Pressing my palm to my ear, I turned up the volume.
“Hi Bug, I don’t have long, but I just wanted to see whether you still have the number of that psychiatrist? The one you were dating?” There was a pause as Violet listened to her friend reply. She’d somehow found a pen and was doodling on one of the packing boxes. “Oh, I thought you said she was the psychiatrist, not the nurse?”
I clenched my jaw, frustrated that the other half of the conversation couldn’t be heard.
“Really?” Violet’s voice quietened, almost exhausted even as her fingers continued to sketch. “Yes… that would be perfect. I just… Yeah. Mum’s getting difficult, and her current doctor isn’t helping.”
I sat a little straighter.Fucking bingo.
“I don’t think her meds are working and I just… No, she’s at home. Can you text me the details so I can book?—”
I didn’t bother listening to the rest, immediately pulling out my headphones and grabbing my shit. For two weeks I’d been following Violet and hadn’t found a single trace of her mother. I’d already searched her one-bedroom flat and found nothing to indicate there was a second person living there.
Jesus Christ. They were either really good at hiding, or I was losing my touch.
Stepping outside, I made my way around the back of the café to where I’d parked my bike, only for a hench fucker to be leaning against it. He straightened when he spotted me, and I put on my most charming smile.
“Can I help you there, mate?” I casually placed my hand in my pocket, feeling the coolness of my favourite butterfly knife.
“Ryder Finn?” The voice came from behind me.
I turned just in time to feel a hard jolt slam into my stomach, knocking the air from my lungs. My brain didn’t have time to recoil at the physical touch when another fist came fast, cracking against the side of my ribs.
Luckily, this time I managed to twist out of the way and swing a right hook. My knuckles screamed in protest as they connected with the sharp edge of his jaw, the momentum throwing him to the side at the same time a vicious kick caught me square in the back of the knees. It sent me crashing down without enough time to recover before both the men were on me.
“Not the face!” I grunted, holding my arms up to protect my head just as the first foot came down. Then another. And another.
My ribs screamed in protest, each breath a jagged knife in my side. Then, just as suddenly as the beating had begun, rough hands hauled me upright and slammed me down into a confined space. My shoulders scraped against the frame as they forced the lid shut, sealing me in darkness.
I barely fit, my knees jammed up awkwardly against my chest, the cramped space making it hard to move. Something rumbled to life beneath me, and I quickly realised I’ve been stuffed into a boot of a fucking car. At least my size kept me wedged in place instead of rolling around like a ragdoll. Small victories.
“Well, this is inconvenient,” I muttered into the pitch black.
With as much care as I could manage in the confined space, I fished out my butterfly knife, feeling along the edge of the boot for the lock.
A sudden sharp turn flung my weight towards my head, smashing my temple against the metal wall. Pain thrummed behind my eyes, but I gritted my teeth and forced myself to twist back around. My fingers found the lock again, and I jammed the blade inside.
I felt the pins moving, and with a flick of my wrist the boot unlocked just as the car slammed to a stop. Unpeeling myself from the side, I flicked the latch open?—
Only to find a blond man dressed head-to-toe in black, glowering like some knockoff grim reaper. If I were a religious man, which I’m not, I’d have called it a bad omen.
“Mr Finn,” he greeted, stepping back so I could gracefully unfold myself. He was very much a short king, standing at a good foot smaller than me, yet he had the aura of a man twice his size. “Or would you prefer one ofyour aliases? Mr Baker, Mr Grimm, or Mr Evans, maybe?”
Shit.
“You seem to have me at a disadvantage.” I ignored the twinge in my poor spine, and instead attempted to brush some of the shoe-prints from my jeans. “Who the fuck are you?”
A rough hand grabbed my shoulder, shoving me down onto a chair.
“I’ve been asked to speak to you,” he simply replied with a relatively thick German accent.
I squinted at him. “By whom?” I’d been taken to an old warehouse, clearly abandoned by the lack of cleaning and the suspicious coppery stain directly under where I sat.
“The same man who hired you to find the USB drive.”
“And a phone call wouldn’t have sufficed?”
The blond was the smallest out of the three men, with the other two being the fuckers that had used me as a punching bag. My ribs ached, but I didn’t think any were broken. At least I caught the second guy’s jaw, a pretty bruise already blossoming.
