Chapter 17
Point A and Point B
GIDEON SAW the blow coming, but he didn’t flinch.
He wanted to say Stevie Carlyle hit like a girl, but the man had lead in his glove, and Tal and Gail could still hurt him worse.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t hurting bad.
So this is how it ends. Tied in a chair in Stevie Carlyle’s basement, worried about his son.
Stevie backed up, shaking out his hand and blowing hard, and if Gideon’s jaw hadn’t been aching—probably broken—he would have made a crack about how maybe he shouldn’t have blown away his bodyguard before this portion of the program was through.
Something must have shown in his eyes, though, and Stevie must have been more exhausted than he wanted to let on because he paused long enough to ask.
“What? What’s so fuckin’ funny? What’re you laughing about?”
In truth, Gideon had been in this basement, getting the shit beat out of him, for what felt like half his life.
He knew what broken ribs felt like, the hairline fractures in each collarbone, knew he’d be pissing blood for a good long time and that Stevie’s kicks to his ankles and shins in steel-toed boots had probably bruised his bones at the very least.
If he could laugh, he’d probably spit blood.
“What?” Stevie shouted, lowering his face to Gideon’s, spittle flecking his lips.
“Nothing,” Gideon rasped. Had he been screaming? Must have been screaming. His throat felt bloody. That was probably the screaming. “Just thinking.”
“Thinking what?” Stevie asked, pulling off his gloves—thank fuck—and backing up to sit on a stool next to a bottle of water. “You look like shit. You’re probably gonna die here. What’s so fuckin’ funny?”
“We always ask ourselves,” Gideon said, “where do bad guys keep getting their help. Minions-R-Us? Lackeys Incorporated? Is there, like, a dystopian business model for disposable employees?”
The words sounded great in his head, but his lips and tongue were swollen, and he’d spit out at least three of his teeth—some of them he’d just had installed, dammit!
For all he knew, he was going to die for telling Stevie Carlyle, “Blargh garble blpt phlorg blargh garble.” But then until Joey, nobody had ever really gotten his sense of humor anyway.
To his surprise—and yes, relief—Stevie Carlyle laughed.
“That’s funny,” he said, surprised. “You’re funny. That why you and my son are such good friends? Cause you’re funny?”
Also, I have a large penis.
Oops! Better keep that info to himself.
“We like to shed blood,” he said, although that wasn’t strictly true. “We’re good at it.” Now that was true. “We like keeping people safe.” And that was the God’s honest truth.
“And that amuses you?” Stevie sounded confused.
“And music,” Gideon mumbled. In his head he’d had the entire CD of Bruce Springsteen’s The Rising on loop.
He wondered if he’d ever hear it again, but even if he didn’t, he figured he’d ironed out all the lyrics in his head.
He and Joey could sing it together after they wired his jaw shut for a time.
“Music?” Stevie grunted and took a swig of water. “That’s funny. My son didn’t like no fuckin’ music.”
I bet his grandfather sang to him all the fuckin’ time, you psychopath. Nobody just picks up music like that kid. It was in his heart, but he couldn’t hear it until he met me.
“Evrry conzerd in Mnhattn,” he mumbled, his vision going a little dark. Unconsciousness would be great right now. His team was coming for him—he knew they were—and Joey would be leading the charge, but he’d lost track of time a little, and he wasn’t sure if he’d still be here when they showed up.
“Sir?”
The voice from the top of the stairs sounded poised and unflappable—Gideon had heard it before, keeping Stevie updated on whether or not they had visitors. A butler, probably—or a flunky—but nobody with the paygrade to watch Stevie beat Gideon to death.
“Yeah? What’s up?”
“Your employee watching the road just called. There’s two black SUVs approaching from the main entrance—”
“You been watching that back entrance?” Stevie demanded. “Little bastard must be coming in through there.”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“Have you been?”
“Yes, sir, I have been.”
“Hasn’t that Gray motherfucker been helping you?”
“Sir, he… he seems to have disappeared.”
“The gamekeeper disappeared?” The surprise in Stevie’s voice might have been comical, but it was so complete.
Gideon’s people were obviously in the SUVs, but the fact that the gamekeeper had disappeared—the one that Gideon knew from Joey’s reports had been leaving holes in the cameras from the back of the property—was worth not passing out for.
“Sir, I was watching the feed, and I looked up and he was gone—”
The butler’s voice echoed from the top of the steps, but even Gideon could hear the fear. Stevie just waved his hand, though, as if shooing a fly.
