CHAPTER 64

THE MONEY HAD been a stroke of personal brilliance, one that came to Mike amid the searing pain and threat of death. Hopefully Deanna wouldn’t mind losing a million bucks in exchange for a cryptic warning. He frowns, his mind reanalyzing the plan from her perspective. It is a rather expensive warning. But it is too late to change course now. At least if this asshole kills him, the warning—expensive or not—will get to Deanna. A way to catch her attention and put her on the defense. Mike carefully straightens before the keyboard and begins the process, leaving his personal funds intact. He also ignores around two hundred million of his clients’ funds, thirty different Deannas, spread throughout the United States, a quarter of the money clean, most of it dirty, all in easy access of his handicapped fingers. Instead, Mike beelines for one place, Fifth Third Bank, worming into and going straight to one account: Deanna’s US holdings. Combined balance: $1,342,109.12

“You know the account number you want the funds put into?”

The man thinks for a moment. Pulls out his cell and calls a number while Mike makes every attempt to stay conscious despite the hole in his shoulder.

“It’s Marcus.”

Marcus. The asshole has a name. Marcus… Marcus… a lightbulb clicks. He’s most likely Marcus Renza, the client Deanna blocked just a month or so ago. The rapist who had just gotten out of prison. Mike’s breaths shorten, a new wave of panic overtaking him, the weight of his responsibility increased. He is the weak link between this monster and her. A sudden image of her smile pops into his head and he closes his eyes. Tries to find strength that he hasn’t needed since he was a child. The man speaks from behind him.

“A few months ago. Got an account number? I got that million for you, what’s remaining on our hotel debt. Consider anything extra as additional interest.”

The fucker laughs, a short sound that actually contains humor. “Sounds good. It’ll be there soon.” He leans back over Mike, the hard edge of his elbow digging into his arm, but Mike says nothing, watching as the man scribbles a long number down.

“I’ll need the routing number,” he mumbles.

“Routing number?” Marcus speaks into the phone, then waits, scribbling a second figure on the pad before pushing it across the desk and stepping away. Continues his conversation like no one is bleeding to death before him.

Mike makes an initial transfer, from her account to his, with one word in the memo line: RUN. Then, three minutes later, moves the funds again, making enough stops on the way to prevent this asshole from ever backtracking his way to the original account number.

“Done?” The man’s mouth, close to his ear.

“Yes,” he hisses, reaching across his chest in an attempt to examine the wound. “Are we good?”

“We’re good. You fuck with that transfer, I’ll come back and peel the skin off your crippled body. Understand?”

The concern is more, at this moment, with the present situation. In the corner of his mind, a glimmer of hope surfaces that he might survive this ordeal. He nods. “Yes, sir.”

The man likes that, a beam coming over his face as he pats his good shoulder. “Sorry about the shoulder. I’ve been lied to a lot.”

There has never been a moment when a handicap is more hated than this. If there were only a knife or a gun in this weak excuse for a home. If only the legs attached to this body worked and he could spring from this chair and kill this man. Mike looks away and prays for the man to leave.

The hand at his shoulder lifts, the man examining the fingers of his glove closely, a look of undisguised disgust crossing his features. Probably blood. Cripple blood often offends. Mike’s eyes close, afraid to watch, hearing the man step back, the bathroom door squeaking open, additional light filling the dim bedroom when he flips on the light. The scrub of terrycloth heard. The run of water.

Fuck. Something’s wrong. An alert of some sort, blaring through Mike’s brain, not loud enough to cut through the pain. Not loud enough to stop his head, which is now nodding, the dots of nausea returning. He needs an ambulance. He needs help. He—

“You piece of shit motherfucker.”

That his brain hears, his head snapping back as he cranes his neck over, sees the photo the asshole grips in gloved fingers, her sunny smile shining at him across the room. His eyes close.

Yeah. That was it. The picture. Two years old, printed out because he couldn’t help himself. She’s in underwear, covering her breasts with both hands and laughing. He’d taken a screenshot, captured the moment, one of her real ones. The ones that made him think he was different than the others. That they had some sort of real connection that the others only dreamed of. It was his screensaver for a bit, then he printed it out. Taped it to the corner of his mirror so he can see it every morning. Reminds him that there’s a life outside this house. A girl, like her, out there, that he will one day be with. Be good enough for.

“Just kill me.” His eyes are closed when he says the words, when they stumble off of his lips, but he means every word of them. He will protect her to his death, a final destination that seems to be quickly approaching. There can’t be a pain worse than this one. If there is, his fragile state can’t handle it.

Steps sound against the floor, his presence felt as he nears, and Mike repeats the words, just in case this son of a bitch missed them.

“Just kill me. I won’t tell you anything.”

He’d like to say that he made it. Retained his silence. Was the hero. That when his eyes opened and the rapist is there, kneeling down before him, at a height that puts their eyes level, the stranger’s face close enough to bite, that Mike doesn’t shake. He wants to say that he stares him down and isn’t nervous. But then the man reaches over his body to the side table, and what he lifts up causes Mike, the parts of him that still have movement, to shake. Shake like the ten-year-old boy that he still very much is.

Wire cutters. Heavy duty, with green plastic grips, the kind that allow a handicapped man to cut through computer mainframes, hard drive harnesses, and impenetrable plastic casing. With dead eyes he watches the man’s hands, long fingers that don’t match his short stature, that damn Breguet watch glinting in the dark, the cutters loose in hand, carried with the same easy nonchalance that the knife had afforded, the knife that still sits, butt-deep, in Mike’s shoulder. Mike moves his hands to his lap and clenches them tightly, looking to the side, away from the hand, away from the eyes, and swallows nervously.

He had wanted to do it. Had wanted so badly to be strong for her. To be her hero.