I worked on my restraints, as the car made a few lefts and rights, staying below the speed limit. I had no idea how far the van might have gone at that breakneck pace, but there was no doubt we were still pretty central.
Finally, it turned off the road, and I felt it go down a steep ramp into an underground parking lot. A second before the driver turned the engine off, I twisted the paperclip and felt the cuff loosen on my left wrist.
Between the time they stepped out and opened the back door, I slipped my hand out and held the cuff behind my back so it wouldn’t be obvious I had freed myself.
“Out.”
I swung my feet out of the car and stood up. One of them put his hands on my shoulders and moved me to the side, then leaned me against the car by the rear wheel well so he could close the door.
I took a deep breath, trying to figure out exactly where the two of them were standing, which way was light and which way was dark. I had one chance to run, and fucked if I wanted to run straight into a motherfucking concrete wall.
“You comin’ up?” a voice came from such a height that it could only be the huge guy.
“Nah, I’ll wait here until Mr. Barlow tells me what to do with these jerk-offs, make sure nothin’ happens to ‘em.”
I fucking ran, swinging my hands up to rip the hood from my head. I got maybe ten feet before the big guy caught me, moving at a speed I would have thought almost impossible for somebody of his size.
I whirled around with a haymaker punch and he blocked it easily, with an expression on his face as calm as he might have had watching the weather report. It was a face I vaguely recognized.
The fight drained out of me at the ridiculous hopelessness of the situation. Not only was he huge, he was Austin Fucking Aquila, the MMA heavyweight champion. What in the fuck was going on?
I waited for a knockout punch that never came. Instead, he spun me around and reattached the handcuff before pushing me back towards, and then past, the car. The other guy had taken off his balaclava too and was sitting on the trunk, lighting a cigarette.
At least he wasn’t the middleweight champion. I didn’t recognize him at all.
“No, no, don’t get up. I got this,” said Austin, sarcastically.
The other guy gave him the thumbs up and the two of us headed for the elevator. Another car parked right next to the elevator, and the guy who got out nodded at Austin, before falling into step behind us. As soon as I stepped inside, I knew this wasn’t the Acardi building; it was a completely different style.
“Who do you work for?” I asked.
“You’ll have to talk to my brother about that,” said Austin.
We stepped out of the elevator into a poorly-lit office space that looked to be undergoing renovations. Some guy sat at a desk with a headset on, staring at a six-screen display setup full of fuck-knew what.
He paid no attention to me, but another guy wearing a suit who was almost as tall as Austin, if slightly less muscle-bound, was scrutinizing me carefully. Austin pushed me down into a seat.
“Watch him,” said the guy who must have been Austin’s brother, then turned to the strong silent type who had ridden up the elevator with us. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be killing somebody in an hour?”
“Romano said he was gonna watch a movie, and he didn’t want anybody to disturb him for the next few hours. He was pretty much begging to die early.”
“OK. As long as nobody finds him ahead of schedule.”
“They won’t.”
My brow furrowed. “Romano… Acardi?”
Austin’s brother told the killer to sit tight in case he needed him for anything else and then turned to me. “That’s right. Romano Acardi had an unfortunate run in with a bullet, it seems.”
“Who the fuck do you people work for?” I asked.
“Me. I’m Jace Barlow.” He pulled up a chair and sat opposite me, looking at my face carefully. “I know you’re having the worst day of your life, Ryan. Do you know why this is all happening yet? Did the Acardis tell you?”
“No.”
Jace looked up at his brother, then back to me and sighed. “Today… the Acardis found out that your girlfriend is… a cop.”
My ears rang as if in the aftermath of some kind of silent explosion and it felt like somebody was shoving an icicle through my chest. I shook my head and curled up a little as my stomach cramped again.
“No. No. No, no, no. That’s… that’s not possible.”
“It’s possible, and it’s true. The Acardis tried to find out some background about her, starting from just after Christmas as far as we can tell. They got real suspicious when all their leads ran into dead ends, and they just heard today from one of their sources inside the police department that she’s an undercover cop. They decided to go scorched-earth on you. The cops that picked you up worked for the Acardi Family. They weren’t taking you to the police station, they were taking you to your lab, where I understand they’re installing some shackles.”