A throbbing head and a mouth full of blood greeted Nash when he finally drifted back to a conscious reality. Blinking hard, he coughed a few times, the metallic taste in his mouth potent enough to make him nauseous. It quickly became apparent that he was tied to a chair, his hands bound with duct tape, which bit into his skin when he shifted on the spot. The metal chair, one of those cheap ones high schools use for assemblies, dug into him at just about every angle, and he wondered how long he’d been tied to it.
No longer was he in a dark room, but rather a very well-lit warehouse. Empty, save for a few tables and chairs—oh, and a bunch of muscled assholes loitering by them. Above, rain pounded what seemed like a tin roof, but otherwise the place was quiet. Soft murmurs could be heard from the men, but no one engaged him, not even when he sat up a little and cracked his neck.
The drugs were gone. His gun was gone. His leather jacket had been stripped off and discarded on the floor nearby, and his white t-shirt was caked in dark dried blood. Each move made it ever clearer that whoever had clocked him in the face had broken his nose, or at the very least fractured it. Breathing through his nostrils brought on wave after wave of pain, but Nash just shifted to breathing through his mouth. He was adaptable like that. He could take the pain.
Across the massive room, a door creaked open, and Nash’s eyes narrowed at the vaguely familiar, round body of Phillip Crest. The man strolled toward him as if he was dressed for a university tour, his pricey suit pressed and his polished shoes glinting in the light. Stocky and firm, Phillip Crest was utterly repulsive to Nash, even if he wasn’t classically ugly by any means. As he stared at the approaching figure, all he wanted to do was stomp on his face. Break his teeth. Pound the pavement with whatever was left of his skull. It was a pretty picture in his head.
“Mr. Reeves,” Phillip said as he drew nearer, stopping a good five feet from Nash. Good thinking. They hadn’t tied Nash’s ankles to the chair—but he wasn’t idiotic enough to try and run. He was outnumbered, and they probably all had guns. What good was he to Eliza if he was dead?
“Mr. Crest,” Nash responded with forced civility. “This is all pretty unnecessary.”
“I’m afraid I can’t trust a desperate man not to do a desperate thing in the heat of the moment,” Phillip mused with a soft chuckle. He clasped his hands behind his back as if to mirror Nash’s stance. “And I assume you are desperate. Miss Truman makes you desperate, it seems.”
His gut response to hearing Phillip say Eliza’s name in any way was to Hulk-out and break the bonds holding him, then shred everyone in the room to pieces. But he also knew, deep down, that that was the reaction Phillip was hoping for. He wanted to see Nash affected by the leverage he had over him. He wanted to see Nash’s weaknesses, so he could better exploit them.
Sorry, asshole, not today.
“I take it you got the coke?” Nash fired back, working so damn hard to keep his voice from quivering with rage. He then nodded to the men loitering a good distance away. “I mean…your boys didn’t sample it when they sucker-punched me, did they?”
Phillip studied him for a moment, lips pressed together in a tight line. Briefly, a victorious surge swept through Nash’s body in knowing that he’d bested the man—as well as he could, given he was tied to a chair totally weaponless.
“Well, I had to question them about the quantity you delivered,” Phillip insisted with a slight shake of his head. “After all, it was hardly the full amount.”
“I planned to deliver the rest once I saw Eliza was okay,” Nash told him tightly. “Where is she?”
“I wanted the full amount, Mr. Reeves.”
“Well that’s all you got.”
“Then I’m afraid Miss Truman will end up like her father once my boys get their hands on her.” Phillip nodded, a devilish smirk crossing his lips. “And I promise you, Mr. Reeves, they will so enjoy putting their hands on her.”
“I can get it all for you,” Nash snapped. “I’m good for it. You saw it now. Just don’t hurt her. I’ll… I’ll get whatever you want.” He licked his lips. All this talking was making his face pound, as if he’d been hit with a two-by-four. Hell, he probably had. An icepack would do him a world of good, as would a few shots of whiskey, but he had more important things to focus on. He could push through the pain. He’d done it before. Nash’s brow furrowed as Phillip’s words went on repeat in his head. “Wait…? What do you mean end up like her father? What did you do to him?”
“Ah, Darryl… What a fool.”
Phillip turned away and started to pace, strolling back and forth in front of Nash so casually, so calmly, that it threatened to make Nash’s temper boil over. But he took a few deep breaths, remembering that keeping his cool was what would save Eliza in the end. Keep that asshole talking. Get the intel. Find Eliza. Plans had to change. Nash was still adaptable, even in the heat of the moment.
“All the evidence pointed to him being my guy,” Nash insisted. “Was that your doing?”
“It was, actually.” Phillip said it so matter-of-factly, not quite like the smug bastard Nash was expecting. “It took a lot of careful planning, of course. One can hardly frame a man like Darryl Truman in his position willy-nilly. Almost a year of preparation went into this operation, but in the end, I’ve achieved what I wanted in the drug world, I think.”
“Well, shit, you’re a regular gangster, Crest,” Nash mused with a roll of his eyes. “Congrats.”
Phillip smirked. “I find your crass charming, Mr. Reeves.”
Nash’s eyes flickered to the men strolling around the warehouse, trying with as much subtlety as he could muster to discern who had guns and who didn’t. “I live to please.”
“I don’t doubt it,” the man said, shaking his head. “You do your best to make everyone happy. So unfortunate that you sent your dogs after Darryl Truman. When he’s found, I think we both know who will get the blame for his condition.”
“What did you do to him?” Nash growled, hoping that Eliza wouldn’t be the one to find her dad, no matter the kind of condition he was in. No kid should have to see a parent like that.
“He was catching on to what I was doing, you see,” Philip explained. The man paused, as his stare went a little distant, as if recalling a specific event, then shrugged. “I’d planned to use him for as long as possible, keep shifting the blame to him. After all, he was the one to start divvying university funds to where he wanted. It wouldn’t be a huge leap to assume he was hiring hitmen to take out Blackwoods’s most influential drug ring in the process to get a piece of the pie for himself.”
“When really you were the one doing that,” Nash muttered. “Killing innocent guys just to—”
“Oh, no one in that little club of yours is innocent.” Phillip scoffed. “Don’t make me laugh, Mr. Reeves.”
“Wasn’t trying to.” He tried to wriggle his hands free somewhat, only to fail, feeling like the tape just got tighter each time he tried. “Now what the fuck did you do to the dean? He’s a powerful man who—”
Phillip snorted. “I’d hardly call him powerful.” His beady little eyes darted to Nash, as if waiting for more in the silence that followed, then added, “Darryl Truman is alive…” He then paused for dramatic effect. “Barely.”
“And what about Eliza?” While he cared about Darryl’s condition because it would affect Eliza, he worried more about her than him. “Is she hurt?” When Phillip only smiled at him, his temper broke, and he shouted, “Tell me, you bastard!”
Chuckling, Phillip strolled toward him and crouched down so that they were at eye level, then shook his head and made a tsk’ing sound.
“If you were so concerned about her safety, Mr. Reeves,” the man mused, the pity in his voice grating, “perhaps you should have brought all the drugs I asked for…”