board, the balm to his soul, but the bad girl had nothing to offer him here. She wanted Lancaster dead, and she was counting on him to give the order that would make it so.
The problem, the temptation burning through him, was to do it himself, long and slow and brutal and final—starting now. Right now. He had four syringes left, and any combination thereof would do the deed, give Lancaster a taste of the crazy, fucking hell he’d sold over a hundred American soldiers into for money and his own twisted reasons.
The bastard needed to suffer and wail, to be undone, to lose his mind and be brought back only to lose it again.
Pain beyond bearing—that’s what Lancaster needed. He needed it like Dylan needed his next breath.
Standing in the shadows, he silently waited and watched as Kid tied Lancaster to the rope and pulley rig hanging from a boom secured to the ceiling. A hundred years ago, the rig had been used to move crates of goods into storage for Errol Steele’s Mercantile, the building’s first incarnation.
Tonight it had a far grimmer purpose.
General Richard “Buck” Grant, Special Defense Force’s commanding officer, was on his way to Denver to deal with Randolph Lancaster, but until Buck arrived, the man known as White Rook was under Dylan’s tender care.
He saw the old man wince as Kid tightened the ropes tying him to the pulleys.
“I want him chained,” he said, and Lancaster jerked his head around to peer into the darkness, looking for him.
Kid didn’t miss a beat. He quickly secured the ropes, then walked over to the corner and picked up a heavy length of chain.
“Hart?” Lancaster gasped, his voice feeble, his face gray beneath the shock of white hair he wore so proudly. “Is that you?”
Kid had not been gentle with the man who had taken his brother from him. One of Lancaster’s eyes was swollen shut. A trickle of blood seeped out of the corner of his mouth and dripped on his pale blue dress shirt. His tie was askew, his black suit coat scuffed and tossed aside. The old man’s left hand was limp, likely broken at the wrist. Regardless, Kid had gone ahead and cuffed him before tying him to the pulley rig.
Things happened.
Especially to evil men unlucky enough to end up here, Dylan thought.
Tyler Crutchfield was still taped to his chair, perched on the edge of the pool deck, hardly daring to breathe. Dylan understood. The lawyer did not want to draw Kid’s attention, not when every hard line in the Boy Wonder’s face said his restraint was hanging by the same thin thread holding Dylan back.
“White Rook,” he said, walking into the light. “It’s been a while.”
“Hart.” Lancaster slumped against his restraints. He was hanging at an odd angle that kept him from being able to stand upright or kneel. “Re-release me. There’s been a mistake.”
“A terrible mistake,” Dylan agreed. “One of hundreds, starting with the sale of J. T. Chronopolous to Atlas Exports and ending tonight with the abduction of Jane Linden.
“I-I don’t know any Jane Linden.”
Not only possible but probable.
“How about Scott Church?”
The old man went perfectly still, except for the fresh sheen of sweat suddenly beading on his forehead and his upper lip. “No, n-no. I don’t know him.”
“Liar.” Dylan referred to the sheaf of papers he held in his hand and read off a long series of letters and numbers. “Your international bank account number. I’ve got your balance here, Rook: forty-nine million plus change, including the last deposit you took in for the sale of Scott Church. You’ve done well for a government employee.”
The old man was shaking his head vigorously. “No,” he said. “No, no, it’s not what you think.”
“What do I think, Rook? You tell me.”
When Lancaster didn’t reply other than to keep shaking his head, Dylan continued. “I’m thinking I didn’t know you were on the board of World Resources.”
“N-no,” Lancaster said. “You-you don’t understand what you’re dealing with here. Release me. I … I can’t—” A gasp of pain escaped him.
Good.
“Actually, Rook, I think it’s you who doesn’t understand what you’re dealing with here—or who.”
“SDF,” Lancaster ground out with effort. Spittle came with the words, and more blood, and Dylan decided that maybe Kid had hit him harder than he’d thought. “Special Defense Force. I m-made you, created you out of nothing.”
“The same way you created LeedTech out of nothing?”
“No. No. That’s a CIA operation, LeedTech, not mine.”
Dylan referred to his papers again. “And yet,