This one was going to tell her what she needed to know.
****
Ben surfaced slowly, and the first sense that returned was smell. His nose picked up the sharp and strong scent of gasoline all around him. He coughed and felt his ribs complain. They must have worked him over a little more while he was out as the pain didn’t line up with the beating he recalled taking in the loading bay.
There was one good thing; his rage was gone. He felt clear headed… as long as he kept his thoughts away from his discovery at the museum. He pulled his mind back from his thoughts and concentrated on the now. He opened his eyes slowly. The left one was slightly puffy so it didn’t fully open.
“He’s awake. Stevie, go call Mr. Solerno.” Footsteps rushed away.
Ben glanced towards the voice and saw an unfamiliar face. He wasn’t one of the men from the loading bay.
Then Ben noticed that he was naked and chained to a bed. The smell of gasoline was because the mattress was soaked in it. That wasn’t good. He glanced around and saw the room’s walls had been splashed with the stuff too. It felt like an old, tired hotel room. That’s probably what it was. Outside of that, Ben had no idea where he was.
“Feeling up to answering some questions now?” the man standing next to the bed asked.
“Now that I’ve been tenderized by your men, you mean? Or are you referring to the gas-soaked bed I’m chained to?” Ben returned.
The man smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Rainor had eyes like his. “Whichever one gives you a greater incentive to be talkative.”
“Can I have your name?” Ben asked.
The man paused, then nodded. “You can call me Julian.”
“Call me Ben.”
Julian snorted quietly at their gentle manners. “Ok, Ben. Where’s the money Rainor Hahn stole from Don Solerno?”
Ben watched the man. He seemed ultimately confident that Ben had this knowledge. How? “What leads you to the idea that I know?” Ben asked.
Julian seemed to be weighing the value in disclosing this. The man’s eyes dipped to look at the bed, so it was pretty clear to Ben that he believed Ben wasn’t going to leave this room alive. There was little difference in telling the truth.
“We know you took possession of his apartment contents at the shipping container yard in San Francisco. We have people there.”
“Damn! Mike finked me out?” Ben sighed and saw the tightening around Julian’s eyes.
“So… you work for the mob boss? Agent Montrose mentioned him when she took Rainor’s files on his transactions with Solerno.”
Julian’s expression went cold. “The Feds have records of the transactions?”
Ben looked at the man. “Yes… Rainor kept meticulous notes. Not that I had any interest in the files recording his illegal income stream. All of that went to the FBI.”
Julian was not happy. Maybe he was now realizing the extent of his boss’s fall from grace in the family. He shook his head. “Where’s the money?”
“Agent Montrose told me Don Solerno was doing a transaction with the other families. Is he in trouble with them as well as the Feds?” Ben asked and saw Julian’s lip curl in anger before he forced it back behind his neutral mask.
“The money!” Julian snapped.
“I can tell you this. Setting me on fire will ensure you won’t get it.” Ben said calmly.
Julian’s eyes bore into Ben’s. “And why should I believe that?”
Ben shrugged as best he could. “Because Rainor completed the transactions before he died. He hadn’t filed the paperwork, so they weren’t in the cabinet the FBI collected in San Francisco. They won’t know where the money went. Not from the files they collected at least. Rainor’s unfiled paperwork, including the receipts, was couriered to me months ago by the lawyer in Sydney. I saw the money was used to buy property in seven different cities around the world. It’s prime real estate. Those deeds are now in my name. If I die, that gets divided amongst the beneficiaries of my estate, and there are so many now.”
Julian’s jaw was jumping as he ground his teeth. He didn’t want to, but he believed the big guy chained to the bed. Enough of what he said matched up with the information his people were reporting. He stomped away to stand before the dirty window, staring into the darkness outside.
Ben looked to the three guards in the room who were all watching Julian with various levels of nervousness. They cast uncomfortable glances at him as well, and at least one bore the marks of his fighting back.
Julian suddenly spun in frustration. “Where the fuck is Stevie?” he barked, and the men jumped. Then all eyes turned to the doorway as the man in question stepped into view. Or rather, was carried into view as his slit throat meant he was quite dead.
