Half Empty (First Wives, #2)(89)

Wade looked around before he complied.

His heart pounded loud enough to dwarf the music.

There wasn’t a deserted alley off Fremont, but the side street he walked down was close. He followed Leather Jacket Man as he turned in to the back door of a Korean barbeque kitchen. He stepped around the tables filled with pots and pans and odiferous food without so much as one employee looking up to see who walked by. If there was one time in Wade’s life he wanted to be noticed, it was when he was walking toward what could be a life ending experience. Apparently, that wish wasn’t going to come true.

Leather Jacket Man up close looked like a cross between a crack addict and a meth head. Twitchy, without a lot of teeth. Wade couldn’t help but think he was someone Ruslan used to lure Wade to their current location but would probably have him tossed off a bridge before the night was over. Wade had a strange compulsion to warn the man.

He decided not to push his luck.

Leather Jacket Man stood in front of a tiny elevator with the door open. He waved Wade inside, pressed a button, and stepped out before the doors closed.

Leather Jacket Man wiggled his fingers in a comical goodbye and sealed Wade inside. “Top floor.” Which was only six stories. It was old Vegas, and outside of the hotels, many of the buildings were old construction with low ceilings and tiny elevators.

When those tiny elevator doors opened, Wade took a cautious step outside.

Someone grabbed him from the side, threw him against the wall, and started patting him down.

Wade’s instinct was to push back.

He squelched it.

The man checking every pocket and touching every part of him was nothing like Leather Jacket Man. This guy was a house. Bald head, dark skin. Slavic? Hispanic? Wade wasn’t sure. Or maybe he was American and his parents had been in the circus.

Either way, this man wasn’t twitchy or timid. “Where’s my mother?”

Baldy pushed Wade toward a lone chair in the virtually empty room and turned on an old television set.

Vicki sat in a chair, in a room that looked a lot like the one Wade was in now. She pulled at the restraints holding her. Her mouth was stuffed with some kind of towel, and duct tape wrapped around her head.

A voice through the speaker of the TV sounded like Donald Duck after he inhaled helium. “Sit down, Mr. Thomas.”

The last thing Wade wanted to do was sit.

Then two more of Baldy’s friends stepped into the room.

Wade lifted his hands and sat. “Okay. Sitting.”

“Let’s begin.”

“Let her go.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Thomas. Do you think you’re in charge?” The voice was almost impossible to take seriously.

“If you want my help, you’ll let her go.”

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say.

His mother stopped struggling and stared off camera. Without warning, someone the size of Baldy walked over to Vicki, grabbed her middle finger on her left hand, and dislocated it.

Wade yelled “Stop!” while his mother screamed through her gag.

“God damn you!” Wade kicked the chair across the room.

Baldy moved in with one of his friends and held him while the third man reminded Wade why he avoided bar fights. Two hits to the gut without the ability to guard himself, and he felt the need to throw up.

Baldy shoved him into a chair.

“Let’s try this again . . .”





Chapter Thirty-One

It wasn’t a trap.

Trina and her band of travelers arrived at her closest neighbor’s house, half an hour away from hers. It was cold, and dark, and she was a little surprised they didn’t get shot at. Chances were if they had arrived in a car or on foot, they would have seen someone with a gun at the door. But six people and three horses, some in their pajamas . . . they looked like a homeless troupe instead of bandits.

Once they were safely inside the neighbor’s home, Cooper called in to his headquarters.

When he got off the phone, Trina pounced on him for information.

“Well?”

“Reed has eyes on Wade, they are scrambling to find Vicki. They have her located in the same building, they’re going floor by floor to find her.”

“And Ruslan?”

“Radio silence from Sasha. We have to assume she’s waiting for the all clear.”

“What about my parents, Wade’s aunt?”

“Everyone is accounted for. Lori and Avery’s building has a mysterious fire and has been evacuated. A bomb threat will follow to clear the building before anyone can go back in.”

“Shannon?”

“Safe.”

Trina stared at Avery. “Now what?”

“We wait.”

“I knew you were going to say that.”



“Why don’t you do away with the Disney voices and make your demands like a man, Petrov?”

Wade’s comment earned him another punch.

“I want what is in that safe, and I want the letters.”

“The safe in Arizona?” Wade looked around the room, purposely stalling. Where the hell is Reed? “When we break silence, you’ll know.”

Well, break the fucking silence already.

“What about the letters?”

“Trina doesn’t have the letters.”