“I can’t leave my wife,” I said matter of factly.
Niko pulled out his phone and texted someone. One of the cops tried to reach over for his phone so he stepped back, pulling his phone away. “I’m sorry. Did you just try to accost me?”
“Alright, let’s go,” the silver haired office said.
Ma said, “I’ll be here with her. It’s okay.”
Niko nodded so I grimaced but walked to the door. “If I’m not back by the time she’s awake–”
“I’ll tell her,” Ma said.
Outside, they cuffed us and pulled everything from our pockets. We both climbed into the back seat of the patrol car, and the officers got in and we took off. The drive to the station was quick.
As we walked in, they took us straight to the interrogation rooms.
“Not following procedure?” Niko asked.
“Nobody’s charged with anything. Just asking some questions. Your friend will be over here.”
“Don’t say a word, Hawk,” Niko said calmly.
I stepped inside the room and took a seat. Niko obviously had something up his sleeve, so I just had to wait.
The silver-haired man came inside. “I’m Officer Sanderson.” He took a seat. “That’s a lot of blood. Sure hope she’s okay.”
I didn’t answer him.
“You know, the hospital has to call in any accidents. You clearly care about her. You took her to get fixed up. So why don’t you just tell me what happened and we can get you back over there before she’s out of surgery.”
I stared across, but didn’t move a muscle.
“Not talking only makes you look guilty, son.”
If he called me son one more time I may have broken my silence. But after a few more minutes of reframing his questions with no response from me, he finally tapped on the table.“Alright. Well, you just hang out in here for a while. We’ll talk to her in a bit.”
I hoped whatever Niko was doing happened soon. Stories needed to be cohesive. She probably wouldn’t talk either, but I didn’t want these dipshits harassing her when she needed to be resting.
After about half an hour, the door opened, and my silver-haired friend was back. “Stand up.”
I stood, and he finally took the cuffs off. He turned around, revealing another man with him. He had on a basic black suit and red paisley tie. His light brown hair was styled much like mine and he was clean shaven. Late forties, give or take a few.
“Mr. Jones, I’m Special Agent Hicks from the Atlanta field office. Special Agent Antonov from our Newark field office asked me to man this case until he can arrive.”
Fuck.Fucking Petrov. The Feds. Great.
“We’ll take it from here, officer. Did you have their belongings?”
After just a few minutes, we were in the back of an unmarked sedan and headed back to the hospital, with the contents of our pockets.
“We can check in to see if your wife is still in surgery,” he said as he pulled into a parking space.”
My brows pinched and I looked at Niko. He swept his hand across the air, so I stayed quiet. Were we being held, or what?
After heading back inside, Ma was still in the waiting room. She looked as surprised as I was. “No word yet.”
Agent Hicks held his hand out to the driver, then to Ma. “Special Agent Hicks, ma’am. May I ask you a few questions?”
She looked at me and I looked at Petrov. He smiled and said, “Cindy, he knows you were kidnapped. It’s alright.”