A hand holding a gun with a silencer poked out between the dead man’s arm and body. The first bullets struck Julian’s throat, and he pitched back and through the shattering window. The remaining three guards caught rounds in the chest and fell before they could get their guns clear.
After a moment of silence, the dead body in the doorway was allowed to drop forward.
Ben lifted his head to see a tall stunning brunette dressed in leathers standing in the hall. She stepped inside and went to the three dead men to check their pockets. She found keys and walked over to the bed to let her eyes roam over Ben’s naked body with delighted interest.
“Hello, Mr. Shepherd. Did you receive my package?” she said with a coy smile on her lovely lips.
Tonight, Ben had been pushed beyond his ability to be embarrassed. “Hello, Ms. Pushkin. I did, thank you. But you gave me no means to contact you to let you know Liliya also left me no way to contact her.”
Tatiana pouted, and it looked adorable on her.
“Uh, could you get these chains off of me?” he asked.
Her grin turned wicked. “But there are so many fun things we could do like this!”
Ben frowned. “The bed is soaked in gasoline.”
She made another pout then nodded. She used the keys to undo the shackles on his ankles then spun to face the door as the ripping sound of automatic weapons fire could be heard. She tossed the keys onto Ben’s chest. “I’ll be back,” she said then sprinted to the door and slipped away.
He held in his growl of frustration as he listened to the noise of gunfire approaching. They gradually became quieter then petered out. He’d heard a few choked off screams.
Ben waited for Tatiana to return, but she didn’t.
A man suddenly rushed into the room pointing his gun in all directions before settling on Ben. The man had blood splatter on him, but it didn’t look like he’d been shot or stabbed himself. He was twitching in his panic.
“You ok?” Ben asked carefully.
“Are you with them?” the man hissed. “The fucking ninjas!”
Ben blinked at him. “I’m chained to a bed! I’m not with anyone!”
This answer seemed to piss off the nervous man. He pointed his gun at Ben’s groin. “So I guess it won’t matter if I shoot you in the balls.”
The knife thrown from the window sank point first through his eye. He twitched twice then fell dead.
Ben craned his neck to see who his savior was now. The Sergeant appeared next to the bed. “Are you injured- critically, I mean?”
“No, please undo the cuffs,” he grumbled. Then he realized something. “You came in through the window?” he asked.
“Yes.” Evelyn scooped the keys from his chest and released Ben’s wrists. Then she helped him off the bed to minimize his contact with the gasoline-soaked mattress. He still smelled of gas, and he wrinkled his nose.
Ben went to the window to get some fresh air. Glancing down he was shocked to see there was no fire escape and they had to be at least ten stories up. He looked back to the Sergeant who was extracting her knife from the man’s skull. “How?” he asked, pointing to the window.
“I free climbed the building. It’s an older design, so it had good handholds. I found the body and glass on the ground and climbed straight up from there until I found the open window. It made sense that’s where you’d be,” she explained. She did her best to avoid looking at him.
He stared at her in surprise. Giving himself a little shake he looked for his clothes. He found them piled in the corner but they were saturated with gas. He pulled his wallet and keys from the wet clothes, but Evelyn had to carry them in one of her many pockets. He had no clothes, so no pockets. He spotted his cell, but someone had taken a hammer to it. He went to pick it up but immediately dropped it as it was red hot. The phone hit the floor and bounced up against the wall. The punctured lithium battery took that moment to jet flame. He jumped back as he still reeked of gas himself. The soaked wallpaper and carpet caught fire immediately.
The Sergeant grabbed Ben’s arm and dragged him out the door as the fire raced around the perimeter of the room. They were halfway down the hall when the bed ignited with a terrible roar and thump. The fire exploded out into the hallway and ignited the dried out materials there. As they made it to the stairwell, the fire was rushing up the corridor. They ducked inside and ran down the stairs. As they reached the fourth floor, Ben picked up the sounds of gunshots. Just occasional single shots. When they arrived on the ground floor, Ben looked up the stairwell and could see flames. He wasn’t sure if they were coming down the stairwell, but he could almost hear their hungry roar. Getting out of the building soon would be an excellent idea.
They left the stairwell with the Sergeant leading the way down the hallway slowly. Ben kept an eye open for something he could wear.