Laura Caldwell - Red, White & Dead

“Nothing seems broken,” she said.

“What’s he like?” Charlie asked, looking over her shoulder at me.

I thought about that. “He seems like someone who’s been through a lot. Too much, probably. Seems like a lot of his life has been bled out of him, so he’s hard to really get a read on. But he still knows how to laugh.”

At that, my mother nodded slowly, as if she understood what I meant.

Just then the door banged open, and we jumped.

Ransom. He grinned like, How do you like that entrance? He waved a gun at my mother and Charlie. “Over there,” he gargled through his thick lips. After they’d complied, he looked at me, smiled sickeningly and walked toward me.

Christopher stared up at Dez Romano, blinking rapidly under his glasses. He’d intentionally let his head fall toward his shoulder, letting the glasses slide farther down his face. He made himself shrink even more, into an almost fetal position. Romano was buying the cowering routine and liked it, Christopher could tell, which was good. The guy would have his defenses down. But Christopher needed to bring them down further.

Dez Romano took a few steps toward him, looking down over his nose with arrogant sympathy, as if he were coming upon a beggar on the street. “It’s too bad you didn’t have the right answer. I really wanted this to work out for all of us.” He shook his head back and forth in a grand show of discontent.

Dez didn’t deliver any cliché parting words, even though Christopher could tell he was thinking about it. He simply gave an audible exhale, then started to turn toward the door.

“I know about UND, LLC.”

Romano froze and cocked his head toward him.

“Paul Crane is the lawyer who set it up and is your registered agent.”

Romano turned now.

“And I know Belle Joseph is the principal officer,” Christopher said. “I know everything.”

Romano sniffed deeply. “What else do you think you know?”

Which meant there was something else to know. Which meant Dez Romano must be running some of his money through UND, LLC, just as they’d thought. Good work, Izzy.

“Why should I tell you?” he scoffed at Romano. “You’re going to leave me here anyway, right? You’re going to kill my daughter, my son, my wife. And then come back and kill me.” He acted as if saying those words didn’t cause succinct blows of pain to his stomach.

“Yeah, that’s right. That’s exactly what’s going to happen. And if you don’t tell me what else you know, I’ll bring your family in here and make you watch it. I’ll bring your daughter in here, and-”

Christopher forced himself to interrupt Romano. He couldn’t bear to hear what the man was about to say. “Do it,” he said loudly. “If anything happens to me today, my associates will take that information and have it to the Feds within hours. DeSanto won’t take the fall this time.”

Dez Romano did nothing, but Christopher could tell he’d hit a chord. Dez had thought no one knew about UND, LLC. He believed that he and Michael had covered their tracks.

“I know how you’re working it with DeSanto,” Christopher said. “You’re going to act all sympathetic, right? Tell DeSanto to do his time and you’ll have a place for him when he gets out, yeah? And then you’ll fuck him. He gets out and he’s persona non grata. He’ll have a record, which will make it tough to get a job, and so he’ll be forced to take whatever dregs you leave him. He’ll-”

“Shut up!” It was Romano who interrupted him now, taking a step forward as he did.

Which was exactly what Christopher was waiting for.

In one second, Christopher filled himself up with the power of his breath and let his body unfurl out of the cower. His leg shot out. His right foot hooked Romano’s, and not expecting it, he went down fast. Christopher summoned up every bit of strength in his body, and with a roar, he heaved himself toward Romano, pulling the desk with him. He managed to get to a crouch and and then launched himself right toward Romano, falling atop him. As he’d anticipated, Romano reacted quickly, using his strength to throw Christopher off him, tearing Christopher’s shirt in the process. And Christopher used the extra momentum to lift the desk off the ground, just for a second, to slip the cuff out from under the leg.

His hands free now, he wrapped one around Romano’s neck and yanked his head to the side. He raised the hand still cuffed and brought it down with a blasting punch against Romano’s temple. Romano crumpled, temporarily knocked out. Christopher knelt over him, felt under him until he found the gun and the blade and shoved them away. He wanted to blow Romano’s skull to pieces, knew that legally, he was in the right to do so-self-defense. But he didn’t want to explain himself, or his Italian passport, to the Chicago police or anyone else. And he thought then of what Izzy had said about not hurting people even if they’d hurt you. Just as he’d told her, he didn’t agree. Not at all. But he wanted his daughter to respect him. If that was possible.

He rolled Romano onto his back. In his dark suit and dotted tie, Dez looked like a well-dressed corpse waiting for his casket. Christopher wished that were so.

He crouched at his head. He didn’t have much time until Romano came to. Five minutes, maybe. But that was all he needed.

Counting off the seconds, he manipulated Romano’s head, neck and body in a series of maneuvers, holding certain positions. He cocked Romano’s head forward at the neck, tugging back at the base of the skull; he pushed Romano into a seated position then cocked the head slightly left; he twisted Romano’s head one way, then another, moved his torso to the left, then slightly right, counting out the seconds.

When he was done, he laid Romano’s head back. When he regained consciousness, he would sit, and the room would tilt and spin. With the swirling of his surroundings he would have a very hard time getting to his feet or executing even simple bodily tasks, all due to BPPV-Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo. BPPV was usually brought on by natural calcium debris in the inner ear that sent false signals to the brain, severely affecting balance, but it could be induced manually, as well. Christopher had utilized it before, often using weak electrical currents to excite neurons in the brain, but if he had to he could also do it positionally, the old-fashioned way.

He raised his hands off Romano and took a step back. Romano was still out. Perfect. When he came to, the BPPV wouldn’t last forever, but it would buy them a fair amount of time.

Christopher spun and opened the door. He shut it behind him, then took off in a sprint down the hallway, barely noticing the handcuffs on one hand banging into his thigh.

Ransom leered, one side of his mouth curling up, then he licked his lips, making a loud smacking sound.

Even though he was across the room, I instinctively took a step back. He laughed a gurgling laugh and moved slowly toward me.

“Get away from her,” Charlie said. “Or I will fucking kill you.”

He sounded fairly tough, and I appreciated the effort. But Charlie didn’t know how to fight. Oh, God, what should I do?

Ransom took another step, a low growl emanating from his throat.

I glanced at my mom. She wore an expression of terror. That expression, coupled with the trauma I knew she’d suffered over the last twenty-four hours, made me violently angry. In that instant, I thought of what she’d been through-hearing that her son was abducted, getting lured and being abducted herself, finding out that her first husband and the father of her kids had been alive all this time.

Thinking of all that, seeing her, made me put my hand on my hip and look at Ransom with a resigned expression. “Let’s do this somewhere else.”