Chapter 19
Nineteen
How had Michael not seen this coming?
His father wanted to know why he always wondered what was wrong?
This was why. Michael had let down his guard.
Probably, he had been too distracted by Dani to completely focus and stay vigilant.
And now Judd Downey was dragging Dani away at gunpoint—their comms crushed into the hallway carpet first—and Finn had been captured.
Three more bulky men in jackets and ties, with semiautomatics, joined Martha.
His team’s only hope was that Kumar was still free and hiding a Hail Mary in her back pocket.
“Let’s talk, Mr. Martinelli.” Martha unlocked Victor’s office and gestured for him to go in. He fought hard to not look at the plant and where dirt probably still speckled the carpet. But that wasn’t the most concerning part.
“I never told you my last name.”
Martha laughed and took her seat behind Victor’s desk, a bit like a cruel queen taking her place on a dark throne in one of his sisters’ fairy-tale movies.
“Like I didn’t know who you were the minute you stepped into this building for that fake interview.
” She steepled her fingers, bringing them up to her chin.
“Or like I wouldn’t know what goes down in my city.
But I admit, you and Ms. Kim intrigued me.
I thought I’d see how it played out. And you completely surprised me when you showed up tonight.
I was not expecting that. You two are tenacious. ”
Her city? What did that mean?
“I want to see Victor.”
She swatted away his pesky request. “All in good time. First, business. Sit.”
“I’m not doing business with you.” Michael glared at her.
“Mmm, I think you will after you hear what I have to say,” she singsonged. “Because if you don’t, people will die.”
Michael’s hands fisted.
One of the guards shoved the barrel of his rifle in Michael’s face. “You heard her. Sit.”
It took every bit of resolve he had to comply, but eventually he sank into the chair.
“Now. My proposition.” Martha set her folded hands on the desk. “Our organization has gone through quite a bit of…shall we say, restructuring as of late. And I find myself in need of a few good men on the force. Or women, really. I’m an equal-opportunity employer. And this is where you come in.”
“You mean you want me to be an informant for you?” Hopefully she heard the disgust in his tone.
“Informant would be one part of the job description. It really depends. Lose evidence. Plant evidence. Alter records. Recruit. And bonus: the opportunities to advance are endless.”
“What makes you think I’d ever consider this?”
“I promise, we’ll only call on you if absolutely necessary. If everyone else does their job well, we won’t even need you much.”
“No.”
“You’ll be paid handsomely. Great benefits package.”
“Got a hearing problem, lady? I said no.”
“So.” She tapped her chin. “Not a carrot person.” Pause. “Let me remind you of the stick. As we speak, I have your partner and your girlfriend.”
“Don’t underestimate them. They might surprise you.”
“You think so?” She almost looked amused.
“Let’s just say they’re not the kind to back down from a fight. So let me save you the trouble of trying to convince me. Because there’s no way I’m working for the likes of you and Victor Bellmont.”
She straight-up laughed. “You think Victor did this?” She shook her head.
“That man couldn’t even order his own coffee.
I’m the one who runs this company. I’m the one who actually knows what goes on here.
The one who does the hiring, firing, or whatever unpleasant task the moment calls for, the way I have for decades, while men like Victor take all the credit and enjoy the benefits.
So don’t think for a moment that he’ll be calling the shots here.
You’ll be answering to me. So what will it be? ”
Ah. The real Martha Lintz finally reared her ugly head. Gone was the meek and harried assistant. The Martha sitting on the other side of the desk was conniving and power hungry. But she hadn’t accounted for the strong stubborn streak of the Martinellis.
He stared into her cold eyes. “I won’t work for you or have anything to do with the Shadow Syndicate.” He threw it out there, hoping to get a reaction.
But Martha didn’t lose the cunning smile on her face as she stood and circled the desk. She glided to Michael, then bent over him and cupped his chin in her icy hand. “So…virtuous. Just like your mother.”
Michael drew in a sharp breath. His mother? What did she—
“She was onto you, wasn’t she?” He yanked his head back, releasing himself from her grasp. “She was investigating the syndicate. That’s why she was killed.”
