Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
There was a good chance Abasi Otieno was going to kill his cellmate. Lunch had just been served, which meant they’d been locked up together for around three hours, and in that time, Evan MacDonald hadn’t stopped talking for more than five seconds.
Abasi glanced at the man-child. Yep, this would be the straw that broke him. Three hours locked up with the triplet who couldn’t shut up. It was bad enough having to listen to him when they were stuck in their Houston office, but being locked in a room together was a whole new level of hell. There was literally no escape—which meant no hotel suite waiting for him when he got home. No five-star menu. No concierge. No blessed silence…
“I mean,” Evan said as he paced their tiny cell, “I have a get-out-of-jail-free card. I made a deal with MI5 and the FBI that I work in America for Benson Security instead of going to jail. That deal should still be valid. MI5 trumps the Met, right?”
He didn’t wait for Abasi to reply. Which he had no intention of doing anyway, seeing as this was the twentieth time Evan had run through the same argument—with himself. The whole thing exhausted Abasi, who couldn’t even remember being twenty-four, let alone acting as young as Evan. Hell, there were days when Abasi felt like he’d been born old and jaded. Guess that’s what growing up in the mob did to you.
“Sit your arse down,” he drawled at Evan. “You’re making me dizzy.”
It was as though the boy didn’t even hear him.
Abasi imagined sticking out a foot and watching Evan trip and hit his head on the tiled wall before sliding to the floor, unconscious. There would be silence. A few minutes of blessed peace before the cops came to question him. But, no, he couldn’t do it. Because he was reformed and didn’t work for the mob anymore.
Sometimes, going straight really sucked.
Evan stopped dead in the middle of the cell. “Why isn’t there a window in here? Is it some sort of torture technique? Deny the prisoners any way to tell the time? Is that it? I saw this in a movie. We’re going to break. There’s no fighting time deprivation. And what’s with all this tile?” He started to breathe faster. “It’s so they can hose the place down after they beat us, isn’t it?” He searched the floor, probably looking for a drain. “We’re going to die in here, aren’t we?”
“You might,” Abasi said, but if Evan heard, he didn’t react.
Evan started pacing again. “Five minutes with a computer, and I’d sort all of this out. That’s all I need. Five minutes.”
Abasi didn’t bother pointing out that hacking was the reason Evan was in the cell in the first place.
“I wish my mum was here.” The triplet stared woefully at the door as though it would miraculously open and she’d appear. “I called her hours ago. How long does it take to get from Glasgow to London? Not this long, right?” He focused on Abasi, a manic gleam in his eye. “My mum’s a brilliant lawyer. She’ll get us out of this.”
Yep, he’d heard that before as well. Evan seemed to be stuck in a loop.
“You think it was smart that you and your brothers all used your one phone call to talk to the same person?” Abasi asked. “It might have been a better idea to let your brothers call your mum and for you to call some hacker friends to help.”
It was as though he were invisible.
“I’ll never survive prison. Everything about me screams, ‘punch me.’ Plus, it’s a well-known fact everybody hates gingers. We’re the most discriminated against people on the planet.”
“You’re talking to a black guy,” Abasi reminded him.
Miracle of miracles, Evan seemed to hear him. “At least you look tough. I have blue skin and orange hair. Do you know what that’s like? The slightest glimmer of sun, I turn into a lobster and my hair becomes glow in the dark.”
“What was I thinking?” Abasi drawled. “Oh, how you’ve suffered.”
“On top of that, my girlfriend will forget all about me.”
“You have a girlfriend?” Color Abasi confused.
“Technically. We haven’t met in person yet, but all signs point to her being the one. Don’t be fooled by my fashion-forward sense of style. Little Evan only salutes the ladies.”
Abasi wondered if a swift punch to the jaw would knock his cellmate out without causing any permanent damage. If anyone asked, he could tell them Evan had been hysterical, and he’d just wanted to snap him out of it. It wasn’t that far from the truth. He reminded himself that his new boss probably wouldn’t appreciate him knocking out a teammate. But Rochelle could be reasonable, and if there was any further mention of Little Evan , all bets were off.
