Page 76 of The Masked King

I slide my gun out of my pocket, put my finger on the trigger, and listen.

I can hear the subaudible hum of electricity feeding the apartment building, the low whirr of elevators, the sounds you take for granted and dismiss like whistling in the ears of tinnitus sufferers.

Then, too late, a whisper of movement behind me, and something dark and scratchy covers my head. A gunshot goes off, and I realize that it was me as I inhale chemical fumes, and blackness overtakes my vision, sucking the image of Demi at the forefront of my mind to a tiny pinprick before it vanishes completely.

I regain consciousness in a warehouse. I’m on a high-backed chair strategically placed in the middle of the cavernous space, my wrists tightly bound to the back of the seat, my ankles bound together with rope. My neck aches from being unconscious and upright, my chin feels damp and sticky with saliva.

Not my finest look.

On the bright side, I’m not blindfolded or gagged, but the chemical smell clings to my nostrils and throat like bonfire smoke, causing my brain cells to lurch when I inhale.

Which is why it takes a few beats for me to realize that I’m not alone.

Facing me, is a guy with ginger hair gradually fading to gray, his round face and watery eyes distorted by the duct tape wrapped so tightly around the lower half of his face that it appears to be half the size of the top half. His wrists and ankles are bound too. They’re taking no chances with this guy.

When he realizes I’m awake, he jerks in his seat and tries to shuffle forward, body and chair as a single unit, to reach me.

Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t get far. The door behind him opens, and heavy footsteps cross the dusty warehouse floor. His eyes widen and he shakes his head frantically like I need more warning that these are the bad guys.

I keep my expression impassive and face Dmitri Malevsky and his thick-necked thugs. “I’m surprised you needed backup, Mr. Malevsky. Or are you afraid to get your hands dirty?”

He smiles, mouth contorting into a shape that he has to think about before releasing it into the wild. “You have a sense of humor.” The smile fades. “You’re going to need it.”

“Oh, good, I’m glad we’re on the same page. So, why don’t you release our friend here and then we can have a chat?”

Malevsky doesn’t glance at the captive in the other seat. “Do you know this man?”

“Is that a trick question?” I fire back because it will take some time for my epiphany to achieve its full impact.

“Yes or no, Mr. Sabatelli.”

I can make an educated guess: the man sitting across from me is DI Goss, the cop who went missing shortly after arranging to meet me in Central Park. He has information on Kate Glasgow that the Bratva didn’t want leaked and his time is limited. I have two choices: play ignorant and pretend I have no idea who he is, or name him and come clean.

I have a feeling it will make no difference either way.

“DI Goss from the NYPD.” I place all my chips on option 2 and pray they have nothing on him. “But of course you already know this.”

Malevsky watches me with dark eyes. He doesn’t even flinch when one of his goons shoots the DI in the back of the head, the man’s blood splattering my face. “Now you’ll never know what information he had for you.”

I hold his gaze. In my peripheral vision, I can see Goss’s head slumped forward, his body finally still as if in slumber. Did Demi work with him? Is that how I knew his name? He must’ve made an impact on her as she generally kept quiet about her time with the NYPD; my first thought now is that she’ll be gutted when she finds out what happened to him.

“Shall we cut to the real reason why I’m here?” I ask.

“Why so impatient, Mr. Sabatelli?”

“The customer service isn’t to my liking. I would escalate a complaint to the manager, but I have a feeling customer service isn’t his priority.”

“On the contrary. I have a proposition for you that I think you might like.”

Here we go…

“No deal. Why don’t you kill me now and crawl back into your black hole, so that your friends here can lick your ass clean and suck your dick at the same time?” I pause, pretending to give it some real thought. “Or are they too old and ugly for you? Do you prefer them⁠—”

“You haven’t heard what it is yet.” His eyes are like bullets.

“I don’t need to. I don’t trade in people, but I guess your mommy never taught you the meaning of life.”

Pain flares in my shoulder before I register the gunshot, sending white-hot signals directly to my brain and numbing everywhere else so that it’s super-concentrated for maximum effect. I breathe deeply through it, trying to regulate my pulse. If I panic now, the bastard wins.