Chapter 31

He needed all his wits about him. “Let me deal with this alone?”

“Sure.” She nodded, serious. “I’ll be outside. Call if you need me.” And then she was gone.

The screen glowed in his palm, and he raised it quickly. Eagerly. Ian!

-Hey asshole.

The blood drained from him, despite his determination to hold it together.

-Your boy is still alive, but barely. Kid beats up pretty. Black and blue, lots of red.

What had they done to Ian?

He saw the mental image, a sick Ian crumpled in some dirty room, on the corner. On the floor. They wouldn’t treat him to a bed. Animals.

-You’re here in thirty minutes or your boy is dead. Got it?

-I’ll be there.

-And in case you don’t care about your brother, we got a line on your ex, too. We got a tail on her, just in case you try something. She got back in the country yesterday.

The blood in his veins slicked into liquid worry. The one thing he’d counted on the last few years was that Tish was safe. Would always be. That was why he’d left.

How the hell did they….

-That algorithm shit you wrote for us works real good.

Oh hell. His bloody sequence, the work of his own hands, had set up her death. The algorithm. The horror of it overtook him. It had notified them when she was back.

-She’s holed up in some old dump with some guy, and we’ve been watching for hours. So if you don’t come, little brother is dead, and so is she, and her hot lover. We’ll grab her as soon as the guy she’s with leaves. Unless he doesn’t, then they’re both SOL. And soon. So get here, and on time. You’re not getting away from us again.

The blood drained right out of him.

It had been Scores’ men? On the porch? And they were out there still watching?

Hell, hell, hell.

-I’ll be on time.