by Ada Scott
Still, I crack my knuckles and look down on him with a stony expression. Light-hearted as I might have been with Jane, this guy is in some deep shit, and that’s going to be to my advantage in this little interrogation.
“Listen, pal,” I say, putting my hands on the top of the trunk lid so my shadow is over him as I glower. “I’m gonna need you to stay put back here. Right now, you and me are headed to my bosses, where we’ll sort out what to do with you. Now, I’d like to know a few things before I go in there with you. And I guarantee you that whatever you tell me now is going to determine how many fingers you have left if you make it out of this meeting alive.”
He nods as vigorously as he can, and he uses his eyes to gesture to his gag urgently. I grimace and take the thing out, and he gasps for breath for a second before letting out a stream of words.
“I’ll tell you anything you want, this shit’s way over my pay grade! Just don’t fucking knock me out again, Jesus Christ!”
“That wasn’t me, actually—that was my associate.”
“Oh,” grumbles the man. “Well uh, look, you know how this goes--it was nothing personal, alright? I’m just following orders. But I-I’m just muscle trying to make a living, all this political drama is not what I signed up for.”
“That’s what we all tell ourselves, isn’t it?” I say with a cold smile.
He shakes his head vigorously, jowls shaking. “No, you don’t get it. And listen, this is big—if you’re really taking me to your boss, you’re gonna wanna know what’s going on.”
“I’m sure, but if you’re pulling my leg, I’m going to pull back,” I warn him.
“I know, I know,” he splutters hastily. “I got no stake in this except my life, man, and this isn’t the kind of thing I can just lie about.”
“Then let’s hear it,” Jane says, appearing at my side and crossing her arms. I have to suppress a proud smile; she pulls off the menacing tone pretty well.
“Ok, look, you’re wise to what’s going on, right? The forgeries?”
“Mmhmm,” I grunt.
“Good,” he says, taking a breath and trying to calm down. “Ok so, the dudes running this forgery gig? The French dude, Castellano and his crew, the guys who sent me to kill you? It’s not a coincidence he was so willing to do business with your boss Gorsky.”
“Where are you going with this?” I say, my brow furrowing.
“Someone on the inside of the Russian mob reached out to him,” he says in a low tone, his eyes wide. The eyes of a man with nothing to lose spilling everything he knows. “And it wasn’t just anyone. It’s Gorsky’s own son, Demyan.”
“Demyan?” I say, realization crossing my face. “You’re shitting me.”
He shakes his head again. “Swear to god. I was there that night the two of you were snooping around the art exhibition. Demyan is the one who sicced security on you when he caught onto you from the cameras. He was gonna make the two of you disappear that night. He’s been keeping an eye on you since this whole thing got started. I think he knows you’re trouble, and when he takes over the mob, you’re gonna be first on the chopping block.”
“When he takes over?” I growl, leaning in close to the man, my face hardened as I grab him by his collar. “You said ‘mob politics’ earlier. Are you telling me this is a coup?”
“Look, I don’t know all the dirty laundry your Russians fool with,” he blurts, “but I know that if it smells like a coup…” He trails off.
“If Gorsky were to fuck up this badly, and take a deal with obvious art forgeries, he’d be humiliated,” I say, dropping the man and standing up, connecting the dots in my head and looking at Jane. “He’d look weak, and he’d never know all the money he lost went into his son’s pockets…”
“...making it easy for his son to swoop in and take all the winnings and fill the power vacuum,” Jane finishes, her own eyes widening too. We stare at each other for a tense moment before I look back down at the short man.
“But why didn’t Gorsky hire an art expert in the first place to examine the pieces?”
“He did! But Demyan got to him first. I don’t know what he said, but every expert told Gorsky just what Demyan wanted him to hear. That the art pieces were all priceless originals! The security, the guest list...he had his hand in all of it. He still doesn’t know how you two got in.”
“What’s your name?” I ask him. He blinks.
“Mike.”
