Page 63 of Omega’s Fealty

“Walk,” the old man says. A hand comes to my elbow, steering me.

I walk. We go in the opposite direction to the hotel, turning the corner until we stop at a dark sedan with the windows blacked out in the back.

The younger man looks around, then he steps behind me and a bag comes down over my head.

I can hear my own breathing in it.

“Head down.”

I put my head down and get in. My knees go into the back of a seat. Somebody gets in next to me and the door closes and then another door, up front, and the engine starts.

We drive.

I try to hold onto the turns. A left and a long straight with traffic close on both sides. A right. A stop that goes on long enough to be a light. Under the hood there’s nothing to see. The car is warm after the freezing cold of the park. My arm feels completely dead.

The man beside me doesn’t speak, but I can hear him breathe and I can hear his coat when he moves.

There is no scent coming off him. I’ve sat in cars with men who had reasons to be nervous and you can smell it on them however still they sit, even with scent blockers. This one smells like absolutely nothing.

I think about what I know. These men are Monteverran. They’re not official security. They’re not with the security guards at the hotel.

I don’t know what that means yet.

The car slows and turns and the sound changes. We’re inside somewhere, on a ramp, going down. The tires squeal on the paint, then we stop and the engine cuts.

“Out.”

I shuffle along the seat, and when I get to the end, I’m caught by the elbow and they help me out.

We walk across concrete and through a door that shuts behind us, then there are stairs.

On the fourth floor, we move, turn twice, then there are doors and a carpet and a hand on my shoulder pushes me down into a chair.

The zip ties on my hands cut but before I can rub against the marks, my hands are pulled behind me and re-tied to something. I can’t help it. I let out a sharp hiss as my bad arm twists.

The hood comes off.

I’m in a small kitchen with a table shoved against one wall and my chair in the middle of the floor. The blinds are down. There’s a laptop closed on the counter and nothing else on it.

The older man is sitting on the edge of the table with the gun resting on his thigh, pointed at the floor. The younger one is standing against the door with his arms folded. He’s got my hat. He’s holding it by the brim like he doesn’t know what to do with it.

The gray-haired man looks at me. He takes his time about it. Up close, with the light on, he’s older than I thought in the park, but he isn’t soft anywhere.

“You are Roan Kessler.”

“Yeah.” No point denying it.

“You were on the boat.”

“Yeah.” No point denying that either.

“Who hired you?”

I take a second to consider the question. I’m pretty sure Sully set me up. I owe him fuck all.

“Broker called Sully. I’ve done a dozen jobs for him. He never told me who was paying.” The name means nothing to him. I can see that.

“How many men on the boat?”