The phone rings, but she doesn’t answer.

“Fuck!”

I go into the bathroom to splash water on my face, and the room is still humid. She must have just taken a shower. If her phone was dead or if she was on the train, it would just go straight to voicemail.

I text her. “Please call me back when you see this. Want to make sure you’re okay.”

I try calling again, and it rings out.

I grab my coat and rush outside. I get a cab, which will be faster than having to get my car out of the garage and park it outside Nadine’s building.

Nadine will not be happy if I show my face there, but I have to make sure Elise is safe. That’s all that matters.

I try calling her one more time--she hasn’t answered my text--as I enter the elevator. It rings out again.

By the time I reach Nadine’s building and exit on her floor, my palms are sweaty and I’m nearly in full panic mode. I try to imagine knocking on the door and seeing Elise answer to calm myself, but my brain keeps imagining the worst case scenario.

I reach the door and knock hard. Thump thump thump.

The door swings open almost immediately. Nadine.

She looks hopeful, and the moment she sees my face, I see her expression shift straight to disappointment, and then to full anger.

“You asshole,” she sneers. “What the hell are you doing--?”

“Is Elise here?” I ask. I don’t have time for arguing.

“You’ve got nerve, Hunt--”

“Is she here, Nadine? I’m worried, she’s not answering her phone.”

Nadine’s eyes widen, and she shakes her head. “She’s not here. She was supposed to be here over thirty minutes ago. I figured she was just…”

Nadine shudders and looks at me. Then she furrows her brows. “So you don’t know where she is?”

I step past her and inside. “She was at my place when I left, and she told you she was coming here?”

“Yes,” Nadine says. “Maybe she’s just...I don’t know, maybe her phone is off? Or she lost it?”

“Look, Nadine,” I say. “I had Gideon Fleischmann checked out, but the guy I hired was actually working for him, and--”

She scoffs. “Really pro move there, Hunt.”

“Nadine,” I say, voice flat. “I don’t have time for this shit. Elise is all that matters now, can you agree to that?”

She nods.

“I’m worried that Gideon is with the kind of people I used to run with.”

“Oh...Jesus.”

Nadine’s face turns white and she collapses onto the couch.

The house phone starts to ring. We both look at it wide-eyed.

Nadine rushes toward the phone.

“Don’t tell them I’m here,” I say.

Them. I’ve already subconsciously admitted to myself that she’s been taken. I pray that it’s just Elise calling Nadine, saying she lost her phone and stopped to get food. But my gut says otherwise.

Nadine picks up the phone and locks eyes with me. I can see from her face--from the way every muscle in her face scrunches up in agony--that it’s not Elise’s voice.

“Don’t hurt her,” Nadine says, “or I swear to God, I’ll--”

She bites her lip.

I walk quietly up toward her and move my ear toward the receiver. I breathe as quietly as possible.

“...and if you tell anyone, a single fucking person, I’ll slit her throat. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Nadine says. “I won’t tell anyone. I swear. Just give me my baby back--”

“Do what you are ordered, and you’ll get her back.”

The line goes dead.

“Fuck!” Nadine shouts, slamming the phone onto the table and it falls to the floor. The case and battery both pop out and slide across the floor. “Mother fucking shit! This is your fucking fault, Hunt!”

She looks at me, channeling every last ounce of rage at me.

“I’ll fix it,” I say.

“How?” she asks. “How the fuck can you fix this? They want me to run the company into the ground, and I’ll fucking do it, what else is there to do?”

I take in deep breaths, then say in as level a voice as I can manage, “Nadine...once you do what they want you to, what reason do they have to give her back?”

“We have nothing, Hunt. Fucking nothing! She could be anywhere in the city...she could be in a van on her way to God knows where. What are you going to do? Ask some of your washed-up criminal buddies to go search all the warehouses with you? The only option we have is for me to do exactly what they want me to. Give them no reason to--”

I pull out the recorder and hit play.

“Listen,” I say.

She listens.

“So it is Gideon,” she says. “And what the fuck do we do with that recording?”

“It’s leverage,” I say. “What do you think would happen if we played this to the other board members?”

I see the gears in Nadine’s head starting to turn, but then she shakes her head. “No, Hunt, he might just get mad and kill her.”

“I contact my guy,” I say. “The guy in this recording, and tell him that either he helps me get Elise out, or I play this tape to Gideon.”

“What?” Nadine says, looking at me like I’m a fucking idiot. “You want to give up our most valuable leverage to tip off Gideon’s goon?”

“I know this guy, Nadine, he’s a totally self-interested, mercenary shit stain. If we played this tape to Gideon, we’d probably never see Elise again, but Gideon would kill Dash, too, for blabbing on tape. Once I find out where Elise is, I go in and rescue her myself, then we take Gideon down.”

“I should just call the police,” Nadine says. “This is fucking insane.”

My phone vibrates, and I grab it. It’s supposedly a text from Elise. A trick. I hold the phone up to Nadine.

“Hey, Hunt,” Nadine reads out. “I need to be alone for a while. I’m going to go stay with a friend...I need time away from you and Mom. I need to think.”

“They...they don’t really have her?” Nadine asks.

