She sniffled a little. “I should be the one to finish it. I’m the one he really wants to hurt. I should be able to take care of you, Titus.”
“You already have, so much better than anyone else ever did.” I should tell her I loved her but it felt wrong, cheap. She needed to hear the words when there wasn’t a very strong chance that it was the only time I was going to be around to say them. “Trust me, and my initial order stands: if you don’t hear from me in an hour, call the marshals and tell them where I’m at.”
I hung up as she was sobbing my name. I took the battery out of my phone and handed it to Booker. He dropped the device to the ground and smashed it under the heel of his boot. I unclipped my gun from my belt and handed that over as well. He pointed to my ankle and stood there watching me while I bent down and released my backup weapon. I pulled my badge off my belt and tucked it into my pocket.
“Let me disable the antitheft device on the car and I’ll grab my cuffs from the glove box.”
I didn’t want anyone else to put their hands on my baby. I just hoped that whatever happened, someone got her back to Bax in one piece. She deserved better than being left abandoned in this wasteland. I scooted under the frame and tugged on the wires that would send out the location signal should I need to find her if the pretty machine ever went missing. I also fished my handcuffs out of the glove compartment and handed them over to the other man. He tossed them up and then caught them with his hand with a smirk.
“Never been on the other side of these bad boys before.” He lifted an eyebrow, which pulled at his scar. “Remember it has to look real.”
I was going to ask him what in the hell he was talking about when the first blow landed on my cheek. The metal from the cuffs made Booker’s fist feel like it was encased in steel. I shook my head to clear the ringing in my ears when another blow landed on the other cheek. I lifted my hands in automatic defense but he moved around them and landed an uppercut under my chin that had my teeth splitting my tongue open. I grunted at him and all it got me was another blow with the hand wrapped around the cuffs. I was having a hard time staying on my feet. I wobbled a little and was seeing spots as darkness started to swirl around my vision.
“Hey, cop.”
“What?” The word was gasped out from lungs that felt taxed and from lips that were broken and rapidly swelling.
“I’m really sorry about this.” I didn’t have a chance to ask what he was talking about because the next thing I knew his forehead connected with my own and everything shifted and I went down to my knees. I was barely conscious and sure to have a concussion after the force of that blow. Something itchy and coarse fell over my head, making it harder to breathe and impossible to see. I struggled out of pure instinct as Booker hefted me up and shuffled me harshly to the truck.
“Take this thing off of me.” I wanted to pull the hood off but my hands were yanked behind my back and secured with the chilly metal of my own cuffs.
“Can’t. That was part of the big bad’s orders. I think he might actually be a little afraid of you. The cuffs and hood were required.” I felt him put something in my back pocket. “That’s the key if by some miracle you make it out of this alive.”
I heard him take a deep breath and then all I got was his side of the conversation as he called Roark.
“I got the cop. Yes, he’s unarmed and secured . . . Yes, he’s still breathing, but the fucker broke my nose.” A forced laugh and then, “Where do you want him?”
A thump against the side of the truck. “Of course I’m coming alone. Bax can hardly move. Race wants to kill me and the cop is trussed up like a pig.”
A litany of swearwords. “Yeah, I’ll ditch my phone. I already told you I would. Look, I just want you to leave the girl alone. We already went over this. I don’t give a shit about the rest of them.”
I shifted around trying to determine if I could see anything through the fabric of the hood. It was no use. I was practically helpless and getting ready to ride right into the belly of the beast. It was the dumbest and bravest thing I had ever done. I wanted to kick my own ass for not having any other solution that didn’t seem so hopeless and so desperate.
It was Booker’s turn to snort. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Okay, I’ll be there shortly.”
“He’s in Novak’s warehouse, isn’t he?”
I sounded garbled and suffocated from behind the cloth covering my face.
Booker thumped the side of the truck again. “Yeah. He said it seems fitting that it’s the last stop for you since you spent so much time trying to take his father down. No one has been there since the feds seized it. It’s been government property, and since he used to be a marshal and worked the case, he knows that.”
I thumped my head back against the flatbed. “I fucking knew it.”