“Mike, if what you’re saying is true, you just changed the game. We’re gonna take you to Gorsky, and if you think you can sing the same song to him, I’ll back up my end of the evidence. You’re not gonna work with your forger friends anymore, but it’s better than a bullet in the head.”
“Sure is,” Mike says numbly. “Yeah, I know how this goes. You got a deal.”
“Good man,” I say, and with that, I stuff his mouth full of cloth again and slam the trunk shut before looking at Jane.
“We need to move. Fast.”
The drive is about an hour north of Vegas altogether, and the trail goes off-road. It’s the kind of place you’d never find unless you knew what to look for, or if you were one hell of a dedicated explorer. The cracked wasteland around it isn’t exactly attractive, but just around the bend of some rocks is an old warehouse that was going to be part of an industrial park that got scrapped last-minute.
After driving down those winding desert roads, we pull up to a ten-foot barbed wire fence and gate, and beyond it is one hell of a foreboding old building.
“So this is obviously where the League of Evil meets, right?” Jane asks as I come to a stop.
“Something like that,” I say, opening the car door. “Stay here.”
“What?” she calls as I get out and pop the trunk again, seeing Mike just as I left him. With a single motion, I pull him out and stand him to his feet, then drag him with me back to Jane’s window.
“Keep the car running, but hang back here, okay?” I repeat, my face serious. “I’m going to go deal with this. Nobody will bother you out here. And if I’m not back in an hour, you need to head back south without me. Will you do that?”
Jane’s face looks hesitant, but finally, she swallows and nods. “Be careful, Caleb.”
“No promises,” I say with a wink, and I head toward the warehouse.
It’s a longer walk than I’m used to, dragging a grown man behind me, but Mike doesn’t offer much resistance. We make it to the rusty warehouse door, a few company cars parked outside, and I push it open to get us both inside.
“It’s Caleb,” I announce myself as I enter, my eyes adjusting from the bright light outside to the dimness of the warehouse.
“We can see that,” grumbles a voice not far from me, and as my eyes adjust, some familiar faces come into focus. Russians I’ve worked with from time to time, some I know better than others. The man closest to me is another enforcer from the nightclubs, arms crossed as he eyes us up and down. “Who’s your, uh, friend?” Mike is squirming a little more than usual, but I give him a quick jerk.
“Someone who has interesting news for the boss,” I say. “Is Gorksy up in his office?”
“He is,” calls a voice from what was once a foreman’s office overlooking the warehouse. “But I don’t think it’s the Gorsky you’re hoping for, friend Caleb.”
My face goes pale, and it’s then that I see the smug smile on the doorman’s face.
“Demyan,” I say, looking up to the office stairs, where Demyan Gorsky is leaning on the railing, sporting a black tracksuit and a shit-eating grin on his face. If his father, Artur, is considered young for the mob, Demyan is practically a kid—barely in his 20s. And he has the ego to show for it.
Fuck me. I played my hand too early. Now, I’m standing in the lion’s den.
“Sorry, my father couldn’t make it to work today. He’s indisposed at the moment,” Demyan says meaningfully, a sick grin on his face. “Americans just can’t keep their noses out of where they don’t belong,” he says w
ith a chuckle. “Why are you even here, Caleb? If you’d just kept out of the serious business like a good guard dog…” his smug face darkens, “...you and your slut might have lived a little longer than today.”
Demyan waves his hand, and in less than a second, the warehouse erupts into action.
In a fluid motion, the doorman raises his gun and blows a hole in Mike’s head, and just as he does, I whip my gun out and put a bullet in the doorman’s heart before he can turn his gun to me.
The other enforcers in the building take action as Demyan heads back into his office, throwing up the middle finger to me and laughing while bullets fly throughout the warehouse.
Mike’s body hasn’t hit the ground before I dive for cover at the nearest crate. The lights are dim and the warehouse is big, so I can’t even tell where all the bullets are coming from. All I know is that while I could take these men on one by one in the labyrinth of the warehouse, Jane is outside.