“He does that,” he muttered. “He does that. He… he said he would tend the game until my end…. I thought….” He shook his head.
“Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. He’ll be back.
Fucking mountain lions. I….” Stevie shuddered, and Gideon felt stupid.
The word snuck into his consciousness, buffeted about by pain and confusion, but once it was there, it stuck.
Decompensating.
Oh yes. Stevie Carlyle had suffered some setbacks, some business problems, and all the things he’d thought he could control were spiraling out of his grasp. And in the middle of it was his son… his intractable, infuriating, perfect killing machine of a son….
And Stevie wanted him, wanted him under control, wanted his DNA under Stevie’s roof, wanted the skills he had, the connections he must have forged through the SCTF. Wanted him, needed him, to comply.
If only, if only Joey Carlyle would come and be Stevie’s perfect little soldier, all the other things would be fixed. Stevie knew it.
So he’d seized upon Gideon—and while Stevie’s grilling had never indicated he knew about their relationship, he was still madly, insanely jealous.
Gideon, it seemed, had some pull over his son that Stevie didn’t understand. Gideon needed to call Joey Carlyle back into the fold. Gideon needed to fuckin’ die, but not before Joey watched him.
He thinks it’ll break Joey. Thinks the fight’ll go out of him if he sees the one person he’s connected to die.
Because that’d worked so well with Joey’s grandfather.
Without warning Stevie turned his body—powerful, like a boxer’s—and yeeted his plastic water bottle to the back of the basement. It clattered there, knocking something over that Gideon couldn’t see, and Stevie turned toward him with renewed fury.
Oops, sorry, Joey, know you’re coming for me, but I think you just broke his restraints.
“Sir!” cried the butler, sounding like he’d gone somewhere and come running back. “They’ve run through the gate!”
The next sound he heard was the clatter of Stevie’s booted feet as he pounded up the old wooden steps that connected the basement to the kitchen. Gideon remembered the kitchen envy, but Stevie’s footsteps….
Oh nice! SCTF had arrived! Thank you, Clint Harding!
And probably Joey, coming around the back. A conversation they’d had tickled the back of his brain. Something about knowing the compound, knowing this basement in particular. Joey was coming for him. Joey was coming. Well, good. So they were coming for him.
Gideon just had to wait—
Can’t wait. If Stevie Carlyle comes back down to this fucking basement, he’s going to kill me.
Yeah. Yeah. Gideon knew enough about decompensating killers, didn’t he. He’d seen it in Chester Schumer. He’d seen it in Morton Donald Johns. If Joey’s father made it back down to the basement, Gideon had better be long gone.
Fortunately, Gideon knew a little something about restraints too.
Like, zip ties weren’t always reliable. There were the good ones, the thick nylon ones used by the feds.
Those were pretty strong. And then there were the smaller ones, the brittle ones, the zip ties that were originally used for something else—tying bundles, whatever—before somebody thought bigger ones would make easier restraints than rope.
Those could be shattered with enough quick force or some wearing-down at the edges.
As Gideon listened to Stevie clatter up the stairs, he gently tested his bonds—and the extent of his injuries.
Oh! Hey, right wrist was broken. That was bad. It was swelling pretty badly too. Yeah, no, that wasn’t going to work. But Gideon was ambidextrous, and his left wrist was still rockin’!
And this chair—what the fuck was this chair he was sitting on? Metal folding? No such luck. But it was a wooden kitchen chair. Something old that had once been sort of delicate, with lots of decorative lathing.
Oh, this thing would shatter in a heartbeat.
With an effort, he widened his swollen eyes, trying to decide what lay on either side of him.
The floor was packed earth—no concrete in sight. Okay, okay—he could work with that. He was currently sitting in a pool of unfiltered light, mob-land style, from a bulb swinging from the ceiling.
As far as he could tell, the floor was untreated, with some underlying moisture but a dry topsoil, so no little electric booby traps. Excellent. Now, which side?
Well, if he landed on his right side, his wrist would break even more, and he’d probably pass out.
But Stevie had mostly led with his right when beating Gideon about the head, and the left side of his face was pretty swollen. He probably had a concussion from that. That was the side where his ribs were feeling crunchy and, well, dangerous.
So if he landed on his left side, his head would break even more, and he’d probably pass out forever.
Okay, then.
It was a plan. Probably not a great one, but Gideon could work with it. He couldn’t take a deep breath—his ribs were too crunchy. But he could take a breath, and he could harden his core, and he could brace himself.
Ass firmly in seat, he began to dance.
And his chair began to wobble.
And then it began to rock.