I Give Up Trey
I Give Up
Trey
When Trey comes back to life, he feels the motion of tires on pavement.
He’s in a car. The confinement around his shoulders tells him he’s been shoved in a trunk.
He can feel something hard against his femur, realizes a tourniquet has been placed around his thigh to keep him from bleeding out.
His arm is sore. His head is throbbing, and he tastes metallic blood in his mouth.
He is so screwed.
He can hear voices, raised in argument. Familiar voices. A man and a woman. They are tinny and angry; he assumes the blond is on the phone with them. He’s been a formidable adversary. Who he is and how he got caught up in this mess, Trey doesn’t know.
But he relaxes a little. This particular confrontation, he’s prepared for. He’s been planning how to handle it for months, just in case. The Gussins aren’t going to kill him until he hands over the funds. He still has time.
When he started moving money, it was just a little bit here and there.
He was able to replace it easily before it was missed.
But the larger transactions were more challenging to hide.
It was a delicate balance. It took a lot of planning, hiding, and double books to keep Pat and Bob in the dark for as long as humanly possible.
He’d done it, though. He’d had a couple of years’ head start.
But all criminals get caught eventually. This was no different. Just another step in the process. Bound to happen. Inevitable.
He practices his lines, running them through his head, working on controlling his heart rate so he sounds convincing, contrite, scared.
“You have to let me go. I’ll bring you the money. But I need to be able to access it, and I can’t do that from here. Trust me. I will make this right. I would never betray you. You’re family.”
What he’s not counting on is the car slowing.
He hears the words “Get rid of him. Bring me the laptop. We will do it another way.”
Oh, shit.
The driver, the blond man who’s been hunting him for days, whoever he is, pulls to the side of the road, brakes squeaking. The sudden stop makes Trey’s body shift, and he sees stars. In addition to the pain in his leg, he realizes his left arm might be broken, too.
The trunk lid pops open, but the comforting darkness doesn’t shift. It’s night, then.
He keeps his eyes closed. The tourniquet is loosened and jerked from his leg.
A wet ooze begins. Hands reach under his shoulders and yank him out.
He stays limp. The pain is breathtaking, but he doesn’t make a sound.
If the man thinks he’s already dead, maybe, maybe, he has a chance of not taking a bullet to the head.
“So long, asshole. Rot in hell.” He is thrown into the dirt, arms and legs akimbo, and the momentum carries him down a short embankment into some dank, grassy weeds.
This is it, then. He’s dead. He’s going to be shot on the side of the road and left in the ditch. He wants to surge up, to fight, something, anything, but he has no strength. He’s lost too much blood.
What an ignominious end. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but there really wasn’t any other way, was there? He knew when he took this assignment, it could go south at any moment. That he’s pulled it off for so long is a miracle.
He waits for the bullet, sending prayers to the ones he loves, to the ones he’s wronged.
But the shot doesn’t come.
The footsteps fade. The car door slams. The engine turns over, the wheels move, and it’s gone.
The road is deserted, it’s freaking cold as hell, but he doesn’t move.
He drifts, maybe sleeps, and is woken by the hoot of an owl.
Trey opens his eyes. The stars wink and nod from the deepest-black sky.
He has no idea where he is. He can feel the sluggish blood pumping from his leg.
The pain has become a familiar beast now, purring instead of roaring.
He’s burned at least eight lives. He is dying.
He has only one play left.
With his good arm, he reaches for his pocket. Against all odds, the burner phone is there, and by some kind of luck, it has a charge and a signal.
He dials a number by heart, a number he was hoping he’d never have to use. A deep voice answers. He manages to get the words out before the darkness overtakes him again.
“It’s Andrew Locke. I need help. I need to come in.”