Every second longer I’m here puts her in danger.
I blindfire from my cover to get some of the pressure off me, but I only have two guns and precious little ammo to show for it. Thankfully, I’m near the door.
Around the corner of the crate I’m behind, an enforcer rushes at me, trying to catch me off-guard. I use his momentum against him to bring him to the ground, and before he can try to wrestle with me properly, I pin him and put a bullet in his head. Bits of brain splatter onto the floor, but the next second, I hear a bullet whiz past my head, and I know I have to go fast.
I whip around and fire back, and a scream tells me I hit something.
Men are making their way toward me, though, and I won’t have long before I’m cornered. Gritting my teeth, I aim my pistol to the lights and start firing.
The warehouse goes darker with each light I hit, and sparks shower down on the attackers, to their surprise.
In the few seconds that bought me, I make my way to the door, firing on them before I slip out into the bright light and slam the door after me.
Every second counts now. Immediately, I take out my other pistol and pepper the tires of their cars with bullets before I turn and run full-sprint toward the gate, where I can almost already see Jane’s wide eyes at the sight of me.
Adrenaline makes a human body race, and I can’t believe how fast I make it back to the gate before I hear the door fly open and shouts over the road as bullets start flying again.
As I close the gate behind me, I shoot the last few rounds at them, and I see one of them hit the ground, but at this distance, pistols aren’t much good.
I rush to the driver’s door and fly inside.
I haven’t even closed my door before I start peeling out and around, and the next moment, we see just how well my Jaguar can accelerate.
We may as well be a blur racing out of the compound.
“What the fuck happened?!” Jane shouts from the passenger seat, and I glare into the rear-view mirror to make sure we aren’t being followed. I’m glad I took care of their cars while I had the chance.
“Demyan already made his move,” I pant, my breaths heavy. “Gorsky might already be dead, I don’t know. He killed Mike. They’re onto us.”
“Shit,” Jane breathes. I don’t even slow down as we hit the highway and barrel south.
“We need to recoup and...and…” I trail off, and I realize that I’m feeling dizzy. I white-knuckle the wheel to stabilize myself, but my other hand goes to a dull throbbing in my shoulder.
It feels hot and sticky.
“Oh my god,” Jane says, looking over at me with a face as white as a ghost. “Caleb, you’ve been shot!”
Jane
My eyes widen with terror at the sight of the dark red stain gradually spreading outward from a center point on Caleb’s right shoulder. I click my seatbelt off and let it slide back to its dock as I pivot in the passenger’s seat to get a better look at his wound.
All the while, Caleb keeps attempting to drive, the car wobbling slightly from side to side as he struggles to maintain his vision and constitution. I can tell by the sweat on his brow and the dazed look on his handsome face that he’s not doing well. The pain, the blood loss, the exhaustion of whatever fire fight just ensued back there is getting to him.
“You shouldn’t be driving,” I tell him firmly, popping the dashboard compartment open and anxiously rifling through it in search of something to halt the bleeding. It’s mostly a mess of papers, various receipts, lighters, pens, and…a gun. I immediately let out a little shriek and hastily close the compartment, my heart rate rocketing sky high.
I’ve never been a fan of guns.
Once, when I was a little kid, my grandfather took me to a shooting range out in the desert. We were only shooting tin cans, but it still frightened me right down to my core. The echoing crack of air-splitting bullets, the crunch of the tin cans being shot through, even the faint but acrid scent of gunpowder in the air. It was all horrible, in my opinion, and I swore even at that tender age that I’d never handle a gun if I could help it. My grandfather and father, who had brought me on the trip thinking I’d find it fun, were a little disappointed that I didn’t find the same enjoyment in it they did. But if there’s one thing I did inherit from them, it’s my stubbornness. And so I’ve managed to go my whole life avoiding even touching a gun, much less shooting one.
When guns are involved, people get hurt. And the fast-fading quick-draw cowboy next to me in this fancy Jaguar is proof of that.
