Chapter 28 — Ace

My fingers turned white on the steering wheel as I swerved to avoid a truck. The driver honked at me, but I ignored him and slammed down the gas pedal. The car lurched beneath my feet. At this rate, a mailbox was more likely to kill me than the Underground.

My phone weighed in my pocket like an anvil. It had been easy to retrieve from the Blue Jay. Josiah would go free if I handed it over, but the thought of Seth and Harker winning left a bitter taste in my mouth.

My father had chosen an interesting place for us to meet. It was an old Underground hideout, abandoned because EAGLE had discovered it, though I supposed that didn’t matter anymore. I hadn’t been there since I was seven.

When the light turned green, I drove into a narrow alleyway, the sides of the car scraping against the wall. Isabel would never forgive me for scratching up the paint.

I left the car in the alley. There was more to go before I reached the meeting point, but I didn’t want Nicholas to track me through the car. Pain flared in my foot as I limped across the concrete.

I turned the corner to find a dead end with a rusted ladder. Behind it was an old grate. I shifted both aside and crawled into the hidden corridor. It was smaller than I remembered. My footsteps echoed in the quiet, accompanied by the sound of water dripping down the walls.

The corridor sloped downward before opening up in a large, well-lit room. It was filled with assassins and hitmen, as well as a few EAGLE agents, all armed to the teeth. Harker and Seth stood next to a teenage boy bound with ropes. Josiah.

Harker smiled. “Quit sulking in the dark, Spades. Come join us.”

Feet dragging, I walked into the room, feeling naked without my weapons. Seth frowned as he noticed my limp.

“Do you have the recording?” Harker asked.

I held up my phone. “It’s right here.”

He gestured impatiently. “Hand it over.”

“Release Josiah first,” I countered.

I wouldn’t put it past him to go back on his promise when he had what he wanted.

“You’re in no position to bargain, little assassin.” The condescension dripped from his voice like syrup. “We’ll release him as long as you cooperate.”

“Right, because your word is worth so much these days.”

“Don’t be stubborn, Ace. The Underground is eager for blood.” Seth cocked his gun and pointed it at Josiah. “Yours or his, it doesn’t matter.”

I locked eyes with Josiah. He shook his head at me, but the fear on his face was as clear as daylight.

“You wouldn’t kill him.” My voice was full of confidence I didn’t feel. “You would lose your only bargaining chip.”

Seth tilted his head and smiled. “Is that what you think? Let’s review the situation, shall we? You’re injured, unarmed, and outnumbered. If I give the order to subdue you, I can’t imagine you’d put up much of a fight.”

“We hold all the cards in the deck, save for the one you’ll hand over if you want your boyfriend to live,” Harker added. “It would be in your best interest to play along.”

I scanned the crowd, hoping to find a friendly face who might have stood with me if push came to shove. No such luck. Seth wouldn’t have been so careless.

I slapped the phone into Harker’s hand. “Alright, I kept up my end of the deal. Now you keep up yours.”

Seth gave a tiny jerk of his head and Will stepped forward, striking me across the back of my legs. My knees slammed into the concrete.

He tied my hands behind my back and bent down to whisper, “Not so high and mighty now, are you Spades? I can’t wait to reveal what’s in store when we return.”

His words sent a shiver of fear down my spine.

Harker dropped my phone to the ground and crushed it beneath his foot. The evidence was gone.

“It may prove useful to keep the boy around a little longer.” Harker nodded toward Josiah. “He could keep the assassin in line.”

I shot to my feet. “That was not our deal.”

Will forced me back to my knees with a knife pressed to my throat. I seethed with anger.

Seth shook his head. “There’s nothing he could tell us we don’t already know. We’ll uphold our promise.”

I was feeling a sudden flash of warmth toward my father before his next words made my blood run cold.

“The Underground has effective methods for keeping prisoners obedient. If Ace proves to be difficult, I can give you a firsthand demonstration.”

Harker considered the offer and nodded, bending down to speak to Josiah. “Unless you want to be shot, do not attempt to track us down after you’re freed. Understood?”

He removed the gag when Josiah nodded before starting on the ropes.

“You have got to be the biggest idiot I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting, ghetto boy,” Josiah told me. “Coming here unarmed and giving up the recording that could have ended everything. What were you thinking?”

I let my eyes trace over the bruises on his face. “The note said that they’d kill you if I didn’t come.”

“Use your head, Ace. They can’t kill me without alienating one of the Underground’s wealthiest clients.”

“It was too much of a risk.”

“At least I have my father to protect me. These people won’t hold back when it comes to you. Whatever you feared they could do to me, they’ll do to you tenfold.”

“I’m not afraid,” I said.

Will chuckled in my ear. “You should be.”

Harker undid the last knot. Josiah got to his feet and ran toward me. I wanted to smack him for his stupidity. The knife clattered to the ground as Will fumbled for his gun.

Josiah dropped to a knee in front of me and crashed our lips together. It was raw and messy, as if he was trying to push all of his emotion into my body. I gasped for air when he pulled away.

“That’s the problem, Ace.” Josiah left his hands cupped around my face. “Your friends love you more than you love yourself. When you’re gone, it’ll be the rest of us who suffer.”

He kissed me again, gentler this time, and pulled away far too soon, casting an unreadable look over his shoulder as he left the room.

At an order from Seth, Will pulled a hood over my head and hauled me to my feet. My world plunged into darkness. Rough hands jerked me forward, forcing me to move at a pace that aggravated my wounded foot. I hissed in pain.

