“Alfred!” she shouted, banging on the Plexiglass. “Where are you taking me?”
He didn’t respond. She knew, wherever it was, it wouldn’t be good.
The hope she felt on the altar, days ago, for a life with Darwin, had many holes in it.
Her hope disintegrated and fell apart as the man in the front seat drove her to a meeting with fate that she’d rather take a pass on.
Chapter 17
Darwin had scoured the entire property as much as he could. More Harleys had arrived, but Richard H had all of them park well off the property and had everyone ferried in.
It had taken too long, but the job was done, according to Richard.
“We’re ready. My men know what to do. You better come through on your end.”
Darwin knew a threat when he heard one. He seemed to be getting so many lately that even thinly veiled ones were easy to detect. They didn’t have the effect on him they once had.
“Richard. I will write the book. I will promote it. I will make sure people know what I wrote about your bike club in my previous novel was fictitious and that this novel is the real thing, the real deal. We’re cool.”
Darwin held the flashlight at his face, aimed off a little so it didn’t bother his eyes.
“Biker gangs aren’t all about violence, extortion and drugs like the media portray us,” Richard said.
He stood there swinging a chain in his hand. He had a metal baseball bat leaning against the hangar wall behind him.
Yeah, right. Nothing violent about you.
“What you wrote in that other book caused a couple of our guys to leave the club. We got a reputation to keep.”
“I know,” Darwin said. “And I’m going to fix the damage I did. That’s why I called you. I just need you, as an extension of good faith, to help me with my problem here.”
“The only reason I agreed to do this was so that you could see, firsthand, how we handle problems like that Fucconi fellow.”
“Fuccini.”
“Whatever. Listen, is it true what happened in Rome?”
Darwin turned to him and lifted one eyebrow. “You know about Rome?”
“It was in the Toronto papers. Is that how you got that bandage on your arm?”
Darwin turned the flashlight on his arm. “Yeah.”
“Bastards. They actually took your woman and were going to torture her? Animals. You got a problem with a guy, you take him and make him eat dirt. You don’t fuck with the guy’s woman. Well, unless she’s hot. Then you fuck her, not fuck her up.”
Twisted logic, asshole.
He swung the chain around and wrapped it over his knuckles.
“You ready for what’s going to happen?” Darwin asked.
“Yeah, a couple guys in suits kidnapped your dad. We’re gonna get you and your dad to safety and then hurt them real bad. That’s it, right?”
“Sort of.”
“What do you mean, sort of?”
Richard tilted his head back, his beard riding high on his thick chest.
“These guys in suits may have guns. They may shoot to kill.”
Richard nodded. “We got this. We’ve all been shot at before. But I gotta warn you, they start shooting to kill, my boys won’t leave them alive when this is done. You okay with that?”
“You have no idea.”
“No, what I mean is, are you gonna publish that? ‘Cause, you can’t really put murder in that book. It would fuck with our reputation again.”
“I know, I know. I got it. Everything in the book will go past you first. I won’t publish a thing without you approving it.”
“And my picture still goes on the cover?”
“Yes, Richard, your picture.”
“H. Call me H and consider your debt to my biker club paid when you write that book.”
“Get me out of here alive tonight so I can write it and I’m indebted to you, H.”
“ In debted? What’s that?”
One of the bikers shouted from off in the woods to their left.
“This is it. You know what to do.”
“We got this,” H said. He grabbed his bat and hustled off, disappearing in the darkness behind a line of trees.
Darwin adjusted the flashlight and headed for the hangar. As soon as he entered, a pair of headlights came up the road slowly. Darwin watched and waited.
As it drew closer, he tried to see make and model. It looked like an FBI car. One of the same kind of Crown Victorias Greg drove.
It slowed and stopped on the road near the entrance.
The driver honked his horn.
Is this a trap?
Darwin stared at the vehicle. No one moved to get out. It was so dark already, he could barely tell if anyone sat in the backseat.
Dad?
He leaned out the door a little, his stomach a ball of nerves again as the end of the whole Fuccini ordeal was coming to a close.
The driver rolled down his window a little and shouted something.
Darwin couldn’t hear him too well.
“What’s that?” Darwin yelled back.
“Get in the car.”
He heard him perfectly this time. But that was insane. He wasn’t about to get in the car.
“Are you alone?” the driver yelled.
Of course, they want to know if I’m alone. This is a trick. I get in, the car explodes. Easy fix. Done deal. Well, no fucking way.
“Get in the car or I drive away and you’ll never see her again.”
Her?
Darwin stepped closer. There just wasn’t enough light to see inside the back of the vehicle.
The driver must’ve seen him bending over and glaring at the back window. He turned on the interior light.
Rosina sat in the rear of the vehicle, abject fear on her face, shaking her head back and forth.
“You have thirty-seconds to decide if you ever want to see your wife again.”
He had no choice. He could play hard ball with Fuccini, but not when his wife was involved.
Is this a test? Are they seeing if I’ll come out into the open so a sniper can pick me off?
No, impossible. H’s men would have warned him if a sniper was close enough to take a shot.
He stepped closer.
“Ten-seconds to decide. If you do not get in the vehicle, I will explain to Fuccini that you weren’t interested in meeting him. Your father and your wife will be murdered in the most brutal way possible. Then Fuccini told me to tell you that he’ll mail you their body parts for months to come. So, save us all a lot of trouble and get in the backseat beside your wife. I’ll drive you to where we’re meeting Mr. Fuccini.”
That’s it. Everything he had planned, gone in a moment’s decision. How could he think that he could deal with a man like Fuccini? Why did he ever feel that he could match the man with wits and acumen regarding the dealing of human lives? Fuccini would always be more ruthless, more vile.
Darwin, against everything he had set out to do at the hangar, stepped forward, one foot in front of the other.
He was in a daze. He was walking to his certain death. He had condemned his wife and he was going to die for it. His father would be collateral.
It was over and he was powerless to stop it.
As he reached for the back door’s handle, it clicked to unlock. He opened the door and got into the seat beside his wife. He barely had the door closed when Rosina fell into his arms, crying and asking him through her tears why, why did he get in the car.
The driver locked the doors and skidded the tires in the dirt as he performed a U-turn and raced away from the hangar.
“Rosina, I had to. I couldn’t leave you to die alone. I started this. I have to pay for it. It’s all my fault.”
She put her head on his stomach and let the sobs shake her apart as she gripped him.
Darwin turned his flashlight on his face as he listened to the driver on the phone. He needed to see if the driver would reveal a location. Maybe Darwin could use his disposable phone to call the police before they got there.