A Chip and a Chair (Seven of Spades, #5)(63)

“Yes. Just leave everyone else alone.”

The man nodded to someone behind Levi. Remaining still while an enemy approached his unprotected back made Levi’s nerves shriek in protest, but he held Martine’s gaze, clinging to the knowledge that she would make it through this, and she’d take care of Dominic as well. That was enough for him.

Tears were spilling down Martine’s cheeks now. I’ll find you, she mouthed.

A hood was pulled over Levi’s head, he felt a sting at his neck, and all was darkness.



Dominic heard the wail of sirens like it was coming down a long tunnel. He tried to move, but found his body strangely uncooperative; his limbs were floppy, his neck immobilized.

Fighting an onslaught of pain and nausea, he opened his eyes, squinting at the blurry image of a woman hovering over him. When he struggled again to get up, she placed a hand on his chest and said, “Don’t move. You’re in an ambulance; we’re taking you to the hospital.”

Ambulance? Hospital? What?

Something stiff covered half his face, making it difficult for him to speak. He clumsily batted the thing aside, and it became ten times harder for him to breathe.

“Levi,” he croaked. That one word used all of the remaining oxygen in his lungs.

The woman resettled the mask on his face, her lips pursed and her eyes shadowed. “Just relax. We’re almost there.”

Where was Levi?

He wanted to ask again, but he passed out instead.

The next time he regained consciousness, it was with a sense of rapid movement, the hard surface beneath him vibrating uncomfortably. He opened his eyes and hissed at the blinding lights rushing by overhead. There were people all around him, their voices running into each other, so that he caught only garbled snippets of what they were saying.

“-stable airway-”

“-diminished breath sounds-”

“-normal saline-”

“Levi,” Dominic said, but that fucking mask was still on his face. He reached for it.

Someone caught his hand halfway to his mouth. “Sir, please don’t touch that,” said a woman who leaned over to look in his eyes. “Can you hear me?”

He threw off her hand and knocked the mask aside. “Levi.” He gasped, sucking in an agonizing, labored breath. “Levi.”

“Sir, you have to stay still-”

Marshaling his strength, he tried to heave himself upright, though he was stymied by the same problems as before. The sense of motion stopped abruptly, and multiple pairs of hands grabbed him all over his body.

He shook them off, only for an even greater number of hands to grip his arms and legs. Loosing a strangled roar, he fought harder, flailing from side to side.

“For God’s sake, keep him still!”

“How?”

“His spine-”

More people surrounded him on every side, laying the lengths of their bodies across his legs, his hips, his chest. They were trying to keep him from Levi.

He went berserk, shouting incoherently, thrashing against the restraining bodies with all his might. He had to get to Levi. Nobody was going to stop him.

“Get me 10 mgs of haloperidol stat.”

Dominic kept fighting, but soon faltered as the energy drained from his limbs and his brain went fuzzy. He moaned in protest.

He had to get to Levi. He had to . . . He had . . . He . . .



Levi had no idea where he was or how much time had passed since he’d been taken, but there were a few things he knew for certain.

First, these men were not worried about him seeing their faces. They’d removed the hood before he’d woken up, and there were half a dozen of them in the windowless, featureless room where he was being kept. They were sitting around a couple of folding tables by the door, drinking beer and chewing tobacco while they played cards.

Second, Utopia had learned their lesson about underestimating him. He was zip-tied to a sturdy, armless chair, his wrists bound together behind its back-which was torture for his burned forearms and bruised muscles-and his ankles bound separately to the chair’s front legs. The chair itself was set near the wall farthest from the door, though not close enough for the wall to be used as leverage. Two surveillance cameras mounted in opposite corners were monitoring the room.

Third, he was completely and royally fucked.

He couldn’t allow himself to wonder if his kidnappers had kept their promise about not hurting Martine, or if Dominic had made it out of the car alive. The only way he wouldn’t lose his shit was to maintain focus exclusively on the present moment.

He pretended to phase in and out of consciousness for a while, taking stock of the situation without tempting any of the men to interact with him. The gambit paid off, because these guys were talkers.

Levi’s capture wasn’t the only reason they were in high spirits. They were excited, almost giddy, about something going down later tonight, something that would “change everything” and “make our voices heard”. A couple of the guys bemoaned not being able to join the riots-what riots?-while others gleefully theorized about how the city would react to another explosion. Their conversation was peppered with self-righteous zealotry and smug anticipation.

Levi didn’t need to be a detective to piece together Utopia’s plan for tonight. They were repeating the success they’d had in using a distraction to interfere with the response to their main threat, except this time, they’d be inciting riots as a diversion from a second bomb. From what he could tell, this explosion would be far worse than the one at the Mirage.