They sent me sprawling in the back of an unfamiliar vehicle. The engine rumbled to life beneath me. It was impossible to tell where we were headed. The road was filled with rocks and potholes that jolted the vehicle, sending me rolling and tumbling until I couldn’t tell up from down.

Judging by the substantial chill in the air, it was late at night when they dragged me out of the car. We had to walk a fair distance along a winding trail before we reached our destination. I stumbled several times as we headed down a flight of stairs, much to the amusement of my captors.

“There are five guns trained on you.” Jackal’s voice came through the dark. “Try anything and you’ll be dead before you can blink.”

She pulled the hood off my head. I was standing in a strange basement illuminated by flashlights and lined with rows of cages, some of them holding people. Throw in a few torches and it could have passed as a medieval dungeon.

“Are you sure that’s smart?” Tombstone asked. “Will ordered us to leave him tied up.”

“Look at him,” Jackal said. “We’re all armed, and the boy can barely walk. What’s he going to do?”

Venom glared at me. “I’m sure he’ll figure out something.”

Jackal rolled her eyes and began sawing through the ropes with a dagger. “You’re both being ridiculous. Spades might be an assassin, but he’s also a child.”

I almost laughed. No child had more blood on their hands than a butcher.

The ropes fell in a heap behind me. Jackal prodded me in the back with her knife, directing me toward one of the cells. I whispered a thank you to her as I sat down on the lumpy mattress. Her eyes held no hatred, only pity. I must have looked miserable.

The assassins left the room, leaving a flickering bulb as the only light source.

I turned to the young woman two cells down. “Do you know where we are?”

She stared at a patch of dirt on the ground. I repeated my question, louder this time. She trembled like a sparrow.

Her cellmate slung his arm over her shoulders and fixed me with a glare. “I would advise you to keep quiet, my friend. These walls are thin and if you disturb our captors, all of us get blamed.”

The man had brown hair and blue eyes. The set of his jaw and his manner of speaking reminded me of someone. I repeated my question again in a softer voice. The woman buried her face in the man’s shoulder. He ignored me in favor of stroking her hair and whispering words of comfort in her ear.

“Don’t be rude, Benjamin,” said the woman across from them. “Dad wouldn’t approve.”

She shared the same hair and nose as the man but her eyes were hazel instead of blue.

“It’s Dad’s fault we’re here in the first place,” Benjamin snapped.

She flashed me an apologetic smile. “Sorry about him. Little Benji’s grumpy at being cooped up underground. To answer your question, I would say we’re in one of the rural districts northwest of the city.”

That didn’t help much.

As the night dragged on, the people around me fell asleep, their steady breaths forming a soothing ambience. Soon enough, I was drifting off too.

Will woke me with a kick the next day. Pain shot up my side and I curled into a fetal position, gasping.

“On your feet,” he said. “Got a long day ahead.”

When I didn’t respond he kicked me again and yanked me upright. On instinct, I lashed out at his neck. Will dodged the blow and pressed a gun to the base of my skull. Benjamin made his cellmate avert her eyes.

“Give me a reason to shoot, Spades,” Will said. “I beg of you.”

My breaths fluttered faster than a hummingbird. I forced myself to calm down. In and out, in and out, until my heart rate was close to normal.

“Where’s my father?” I asked when I found my voice.

“Busy dealing with the aftermath of Election Day.”

“He might not like it if he returns to find you’ve killed me.”

“He understands the importance of revenge,” Will said. “I’ve been ordered to avoid leaving permanent damage, but you’ll find there’s quite a way to go before I reach that point.”

He marched me into a room that looked like a sadist’s heaven. Whips, pikes, and blades of all shapes and sizes hung from the walls. A brazier stood in the corner. Will bound my hands together and slipped the rope onto a hook hanging from the ceiling. I was forced onto my toes.

Will ran his fingers over the objects on the walls. “There are drugs nowadays that can cause immense pain without leaving a mark, enough to rival being dunked in acid or burned alive. But sometimes the old ways are more effective, wouldn’t you agree?”

I relaxed when he dismissed the choke pear and the Judas chair, the truly dangerous devices in the room. Whips and knives I could handle. Bodyguards like him were strong, but they were also untrained in torture. Brute force would never measure up against precision.

Will noticed my relief. “I just realized. You don’t know who I am, do you? My code name, that is.”

I got a sinking feeling as I shook my head.

He grabbed a hunting knife off the wall and buried it in the brazier. “The Underground knows me as Willhelm. My brother, as Jacob.”

And the fear returned.

Willhelm and Jacob were notorious in the Underground, the first to turn torture into an art form. They were masters at their craft, able to have their victims beg for mercy with a single cut, hitting pressure points that made the nerves sing with pain.

Will used a pocket knife to cut away my shirt, and I flinched every time the blade came too close to my skin.

“Are you afraid, Spades?” he asked.

I shivered in the cold. “Not a bit.”

Will pulled the hunting knife from the brazier and positioned the tip over the knob of bone at the top of my back. The metal glowed like a branding iron.

“You will be,” he promised.

The blade sank into my skin and sliced down, leaving a trail of agony in its wake, like acid, poison, and hellfire were being pumped into my body. My knees buckled. Pain flared in my shoulders as they took the brunt of my weight.

As Will began the second cut, all thoughts of composure and dignity flew from my mind.

I threw my head back and screamed.