“You don’t have a girlfriend,” Abasi said. “You’re sexting a stranger. For all you know, it could be some big, hairy guy called Karl.”
“You old people don’t understand modern dating.” Evan dismissed him.
“Old? You’re only ten years younger than me, and I date fine.” Abasi glanced down at his tailored trousers and shirt. “And unlike you young people , I know how to dress like a man instead of a dollar store pinata.”
“Is the air in here getting thinner?” Evan was off again. “I don’t see any vents. Where’s the air coming from? Is it hot? It feels hot.”
If he started to strip, Abasi was definitely going to knock him out. He shifted on the tiled platform that was equal parts freezing his arse off and being so hard that he had pins and needles in his thighs. Another hour with Evan, and there was a good chance he’d confess to whatever the hell the cops wanted to accuse him of, just to bring this torture to an end.
“My lawyer said that the cops want to talk to me about hacking for terrorists.” There was a mixture of horror and fear in his expression.
In fact, he appeared to have paled some at the thought, which was saying a lot. Abasi didn’t think it was possible for a blue-tinted white Scot to get any paler.
“They’re saying lots of stuff,” he reassured Evan. In his experience, cops threw as much mud at the wall as possible to see if any of it stuck.
Evan stared at him. “Are they investigating you for terrorism?”
“Not that I know of.” It was far more likely they wanted to get him on a whole range of criminal charges from his days with the London mob. Off the top of his head, he could count at least sixty offenses that would get him life behind bars—if they had any evidence to back them up. Which he highly doubted.
“Then why are they talking to me about terrorism?” Evan demanded. “Do I look like a terrorist to you?”
No. He looked like a terrified kid. “Don’t worry about stuff until you know it’s really happening,” Abasi advised.
And was, once again, ignored.
“I mean, I could probably build a shoe bomb if I had to,” Evan said. “You can download plans for anything off the internet these days. But what would I do with a shoe bomb? And why would anybody want to walk around wearing one? I’ve seen Callum’s prosthetics, and sure, he rocks them, but I don’t want to do that to myself. Those shoe bombs seem unstable. You’d have to be crazy to build one.”
“Will you please stop talking about shoe bombs?” Abasi rubbed the top of his shaven head. “There’s more to terrorism than shoe bombs.”
It was like speaking into a void. “I suppose they think I hacked the government and sold secrets to our enemies. But why would I do that? And how would I even contact our enemies? It’s not like you can google the phone number of a Chinese spy. Those things are secret. Hence the spy part.”
Now Abasi knew why the duty cop had confiscated his tie. If he’d had it, he would’ve used it to end his suffering. It was a toss-up as to whether he’d have used it on Evan or himself.
“There’s nothing in my past that even hints at selling sensitive information. Hell, the government forces me to hack for them.” He stopped dead. “Crap. That’s supposed to be a secret. Don’t tell anybody I said that.” He looked around the room, scanning from ceiling to floor. “There are no cameras in here, are there? It would be illegal to put cameras in a cell without telling the inmates, wouldn’t it? And cops have to play by the rules… I mean the laws, don’t they?”
“Do you actually want me to answer any of these questions?” Abasi asked with a groan.
It was as though Evan remembered he was there again. He spun toward him. “You’ve been questioned by the cops before. Loads of times, probably, when you were still with the James Gang, right? In fact, you’ve probably been in this very detention center before, haven’t you? But I don’t remember you doing any prison time. How did you manage that? Gimme some advice. What do I need to do to stay out of jail?”
“Shut up and let your lawyer do the talking.” Abasi might as well have suggested Evan flap his arms and fly. He rested his head back on yet more tile and closed his eyes.
There was a moment of blessed silence, and Abasi began to hope that Evan had worn himself out, but then the young man wailed, “Why is there so much tile in here?”
All Abasi could do was fold his arms to keep from throttling his teammate.