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CHAPTER NINE
Lia
The bite of cold woke me from my slumber.
For a second, I thought the heat had been turned off in my apartment. But then the ratty blanket fell from my shoulders and I squeaked in fear, not recognizing it, nor the room that I was currently in.
I tried to stand up and promptly fell back down, my head spinning out. I had to close my eyes and press the back of my skull against the hard wall. When the dizziness passed, I took a deep breath, opened my eyes and swallowed a scream.
Hands shaking, I shoved myself upright and stumbled forward, looking around. There wasn’t a single window or door, just cement walls stretching to nothing. Shadows leaped at me from the corners, and there was nothing in the room except a pale bulb hanging from the ceiling and the cot where I’d been lyingon. Next to it, I saw a small table with a glass of water on it. I picked it up, gulping it down as fast as I could.
Only when I finished did it hit me that I could have just downed poison. But after several breathless seconds, nothing happened, and I got a grip.
If someone wanted me dead, I wouldn’t have woken up.
Turning in a circle again, I reasoned I could get out of here. I just had to find the door and then jimmy my way out. Reaching down to my boot, I gripped my ankle in panic when I found that my lock-picking kit and knives were gone. I’d made sure they were still there while I’d been in the closet listening to Tyler Michaelson and his boys slap that cop Mickey Weiss around.
Mickey. Oh my god…
Was he alive? I spun in a circle again, as though he might magically materialize into the room. He wasn’t here, that much was sure, and my heart sank, thinking of him lying on his office floor in his blood.
It was a room where Mickey had spent years trying to do the right thing and take down the Mafia, and it ended up being the same place where he’d probably died.
And who’s fault is that?whispered a voice in the back of my head.
I moved faster, shaking hard as I felt along the walls, searching for anything that wasn’t cold stone. Part of me wondered if the entrance was in the ceiling or floor. Then I jumped when my fingers met wood and then the round, beautiful familiarity of a doorknob — a locked one. Pressing closer, I jumped when there was a sudden rasp of metal and pressed myself against the wall.
On the floor, a pool of warm light had appeared, outlining part of someone’s head.
“She’s up?” someone asked.
“I can’t see shit,” the person at the door grumbled. “I think so. Bed looks the same.”
“Can’t believe a civilian, agirl, witnessed Ty shoot a cop,” the first man said.
“Believe it,” the guy at the door replied, and I realized I recognized his voice from last night. I think Tyler had called himHeavy. “It’s a fuckin’ shit show.”
“She as good as dead, huh?” the second guy said.
I didn’t hear Heavy’s reply because he slammed the little window shut and I felt the vibrations of their steps moving away. Moving around to the door, I felt around, and my fingers encountered the slot of metal that had allowed Heavy to look in. But I couldn’t get it open from this side, and I couldn’t hear any sounds.
At that moment, I heard Tyler’s words again from last night, as though he was whispering against my neck.
One way or another,I’ll make you talk.
I sank to the floor, my head in my hands; tremors running through my body. How many times had Tyler asked me who I worked for? My head throbbed. Had he guessed it had been White? Or was I misremembering?
My memories were disjointed, filled with the smell of blood and something metal. The current cold and lack of food weren't helping either but I suspected it was as my mother had once told me — traumatic events were hard to remember.
Not that it mattered. I wouldn’t be remembering shit soon.
Like Mickey Weiss, I would be disposed of – maybe staged in a suicide.
Tears ran down my face. Since my mother had taken her life, I'd sworn I'd never do that. No matter how bad things got, I would never go down that route.
And now someone was going to make it look like I had.
Life is so fucking unfair.
