unlocked his teeth. "And why exactly would I give you protection from Rosario? Because you've had a change of heart and decided not to kill me? Because you finally realized my men could do so much more harm than anyone Rosario could hire? We all knew that. You were playing for the wrong side, Elliot. You both deserve to die." He spat viciously. His voice was as coarse as the fibers on the rope. Wolfe sounded bored almost, like he just woke up from sleeping. But there was a lingering tone in his voice, a tone of unspoken threats and menace. It was raw authority at its finest, the core of his power.
"You don't have to do any of that." Ade said smoothly. "In fact, we won't even try to kill you. But I think you want to. It's the best choice you have, Sterling, if you want Florence Remy back...alive. Unless you'd like to go find her yourself. Feel free to do that, but just remember, even you aren't impervious to 150 pound bombs. You can kill us. But we'll kill your bitch first. It all comes down to the girl, doesn't it?"
So they needed me as bait? That's all? No one wanted to kill me because I ate too many Twizzlers? Well, that was a relief.
"What makes you so sure I wouldn't just blow your heads off as soon as you give me Florence?" Wolfe asked quietly.
"Honor." Elliot replied. "You're a sick son of a bitch but you're honorable, I can give you that. You'll keep your word."
Were they really that naive? Even I knew better than to trust Wolfe.
Wolfe straightened his broad shoulders and glanced around the room. He didn't seem as twitchy as Ade and Elliot did. He didn't seem twitchy at all. I suppose Wolfe had prior experiences of this, unlike Ade and Elliot. Although the mystery of Preston did flit in the back of my head like a butterfly. Of all people, I never expected Preston to be working with them. But then again, I never expected my best friend to kidnap me. It was a bit unnerving, to find out the man hired to protect me was the one who threatened to end my life. I wondered how long it would take the FBI to sort this out. Man, they really needed to do background checks on people more often.
And who exactly was Frank Rosario and why was he so determined to kill Wolfe? I knew Wolfe had enemies but this dude seemed obsessed with seeing the execution of Wolfe Sterling. From their conversation, here's all the information I gathered so far:
1) The only reason they kidnapped me was to lure Wolfe.
2) Ade and Elliot wanted a deal with Wolfe because he could protect them from some guy named Rosario they had double-crossed. It seemed to me that Rosario had hired Ade and Elliot to kill Wolfe because they had inside information, Elliot being one of Wolfe's former friends, but they had chickened out.
3) Wolfe looked so sexy when he was angry.
4) The air ducts of abandoned warehouses were incredibly dusty. I was shocked that I hadn't sneezed and given away my secret hideaway. I was pretty good at this whole 'escaping-psycho-kidnappers-through-air-ducts-like-a-ninja' thing. At least now I was prepared if this was to happen again.
5) I was getting a bit delirious from not having consumed a single Twizzler in the past 24 hours.
6) Ade and Elliot were brothers. Damn, the curls should've been a dead giveaway. They had the same light blue eyes, too.
Wolfe leveled Elliot with a piercing glare. "Where is she?"
Before anyone could answer, I made a wild decision. Wolfe's words jolted me back to the situation at hand. It was a real stupid decision but most of my decisions are always stupid so why not add one more? It was more of a panicked choice, one that I didn't really have time to think over. Ade, Elliot, or Wolfe wouldn't have such a great reaction once they realized I was missing and it would only be a matter of time until they followed the blood trail I unceremoniously left behind, so was it not better to reveal my stealth in a dramatic way rather than to wait and face their wrath? Heck yeah it was.
So it was with utter recklessness that I pulled open the vent latch and jumped through the little space provided to crash land hard on the cement floor, right in front of where they were all standing.
And I crash landed hard.
The air duct to the floor measured about 11 or so feet and I would surely have broken my leg had I not landed properly. I didn't feel pain at first, the adrenaline running through my veins kept me from feeling it. I must've looked a sight to them, with my clothes covered in dust and my lips red from the blood still in my mouth from when Preston nailed me with the end of his gun. My arm was still bleeding and I had just literally fallen from the ceiling. My chances of being seen as the normal innocent duckling in this whole mess seemed very slim at this point.
I stayed sitting on the floor because my legs were too dead to stand upon. I tucked them in criss-cross-applesauce and gave a two-finger salute to Ade, Elliot, and Wolfe, who were all staring at me open-mouthed in shock.
I smirked, on the verge of passing out again. "I'm right here."