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But here they all were, in one piece, on I-44 headed east. Only— Nicholas did the math quickly in his head—fourteen hours to go.
Great. No problem at all.
He gripped the wheel tighter and his foot pressed the gas pedal a little harder. If he went eighty-five the whole way, maybe he could shave an hour or two off that time. He planned to do most of his driving at night and sleep during the day. If he pushed hard tonight, they could manage it with just the one stop and—
Red and blue lights flashed in his rearview at the same time his police scanner went off.
Motherfucker.
Beside him, Sloane stirred. Nicholas gritted his teeth so hard he thought he might be about to crack one of his damn crowns as he slowed down and pulled off to the side of the highway.
Fuck, the bag with the extra syringes were in the back seat, but if he reached back to grab one to dose Sloane again, the cop might see him and get suspicious.
Sloane settled again against the pillow and Nicholas could only hope she stayed down. He had his piece in the glovebox but killing a cop on the side of the highway in the middle of—shit, he didn’t even know where they were… No, it wasn’t an option. That would bring a kind of hellfire and attention he did not need.
He just had to play this smart.
Keep calm, keep his head.
He kept both his hands on the steering wheel, only pulling one away to lower the window as the cop approached.
“Yes, sir,” he said when the man finally got there after what felt like an eternity. “Is there a problem, officer?”
“Were you aware you were going ninety in a sixty-five zone?”
Son of a bitch. Nicholas kept his face calm and smiled back up at the cop. He’d learned to put on Affable American. When he tried hard enough, he could usually manage to get rid of all traces of his accent. And being a non-descript looking white guy was often the best disguise of all, he’d found.
“Oh gosh,” he said. “I had no idea, sir.” Flattering blow-hard authority figures also helped. The man’s puffed out chest puffed a little bigger at the sir. “My wife and I are just trying to make it to her mother’s before her birthday tomorrow.”
He leaned in towards the cop, keeping his voice at a whisper. “Her mother can get…well, you know women. She took a Unisom so she could get her beauty rest. Her mom stresses her out and she wants to look her best. She kept talking about bags under her eyes or some sh— Sorry, or something.”
The cop nodded. “I get it. Got a monster-in-law of my own. But unfortunately the law’s the law. Lemme just get your license and registration, I’ll issue a ticket and then you folks can get back on your way. At more appropriate speeds.”
“Oh yes, sir,” Nicholas said, trying to look appropriately chastised. He leaned over to the passenger side and opened the glovebox. His elbow nudged Sloane and again, she stirred. Shit.
He rifled around for the registration, his fingers brushing against the cold metal of his revolver. But finally he found the papers in the plastic pouch and pulled them out, shutting the glovebox firmly closed before handing them along with his license over to the officer.
Everything should check out. The license was a fake, or well, based on a clean social of a guy with Nicholas’s picture on it. Their tech guy Bo was a master of fakes and claimed it would pass even the most stringent checks.
Well, they were about to find out just how good he was…
The cop walked away with the papers and his license back to his squad car and Nicholas breathed out heavily.
Jesus Christ, he hadn’t felt this tense since Papa had sent him on that mission to put the screws to that suspected informant last year. Three days in and the man finally confessed he’d been taking payoffs from a rival gang. Getting him to that point—well it had not been pleasant, to say the least. And Nicholas had been the one tasked with getting the confession by whatever means necessary.
Right when he’d gotten to the end of all that was humane, Papa demanded he go even further. Even after the man confessed, Papa ordered him to go right ahead and keep on torturing him. That had been the truly dehumanizing bit. Both Nicholas and the man at the end of this electric prod knowing there was no way out. No way except the man’s death, as gruesome and painful and drawn out as possible.
That was the night Nicholas learned exactly how sadistic his boss could be, and how unbending.
At least it helped give perspective to this moment. No American cop was going to scare him.
