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There are no lights in the alley, so I have to squint into the darkness to see the small man’s shape hurtling through the dark alley towards the road beyond. I chase after him.
He is small but not fast, and my long strides have me right on his heels in a matter of seconds.
The end of the alley is coming up, but right before he can make it to the sidewalk, I lunge forward, tangle my hand in the back of his shirt, and yank him backwards.
A large huff of air bursts out of him when his spine hits the concrete. He collapses into a whimpering puddle.
I walk around him and press my foot into his chest.
“Why are you running?”
“Because you are chasing me,” he says, trying to roll away.
I press into his chest harder until I’m sure another centimeter will crush his rib cage. The man strains for a second and then crumples back onto the pavement, gasping for breath.
“Let up, for fuck’s sake,” he says, weakly pushing at my shoe to no avail.
“I will let you up when you tell me where my family is.”
He wrinkles his forehead, doing his best to look confused, but I can see the panic in his eyes. Like a wild animal searching for an escape route, I can tell I’ve cornered him. He knows he is fucked.
I flex, threatening to put more pressure on his chest. “Where are they?”
He winces and then lays his hands out on the pavement in surrender. “I don’t know, man. I don’t know who you are or what you are talking about. I was just in the bar having a drink and—”
I pull my knife and plunge it into his side before he even knows what happened.
His eyes widen and then his jaw goes unhinged. “You fucking stabbed me.”
He clutches at his side and then lifts his hand up to see the blood on his fingers. A sob bursts out of his chest. “Shit. You stabbed me.”
“Tell me what I need to know or I’ll let you bleed out.” I wipe my knife on the man’s jeans and put it back in my pocket. “Where is my family?”
He blubbers, shaking his head. “Come on, man. I’m bleeding too much.”
“Then talk fast!” I growl, driving my heel into his sternum. “The faster you tell me what you know, the faster you can find help.”
The man is pathetic. He is almost crying on the ground, lower lip shaking like a small child’s, and all of it makes me sick. Really, it makes me want to put the sad sack out of his misery.
“Did you just come to this bar from my house?” I ask.
His eyes snap to me, and I know I’ve hit the mark.
I grit my teeth and press my boot harder into his chest until I swear I can feel his heartbeat in the bottom of my foot. “Did you help kidnap my family?”
He shakes his head. “No. No. That wasn’t my job.”
“What was your job?” I tip my head down to the wound at his side. “Better talk quick. You’re losing a lot of blood.”
The man’s face was going pale. Even in the dark, his skin seems to be glowing.
“Your wife was being kidnapped for an auction. It’s a sale put on by the LeClerc Cartel. They deal with human trafficking. That is all I know.”
My heart feels like it is lodged in my throat. The thought of sex-hungry men bidding on my wife. Touching her.
My hands are shaking.
“Bullshit,” I bark. “Tell me more.”