“No,” I say. “It’s a fake text. They don’t want me to know she’s been taken. That’s why they told you not to tell anyone. They fear me. As they should.”

“How do you know it’s not her?”

“She never calls me ‘Hunt.’ She always calls me “Hunter.’”

I grab Nadine by the shoulders. “Look, I broke your trust. I did it because I care about Elise, but I care about you, too. I tried to have both, and I was too cowardly to own up to it. But you have to trust me again. Elise means everything to me, and I will rescue her. Got it?”

Nadine nods, crying. “Don’t fuck up, Hunt.”

* * *

Nadine said it in jest, but I do have to go grab some of my old criminal buddies. There’s no way I’m going to take such a big risk with Elise’s life that I’d go in without some kind of backup.

I have to contact only people who I trust. I never really trusted Dash. The people I really trust are all out of the game, just like I am, but breaking the law is a lot like riding a bike. You never really lose the skill.

I walk into the Gyro place, and I see Stav slicing thick slabs of meat off the kebab.

He turns to look over his shoulder at me, expecting a customer, then he does a double take.

“Hunt?” he says. “Fuck, man!”

I force a smile.

“You look like shittttt, bro!”

I point to his grease-stained apron. “So do you.”

He laughs. “Well, I run a Greek fast food joint, I’m supposed to look like shit! You’re like a fucking billionaire or some shit? King Midas, yeah? If I had the money you do, I wouldn’t look like shit. That’s for damn sure. You here to eat a gyro man, what the fuck? I’d never eat gyros ever again if I had the cash you do.”

I lean over the counter. “I know you said you’re out of the game, but what if I told you I had a job that pays a million in cash?”

His eyes gleam, and I know I’ve already got him.

“I’d say…” he says, nearly drooling, “that if you make it five million, you’ve got a deal.”

I laugh. I lowballed him because I knew he’d pull something like that. It’s not that I wouldn’t pay anything to get Elise back, but getting that much cash on short notice will eat up a lot of my time. And I’m out of time.

“If you can get Tiger back in--for two million or less, don’t fucking tell him I’m giving you five--then you got a deal.”

“Hu?”

“Tiger.”

“Yeah, Hu.”

“Fucking Tiger, man! How many times I gotta’ say it?”

“Hu! His name is Hu, it’s Chinese for Tiger. He just goes by Hu now, man. Now that he’s legit.”

“Oh,” I say. “Yeah, get fucking Hu for two million then.”

“You got me!” He reaches his hand out to shake on it.

“Don’t you want to know what we’re doing before you shake on it?”

“Nah,” Stav says. “Just get the money ready and I’ll do whatever you fucking want me to. As long as we ain’t killing babies or something.”

“And you’ll get Tiger to do it, too, yeah?”

“Hu.”

“Tell him,” I say, “that for two mil, I get to call him Tiger again. That ‘Hu’ shit is too confusing.”

“Alright, man,” Stav says, grinning.

* * *

I call Dash up.

“Some fucking nerve,” Dash hisses into the phone. “Just you wait, man, revenge is a dish best served slightly cooled down. That means I’m not going to hit you right away, but I’m going to hit you soon enough…”

“Shut the fuck up,” I say dismissively. “I know exactly what you’ve got going.”

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Yeah. And you’re fucked, Dash. I’m going to get Gideon to slit your throat.”

He laughs. “You gonna’ triple cross my double cross? You can’t buy out fucking Gideon Fleischmann!”

“You sure like to say his name,” I say. “I’ve got you implicating him on tape twice now. I’m recording this call, just like I recorded our last conversation.”

Dead silence from his end.

“Before you panic and do something idiotic,” I say, “I have a dead man’s switch that will send this recording to Gideon if I don’t stop it.”

“What? Like, you got something wired to your heartbeat?”

“No,” I say. “This isn’t some fucking movie, man, if I don’t manually go on my phone and stop it from sending every two hours, it will automatically send to Gideon, and you’ll be fucked.”

His voice gets nervous. “Fuck, man! You...you want her back, yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Then when you get her back, you don’t got any use for me, and you feed me to Gideon’s dogs.”

“I got a guy making you a new identity,” I say.

“So you admit it! You’re going to rat me out no matter what?”

“When I rescue Elise,” I say, “Gideon will know there’s a leak. He’ll look for the weakest link--the dumbest and most fucking unreliable part of his plan--which I have to assume is you.”

“Shit--”

“Look, Dash, you’ve overstayed your welcome in New York anyway. My guy is real good, he gets you into all the electronic databases and shit. A new SSN, everything. I’ll give you the new I.D. before you tell us where she is, and as soon as I have her safe, I’ll let you run.”

“I dunno’, man, this seems all too slick. I think I need to like, think it over--”

“If you hang up the phone on me without agreeing, I will send this shit to Gideon straight away.”

I hear him making nervous sounds and breathing heavy, then he finally says, “Alright, where do I meet you?”

“Go outside,” I say. “And there’s gonna’ be a Chinese guy in a leather jacket waiting for you. His name is Tiger. Do exactly what he says.”

“Who the fuck? A Chinese guy?”

“Yeah,” I say, grinning. “Hu.”