The man turned with a start, but relaxed when he saw me. I saw his gaze move over my body.
“I am for you,” he said with a smile. He focused on my face as I got closer and his grin faded. “Sage? Is that you? What’re you doing here? Did you see Ryker yesterday?”
“I have a message from Viktor,” I told him. “He said you’re no longer required.”
He frowned. “What the fuck does that mean? And how do you know Viktor?” A panicked look came into his eyes and he looked around, searching the shadows and empty parked cars in the lot. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m just supposed to give you that message.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
I tried to take a step back, but he grabbed my arm. “You’re not leaving until you tell me how you know Viktor. What did he say?”
“Let me go!” I jerked away just as I heard a popping sound. Then Malone was no longer there. Confused, I looked down to see his crumpled, headless body lying on the ground.
My cheek was wet. In a daze, I swiped at my face, my hand coming away with blood and gore. It was all over my clothes, too.
I stumbled backward into another car, hitting it hard and nearly falling in my haste to get away. Malone was dead. Shot right in front of me.
Turning, I ran back toward the truck, slipping and falling once. The gravel bit into my hands, but then I was up and climbing into the driver’s seat. I threw the truck into reverse and backed up, hitting something in the process, but I didn’t stop to check. Shoving it into gear, I floored it, gravel spraying from the wheels as I sped out of the lot.
I was too numb to cry, too much in shock to process what had just happened. I pulled the phone from my pocket.
“Excellent job!” Viktor crowed. The call had been live the entire time I’d been speaking to Malone. “It’s rather apropos, my final words being delivered by a beauty such as yourself. Death comes in all kinds of packages, though honestly I think I did him a favor, sending you. Much better than one of these thugs—unexpected and poetic, if I do say so myself.”
“I did what you said, now let them go,” I demanded, my voice shaking only a little.
“I said you might be able to save one of them, not that I’d let them go, but let’s make it more interesting, shall we? Come to this address, and we’ll continue our game.” He rattled off an address in the southeast part of Chicago. “Let’s make it ten minutes,” he said, “or they’ll start losing their fingers, one by one. Tick tock, little Sage.” The call ended.
“Goddammit!” I exploded, tears of rage and fear spilling down my cheeks. I’d known he wouldn’t live up to what he’d said, but what else was I supposed to do? And now I was on a time limit before he hurt them again.
My dad had grown up in that part of Chicago and I had cousins all over the place. I was vaguely familiar with the address, but even in light traffic, I was twenty minutes away. I floored it.
Stoplights were nonexistent for me as I blew through too many red lights to count. I prayed I wouldn’t get stopped by a cop as I took every shortcut I knew, making turns at speeds that were outright dangerous, not to mention foolish. But I had no choice. I believed absolutely that Viktor would do as he said. He’d cut off their fingers and laugh while he did so.
The truck tires squealed as I made a hairpin turn, glancing frantically at the clock. Two minutes.
I was going sixty-five in a twenty-five zone, swerving around cars and into oncoming traffic. Horns blared in my wake, but I took no notice of them. My entire focus was on the road and the ticking of the clock inside my head.
The docks were close and I swerved into the address he’d given me, slamming the truck into park and jumping out. I hit the pavement at a dead run, aiming for the door I could see set into the bleak warehouse. And I was only steps from it when something slammed into me from behind, knocking me to the ground. My head cracked against the pavement and everything went black.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A blinding pain woke me, then another, before I realized someone was slapping me. First one cheek, then the other. I tried to lift a hand to stop them, but couldn’t. My hands were tied behind me.
My eyes blinked open and I flinched as another blow came toward me, but it stopped at the last second.
“Oh good, you are awake. I was afraid Lee had hit you too hard.”
Viktor was the one hitting me and I glanced to where he indicated. A body lay on the floor, a pool of blood spreading beneath him. Not far from him was a metal barrel with a fire burning inside. It cast weird shadows around the room.
“You’re certainly leaving a lot of dead bodies in your wake,” I said.