Kevin froze.

He was coming back.

Oh sweet Jesus! He was coming back.

He tried not to breathe so hard but he couldn’t help himself. His wrists and ankles were raw from trying to work free from his bindings. He’d shit himself because the bastard had left him here for fucking hours. Tied in this damned chair.

“What do you want from me?” Kevin shouted. “I didn’t hurt you or your friend! It was the others, not me!”

The son of a bitch didn’t say a word, just walked into the room and turned on the light. Kevin didn’t know where the hell he was. Some cheap motel or something. Maybe an abandoned house. He couldn’t tell.

“You may think you’ll get away with this but you won’t,” he warned the fool. “The police will figure you out. They’ve got your face all over the news. They’re all looking for you.” Dumb bastard. Did this lowlife really think he could get away with this eleventh-hour bullshit?

Todd Penney leaned down, his dark hair as unkempt as it had been back in high school. His eyeglasses looking like a midcentury castoff. Kevin instinctively drew away from him.

“You’d better hope they don’t find me,” he warned.

Kevin refused to show him any fear. “I’m not afraid of you, you stupid shit!” Kevin had Penney’s number and it was zero. Z-E-R-O. “I hope they find you and put you away for the rest of your worthless life.”

“You,” Penney advised, “should be dead by now.”

Kevin stiffened. What the hell did that mean? Okay. Okay. Okay. Maybe he didn’t want to know. “If you let me go now, I won’t tell anyone about this. You can disappear and we can forget this ever happened.”

Penney laughed. He put his face right in Kevin’s. “If I let you go, you’re as good as dead. Now who’s the stupid shit?”

“You’re wrong,” Kevin urged. “Really, you have to listen to me.”

Penney started walking away. “Don’t worry, O’Reilly. You’re not going to miss the showdown. You’ll be center stage.”