“That does tend to happen when you hang with drug dealers on the wrong side of town. Or when you try to cross Draven Frost. It actually worked out pretty well for us. Gave us an excuse to take Sean Fletcher out of the game. He was getting a little too big for his britches, as they say.”
Michael bit down on his molars to keep from launching himself at her. “You killed an innocent woman. A good woman.” The words he spoke through clenched teeth didn’t faze Martha.
She looked down her nose at him with a mixture of pity and superiority. “It was her choice, Michael. And you know what? Because I like you, I’m going to give you a chance to right her wrongs.” Martha leaned against the desk and crossed one ankle over the other. “Join us.”
The bodyguards moved in. With the cold steel of the semiautomatics pressed into his back, his chest, and his head, Michael gave her the only answer he could.
“Never!”
“So disappointing.” Martha sighed. “But if I’m honest, completely predictable.” She wiped her hands and stood. “You are so like your mother.”
To the man standing next to him, she said, “Take him away. He wants to meet Victor. I’ll be there with Wilson as soon as I’m done with this party.”
It didn’t surprise Dani all that much that it was Judd Downey at the syndicate’s beck and call, shoving her into the trunk of a car, her hands bound with duct tape behind her.
But it did shock her system when the trunk later opened and Owen Rice pointed a Hi-Point C9 gun at her.
Not to mention the overwhelming stench that hit her nostrils.
“Owen?”
He tsked. “I really liked you, Dani. I had hoped the time in the reefer would warn you off. Why didn’t you just stay out of it?”
“That was you? I thought it was Jim who threw me in there.”
“Nah. But I can see why you’d think that.
Turns out he’s just very particular about how the recycling is sorted.
” He grabbed her elbow and yanked her out of the car.
They stood in the courtyard of an abandoned warehouse.
A rusty metal sign hung crookedly on the building.
RM Refuse and Recycling. The one Campos had told her about.
The old city dump.
“So, you’re working with Victor and the syndicate. Wow, Owen. Not cool.”
Owen laughed. “The syndicate, yeah, but Victor hasn’t been calling the shots for quite a while.”
Really? A cold sensation washed over Dani. “Where is he?”
Owen scrunched up his face like he was trying to remember.
“I think they dumped his body at sea, off one of the ocean liners. Or maybe he was the first one we used the garbage truck for at the new disposal site…I can’t exactly recall.
” He shrugged. “But his stellar reputation as a Renegade Bellmont has sure come in handy for Martha. She’s quite the businesswoman.
” He paused. “Hey, you’re good with numbers.
You could learn a thing or two from her. ”
“I don’t think I’ll be signing up to hear her TED Talk anytime soon.”
“That’s too bad. Shirley and Van are really gonna miss you.”
Owen marched her toward the building at gunpoint. The rusty hinges on the door groaned when he opened the door. Dani needed to free her hands, and while she was at it, find out as much as she could.
And Owen didn’t seem to mind her questions.
“How long have you been working with them?” She glanced around.
Metal poles throughout the structure held up the roof.
Stars twinkled, and a frigid wind blew through the broken windows and large holes in the ceiling.
Dani didn’t bother to control the shivering.
The weaker she seemed, the more likely she could catch Owen off guard.
“Martha and I go way back. I was the one that suggested using the trucks at Silas’s company when they needed to move product.
” He sounded proud of it too. They kept walking toward the center, where a group of oil barrels stood.
“It didn’t take long before they brought him into Continental. Then we really started doing business.”
A small rusty metal shard lay on top of one of the barrels. Probably part of the ceiling that had fallen. She backed up to it, and after groping behind her back, she managed to grab it.
“But how can you do it? How do you stab Silas in the back? Lie to your coworkers?” Dani couldn’t get a good angle to saw at the tape with her shard.
“Like Martha taught me, you can’t take it personal. It’s business. You gotta sacrifice for the things you want in life.”
She kept feeling around for any sharp edge behind her. “And this is what you want? To do the dirty work while Martha and the rest of them get fat and rich? You’re going to kill innocent people for money?”
Owen balked. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
There was broken glass all over the ground, but nothing within reach.
“I’m not stupid, Owen. I know why you brought me out here. Kill me, leave my body to rot in the old trash heap so it will mask the scent?”
