clearly more senior men had been. They taunted Luca. They swore and cursed and made a show of it, clearly enjoying the violence for violence’s sake.
The sounds surprised her; below the cruel, stupid comments and jeers were other noises. The slap of Luca’s body hitting the concrete when a backhand to the face knocked him off his knees and sent his glasses skittering across the basement floor. Luca’s wet coughs after he was kicked in the stomach.
Oscar squatted down to pick up the glasses. Selene took them from him, shoving them in her front hoodie pocket.
Every few blows, Boss would order the others to stop, and he would question Luca, switching to what she was fairly sure was Italian. Luca’s answers, when he gave them, were terse, just one word.
“No” was the same in most languages.
“Fuck,” Oscar snarled. “Just give them the damned plans.” His words weren’t loud enough for Luca to hear; it was more as if he were willing Luca to do it.
“We could give them the plans,” Selene whispered against Oscar’s back.
Oscar turned his back to the room, hugging her, as if comforting her when, in reality, he brought his lips to her ear, continuing their conversation. “Right before they grabbed him, he was trying to warn us not to say we have them.”
Selene nodded, then winced at the sound of another vicious blow landing. “They’re going to kill him.”
“Actually, I don’t think they are. I’ve been watching him, and Luca is shifting right before the blows land.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He’s leaning out of the way, or twisting so they aren’t hitting his kidneys.”
“They’re still hurting him.”
“Yeah, but they’re not killing him…and they don’t seem to realize what he’s doing. Not even the smart one.”
“I think the two senior guys might have accents, but the dumb ones sound American.”
“The leader and the guy standing beside him are the dangerous ones.”
“Boss and his number one henchman. I agree. But they all have guns.”
“And we’re trapped in a fucking basement with them.”
“We have to do something, get all of us out of here. I can’t just stand here listening to,” a thud sounded, followed by a low moan from Luca, “that.”
“What the fuck can we do?” Oscar snapped.
“I don’t know,” she said, irritated, which was a far better feeling than sick and scared. “This feels like some sort of low-budget gangster movie.”
“Yeah, well, you’re the one who’s halfway to supervillain. Out bad-guy the bad guys,” Oscar grumped.
Selene repressed the insane and inappropriate urge to howl with laughter. “Okay, you’re my loyal sidekick.”
“I was joking.”
“I wasn’t,” she said with a smirk.
Oscar grunted, but turned away so he was standing beside rather than in front of her.
Selene started walking. She walked right past Luca, who was curled on the floor, his face bloody, and through the line of henchmen, Oscar next to her every step of the way. They made it as far as the stairs before Boss barked, “Stop.”
She turned to face them, trying to ignore the four guns that were now trained on her.
“You will not leave,” Boss growled. She could see now he wasn’t a particularly strong man. In fact, his bulk was more fat than muscle.
“I have no interest in remaining. My time is valuable.” Selene adjusted her glasses and looked at each of them. “This man approached me through improper channels. We were addressing the break in decorum when you arrived. Clearly you have a preexisting arrangement. Therefore, my men and I are leaving.”
From the way Boss Henchman shifted uneasily, she was fairly sure her use of unnecessarily large words had worked. She was banking on his English not being good enough—and the others not being smart enough—to realize she’d just said a whole lot of nothing.
“We should shoot them,” Chicago said with relish.
He was clearly not the brains, but stupid was dangerous.
“We were just supposed to get the Italian guy, right?” Teenager asked, looking around. Several of the henchmen had a quick conversation before Boss waved his hand at them and snapped in Serbian (or Croatian) something that didn’t really need to be translated. Telling someone to “shut the fuck up” was all about the tone.
The others fell silent as Boss turned back to Selene. “Why did he come?” He gestured to her, the meaning clear enough.
There were more of them, and they had guns, both of which made them dangerous, but despite their military-style equipment—which implied both experience and discipline—they lacked the level of confidence she would have expected.