“Stop!” Jay stomped into the customer area. “Keep being a know-it-all, and I won’t tell you anything.”
Stu followed him. “You always tell me everything, so pick a better threat.”
Not everything,he thought, remembering Nasty Ben’s visit.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” He picked up his keys and black helmet.
Stu leaned against the entrance door as Jay climbed his bike. “I’m not trying to be a dick.”
“I know, but you need to give me some slack. I’m not a kid. Enjoy your shitty movie.” He drove away, the engine roaring in his ears.
*
Chris was running late. They were to meet at the entrance of his building to go see Oscar. Pre-prison Jaywould have tried to steer Chris away from taking such drastic actions, but post-prison Jay knew you didn’t beat evil by playing nice.
He glanced at his watch and frowned.Very unlike him.He didn’t know where Chris’s office was, and he wasn’t about to search between floors. He picked up his phone and called him, but it rang a few times before reaching voicemail.
He was likely stuck in a boring lawyers’ meeting. Jay looked around and spotted a hot dog stand. He wasn’t a fan of those, but his stomach demanded something quick. Chris had promised steaks, but that would be hours from now. As he made his way toward the stand, he opened the tracking app on his phone to check on Chris’s location, something he had been doing at least once a day since this whole mess started.
When the app loaded, Jay almost tripped.What the hell?He logged out of the app and logged in again, but the location remained the same. “Pennsylvania?” This didn’t make sense. An alert notification read,“Weak connection may result in an inaccurate location.”Yeah, but how inaccurate? He guessed that it would take around three hours to drive to where the app claimed Chris was. It wasn’t unreasonable, but it was out of the fucking question that he would do so without updating Jay.
He took hold of his growing panic since panic never made anything better. Chris’s phone must have beenstolen. Phones got stolen all the time. Jay turned around and hurried back, bumping into people and ignoring their curses. He’d find Chris on whichever floor he was working on, then kick his ass for being so careless.
He didn’t get to enter the building before his phone rang with a call from Oscar. Jay let out a breath of relief and slowed down. Chris must have already been at the club, although he was still getting some ass-whooping.
“Hi,” Jay answered. “Is Chris with you?”
“I’m afraid we have a problem,” Oscar said solemnly. “Dima is with me in the club.”
“And Chris?”
“Chris... has been taken.”
Taken.
“I’m on my way. Dima better not go anywhere!”
*
He reached the club and charged down the long hallway. The man at the entrance quickly moved out of his way, blurting, “Room three.”
He reached the second floor and knocked on the door, catching his breath and wiping sweat from his brow. With the sliding of the door, he walked inside. “Start talki—”
Well, shit.
What Jay had failed to do on Fire Island, someone else had achieved with great success. Dima’s face wasbusted, his right eye shut tight and his nose swollen. He sat next to Oscar, slightly hunched over.
“Sit down,” Oscar said gravely.
Jay did, still panting. “What happened?”
“Dima and Chris were—”
“Let him speak.”
Dima straightened on the couch, then grimaced in pain. “We went to practice shooting.”
“In the middle of the day?”