There. A sharp nail protruded from a wooden post just to her right. She cowered and moved in that direction.
Owen followed. “But I haven’t killed anyone. I swear. It’s the lack of oxygen that does it. And it’s not as bad as you think it is. You’ll get sleepy and drift off, nice and peaceful. I’m nothing if not humane.”
Lack of oxygen? What was he talking about? Either way…“Yeah, I’ll pass.” She reached the post and slid her arms down until she felt the tape catch on the nail. She tried to keep the movement small, but she didn’t like the way Owen was looking at her.
He chuckled. “I really am gonna miss having you in the office, Dani.” With his gun in one hand, he took off the lid to one of the oil drums. “Go ahead and get in.”
The oil drum. So that’s what he meant by lack of oxygen.
But if he thought she’d go down easy, he was mistaken. She hadn’t gotten through the tape yet. She needed more time. “How am I supposed to do that with my hands behind my back?”
“I’m not that stupid. And neither are you. Find a way.” He waved his Hi-Point in her face.
Riiiip. Finally.
Dani ducked to the side, swinging her torso out of the line of fire, and grabbed the barrel of the gun. With her other hand, she clamped down on the back of Owen’s Hi-Point, pulled down, and rotated it back on him.
He fell to his knees screaming, his trigger finger, probably broken now, clasped to his chest.
He looked at her, mouth open. “Who are you?”
“More than your ordinary accountant. Now toss me your keys and phone.” Once he complied, she made him take off his shoes and socks too.
With the tape he still had in the car, she did a much better job securing him to a pole in the middle of the warehouse.
If he got out before she sent the authorities to get him, he wouldn’t get far.
With Owen Rice immobilized, she sprinted for the car and used his phone to call Kumar.
“Hello?” the voice on the other line croaked.
“Kumar? It’s Dani Kim. Are you okay?” She set the phone on speaker and sped out between the open gates enclosing the compound.
“I’d be better if one of Martha’s security guys hadn’t bashed my head in with the butt of his gun and locked me in a closet. I’m almost out though. Where are you?”
Dani looked at the unfamiliar and incredibly dark landscape outside the windshield. “Not sure exactly, but I’m in the foothills outside of town at the old city dump. It’s gonna take me a while to get back. Where are Finn and Michael?”
“Don’t know. The last thing I heard Martha say through the bugs you planted was to send Michael to see Victor.”
“Uh, that’s not good. Victor Bellmont is dead. Either they tossed his remains in the middle of the ocean or stuffed him in a garbage truck and buried him.” Dani shivered as she took the sharp curve in the road.
“Great.” A grunt. “If you had to go with your gut, what do you think?”
“They won’t want a mess downtown while their fundraiser is going on. They’ll use their own transport companies to move Michael first. They have the trains that go all the way to the ocean and the garbage trucks here in town.”
“I’ll rescue Finn and check any of the trains that leave for the coast tonight.”
“Then I’ll call a couple friends and see if they can help me track down a middle-of-the-night trash pickup.”
“Call me as soon as you talk to them.”
“Got it, boss.” Dani ended the call and used the voice commands to call Ron. He’d passed her his number at O’Malleys—which she’d memorized within seconds—and told her to call if she ever needed anything.
Well, she needed something.
He didn’t sound too groggy when he answered the call.
“Ron, this is Dani Kim. Remember me?”
“Of course, what can I do for you?”
“This is going to sound strange, but I need your help. Michael’s in trouble. And I think the people who have him might use an RWM garbage truck to move him. They would’ve picked him up from the Continental Transport building downtown.”
“If that’s the case, the garbage trucks do have tracking. I can ask the night security to give me a location. There shouldn’t be as many trucks out at this time of night, so it’d be easy to narrow down which one stopped there and find it.”
“I don’t know if we can trust the security guys.”
“You don’t say?”
“If they were working with Wilson, McCord, and Angelo, then no.”
“I’ll tell you what. I’m right down the road from the plant. I’ll go tell the security guard I left my phone and sneak a peek at their screens. I can see where the trucks are, and Steve would probably know which one isn’t where it’s supposed to be. He knows the routes.”
She didn’t like the plan, but it was the best they could come up with.
Hang on, Michael!