“Do you have a plan if any of the witnesses do agree to cooperate? They’ll be in danger if they agree to work with us.”
“We figured we should first see if we can even find any other witnesses,” Sebastian said. His hand was now resting on Newt’s thigh as if it were glued there. “Once we’ve found them, then we can come up with a plan for what to do with them.”
I silently nodded along while, internally, I started making my own plans. While I didn’t want to step on the toes of the men who had spearheaded this investigation, I hated leaving any loose ends in a case unattended longer than necessary.
On paper, it looked like the bell ringer case had plenty of resources and people behind it. The DA, the FBI, the FPA, and Alias Investigations were all supposedly working together, but that alliance was fragile, and I could already tell it wouldn’t be enough.
If I wanted any chance of winning this case and finally being able to look at myself in the mirror with a clear conscience, then I was going to have a lot of work ahead of me.
It waslate at night when I finally returned to my apartment. Usually, I returned early enough to park near the door in the building’s parking deck, but since I was so late tonight, the only available parking was on the less desirable far side of the deck.The place was cleaner and more well-lit than the average parking deck, which was one of the reasons I’d chosen to live here in the first place, but alone at night it was still unsettling.
I’d barely taken two steps from my car when a hand grabbed my shoulder and suddenly spun me around. The two very large men that confronted me were surprisingly silent as they crowded me into the deepest shadow of the parking deck.
“All right, hand it over,” one of the men said. I didn’t bother trying to tell the two men apart as they were basically the same.
‘Excuse me?” I tightened my grip on the handle of my briefcase.
A dagger glinted in the weak light of the parking deck. The man brandishing the weapon used the tip to point up and down along my body.
“Everything you got on you. Hand it over, and if it’s enough, then we might let you go.”
Staring wide-eyed at the two men for a moment, I started laughing.
“Seriously? If you’re trying to pretend this is some random mugging, then this is the wrong place for that. No average street thug could get past the building’s security, and besides, you two move way too silently. You’ve clearly had professional training.”
The two men shared a look, but to their credit, my sarcastic comment didn’t throw them off their game for long.
“That doesn’t matter,” one of the men snapped at me. “Just hand over everything you’ve got.”
He reached for my briefcase, making it clear what the men really wanted.
I took half a step back, just far enough to put myself out of the man’s reach, but the wall at my back kept me from going any farther. A look of satisfaction pulled at the corner of the man’s mouth. Since I’d remained silent, he assumed he’d already won.
Meanwhile, I watched his feet.
In order to reach my briefcase, which was down at my side, the man had to shift his weight forward on his feet. The moment I saw that shift, I swung my briefcase upward in a move similar to an uppercut. The corner of my briefcase caught him squarely in the chin, snapping his head back. Blood spurted from his mouth, and I caught the sight of a few teeth go flying as the man dropped unconscious.
The second man didn’t even wait for his partner to hit the floor. He immediately swung at me with his own knife.
Dropping my briefcase to free up my hands, I jumped back to avoid the man’s initial swing. Then, before he could strike out at me again, I rushed forward to put myself inside the reach of his arm. It was an intimate stance. The kind of position that was perfect for embracing a lover.
Or planting my fist in someone’s gut.
The man staggered under the sudden blow, but a seasoned fighter wouldn’t be felled by something so simple.
Before he could recover, I grabbed his wrist and twisted his arm to make him drop the knife. Then, still holding onto his arm, I swept his leg with my own to knock him off balance and force him to the ground.
He fell, and without the use of his arm, he had no way to catch himself.
I went with him, controlling the fall so that the man ended up face down on the ground with me lying on top of him. It was a particularly degrading position, literally putting him under me as if I intended to dominate him. Spittle flew from the man’s mouth as he shouted a litany of insults me while trying to escape. It was honestly impressive. I thought I knew every derogatory term for gay sex, but apparently there were some I’d never heard of before.
I’d have to Google them when I got home.
I wrapped my arm around the man’s throat in a chokehold, cutting of the supply of blood to his brain and effectively silencing him.
“Shut up and stop struggling,” I said directly into the man’s ear without lifting the pressure of my arm from his neck. “You’re going to be fine. I’m not going to kill you. But when you wake up, you’re going to go back to the people pulling your strings and warn them that I’m not such an easy mark.”
The man continued to struggle, but his face was turning red, and he’d lost the ability to speak. His fingers clawed uselessly at my arm, but the high-quality wool of my suit kept me from getting so much as a scratch.