“Why do you have a gun in your glove compartment?” I yelp, frantically looking around the car for some kind of makeshift tourniquet. Fabric, paper towels, anything.
“Good question,” Caleb says, his voice weaker than usual and his words slightly slurred. “Should have brought that one with me. Could’ve given at least twice as good as I got.”
“Let me rephrase the question: why do you live the kind of life that would require you to keep a gun in your glove compartment or on your person?” I retort, finally giving up on finding anything remotely useful in Caleb’s car. With a strength I didn’t know I had, I manage to rip a broad strip of fabric from the bottom of my fancy dress, silently hoping to god Innocence For Sale won’t want me to pay for damages.
“That’s a question with a very long answer,” Caleb replies. “And neither of us have the time or patience for that.”
“Pull over,” I tell him, inspecting his gunshot wound.
“Are you insane? Someone is almost certainly tailing us. We don’t have time.”
“Pull. The fuck. Over,” I repeat between gritted teeth. Caleb glances over at me with an almost amused expression, like he’s surprised to hear me say a curse word or something. As if this isn’t exactly the kind of situation which calls for harsh language.
“Jeez. Fine. But just for a damn second,” he relents, his words trailing off at the end of his sentence. I can tell he’s fading in and out, probably woozy from the blood loss and shock.
Once the car pulls to a stop on the side of the dusty road, I fly out of the passenger side door and come around to Caleb’s side, helping him out and leaning him back against the car. His eyes look slightly glazed over, blue and wandering.
“Take off your shirt,” I order. He rolls his eyes at me but complies with my command, stripping off his bloody shirt so I can toss it in the back of the car.
“Those are leather seats, you know,” he slurs, his eyes closing.
“I think you can afford to get it detailed later,” I reply, examining his wound with my extremely unpracticed eyes. I have no idea what I’m looking at here, beyond the apparent fact that it’s a gunshot wound, and it looks really, really bad.
Just then, I spot out of the corner of my eye a flash of light, like the sun reflecting off a shiny surface. There’s a bottle in the back of the car, on the floor. I throw the backdoor open and make a dive for it.
“Yes!” I exclaim, relieved. It’s a bottle of vodka. I unscrew the lid and pour the liquid over Caleb’s shoulder. He lets out a hiss
of pain, almost jolting away from me at first, but I hold him there, giving him an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, but you know this needs to be done.”
“It’s weird that you’re not freaked out by all this blood,” he says, narrowing his eyes at me. “Girls like you are usually just a little bit put off by excessive gore.”
“I mean, I’m no doctor, but I’ve watched too many emergency room TV dramas to still be queasy about blood and guts,” I answer, wrapping the strip of fabric from my dress tightly around his upper arm, covering most of the wound. “Hold that there and do not let it slip off,” I instruct.
“Yes, ma’am,” Caleb says, a woozy grin on his face. His blasé attitude to this very serious situation worries me. He’s got to be pretty out of it right now. He’s in no shape to get behind the wheel of any vehicle.
Which means I know what needs to be done. And neither one of us is going to like it.
“Come on. Lean on me and I’m gonna help you around to get in the passenger seat,” I tell him. “You’re gonna sit in the passenger seat and hold that tourniquet in place, and I’m gonna drive this ridiculous midlife crisis on wheels. That’s how this is gonna go down,” I tell him firmly.
Caleb’s pained expression melts into another smile, like he just can’t help himself. He holds up his uninjured arm in surrender. He laughs, “Fuck. Fine, fine.”
I help him get into the passenger seat before I cross around and slide behind the wheel. I take a quick second to adjust the mirrors and pull the seat closer before nervously turning the ignition. There’s a tense, silent moment while I struggle to get the car to start. It stalls out a few times before finally coming to life. Finally, I manage to get the car back on the highway and get up to an appropriate speed.
“Impressive,” Caleb says. I glance over at him sourly, thinking he’s being facetious, but he actually looks pleasantly surprised.
“Thanks,” I reply.
