“Tell him we know he’s working for Ivan,” Gage said. “Ask him again where Ivan is.”
I turned to face Dimitri again. “He says he knows you’re working for Ivan.”
A smile spread across the Russian’s face. “Of course he does. That was never supposed to be a secret. Tell him congratulations.”
“Where is your boss?” I asked him. “Dimitri, where is Ivan?”
He laughed then. “I’m not going to tell you anything, Dr. Danvers. He needs the information too much to seriously hurt me, so I’m going to keep my mouth shut. Once I tell him where Ivan is, he’s going to kill me.”
“No,” I argued. “No. He told me he’s going to let you go. He’s just trying to find Ivan.”
“You have no idea what you got yourself into, do you?” Dimitri asked, realizing that I really had no idea what this was all about.
I was starting to get pieces of the puzzle, though, and I didn’t like what I was seeing. Dimitri was being held against his will, tied to the chair in this dank, musty old room. All this talk about bosses and where to find them was straight out of the movies. I was beginning to think I’d been pulled into a conflict between two rival mob factions.
“Why don’t you go back to your university, doctor?” Dimitri continued. “This isn’t the place for a woman like you.”
“What’s he saying?” Gage asked me.
“You’re in over your head, Dr. Danvers.”
I shook my head. “He’s not talking.”
“I ought to bash his skull in right here and now,” Gage growled. “Tell him I’m threatening him again.”
I stood up and looked back and forth between the two men. “He understands violence,” I told Gage. “Just raise your fist at him. He’ll know what you mean.” I started towards the door. “He’s not talking to me.”
“Where are you going? You can’t get out of here without the key.” Gage pulled the key out of his pocket, and I considered stepping back over to him to snatch it from his hand, but I feared his hand would meet my face in a bad way if I tried anything like that on him.
“Listen, I’m not getting anywhere with him,” I said, frustrated. “He told me he’s not going to talk with you in the room, so we need to figure out a different approach.”
“He’ll talk no matter what,” Gage threatened. “If the dumb bastard knows what’s good for him.”
He raised his hand, but the Russian just calmly looked up at him, his face not even registering anticipation. It was as if he didn’t even expect Gage to make good on any of his threats.
“I think we need to talk,” I told Gage. “This isn’t working.”
Gage kicked over the chair I’d just been sitting in. He slammed his fists down on the wooden desk and leaned across it again, coming face to face with Dimitri. He didn’t issue any threats. He just stared into the Russian’s blue eyes, his face seething with rage.
“Gage, that’s not helping.”
Dimitri stared into the hateful expression on Gage’s face and said to me, “Tell him that if he harms me, he won’t have to look for Ivan. Ivan will find him.”
“Gage, we need to go. We need to talk. In private,” I urged the biker. I couldn’t believe I was willingly offering to examine other options to get through to the Russian, but something told me my ass was suddenly on the line, too.
“Fine. Let’s talk.” He pushed himself up from the table and walked over to the door, unlocking it to let us out and locking it again once we were out, to keep Dimitri inside. Alone.
He grabbed my arm and walked me away from the room, toward the steps leading back up to the garage.
“Talk,” he said. “What was all that about in there? You two talked a lot for your answer to be that he wasn’t telling you anything,” he accused me.
“He was just telling me he wasn’t going to talk. At first, he said he wasn’t comfortable talking with you in the room. Then, he said he felt like you were going to kill him once he did talk,” I explained to Gage. “I think I should go back in there alone,” I added.
“Good. And you’ll get the chance, because you’re staying with us until you get him to talk,” he said matter-of-factly before taking me by the arm and leading me upstairs.
His grip was firm and forceful, but it didn’t hurt. He wasn’t trying to hurt me, just to make sure I understood my place.