to empty the chamber, and put it all in his pocket. The pat-down that followed was thorough and ended with his phone in that pocket too, the combined bulk dragging the guy’s jacket sideways. Nick clenched his sore jaw against the temptation to wisecrack. Eventually, the guard tugged him to his feet.
“Bring them down?” he asked the first guy.
“Hang on.” The first guard moved away, gun still trained on launcher-guy, to have a short, tense phone conversation in another language. When he was done, he said, “Yeah, boss wants to see them. Move nice and easy and smile, in case someone called in the launcher before we cleared it.” He went to the young man and pulled him up, gun tucked against him under his jacket. “Now we all head down, real slow. Any wrong moves and we’ll leave you to bleed out. Start walking.”
The second guard did the same to Nick, holding him in close by his right arm. Nick moved carefully, aware of the gun barrel pressed against his ribs. They took the stairs down a floor, then went out into the hallway. Nick half expected someone to be standing around wondering about the fight noises, but the doors they passed were all shut. Must be good soundproofing.
They rode down in the elevator. Two women were waiting on the seventh floor, but Nick’s little crowd must’ve been giving off some bad vibes, because they looked in and stepped back. “We’ll wait for the next one.”
A man got on at four, and then another at three. The guards pulled Nick and the launcher guy back toward the corners, and they all ignored each other until the doors opened at the lobby. The two new arrivals strode off, the speed of their walks suggesting they’d tuned in on something uncomfortable too. Nick’s guard said, “Front door or back?”
“Back. Quieter.” They were steered down a hallway, out a side door and over to the back of Brian’s building. Nick spotted the moment the young launcher guy decided to make a run for it, and the guard must’ve picked up on it too, because he tripped the man and kicked him in the head, hard. Dragging his woozy prisoner to his feet, the guard opened the back door with a key, and hurried them inside.
The trip up to the sixteenth floor was another silent, tense elevator ride. When the doors opened, another heavy-jawed, dark-haired man waited for them. “Which one had the launcher?”
The first guard shoved his prisoner out and down. “This one.”
“You hit him?”
“Kicked. He was thinking about running, and the boss would prefer him alive.”
“Right.” The new man waved. “Take the other guy in there.”
Nick’s captor pushed him forward through a doorway into what seemed like an ordinary waiting room and shut the door behind them. Nick said, “Can I sit down?” Confident. Non-threatening.
The man hesitated. “I guess.”
Nick lowered himself into one of the upholstered chairs, trying to look at ease while keeping his feet flat on the floor, ready to move. “Did that launcher hit anybody on the way down?”
“My boss will ask the questions.”
Nick shrugged. He was starting to feel all the blows launcher-guy had landed. He hoped he didn’t stiffen up enough to look like an arthritic grandpa getting up. Or move that slow, either.
He was trying to subtly rotate his shoulders when the door opened and the first guard stuck his head in. “Boss wants to see him.”
This time, the guards didn’t grab him, just waved him ahead of them down the hall. The guns were still out, though. There was another waiting room at the end, this one plush and fancy with a deep pile carpet and leather chairs. The guards gestured Nick on through a doorway, into the conference room beyond.
Brian stood on one side of the long table beside Lori and Damon. Nick kept his glance that way short and unemotional. How to play this? If Boris’s men had been watching Brian, they’d surely know who Nick was.
The man at the end of the table was perhaps forty, stocky, balding, wearing a suit Nick couldn’t begin to price. His pose spoke of the power in the room, and Nick inclined his head. “Sir?”
“I am Mr. Lebedev. Sir will do fine. Who are you?”
“Nick Rugo, sir.”
A thin woman sitting opposite Brian said, “The queer one’s boyfriend.”
“Ah.” Boris steepled his fingers and turned to a young blond man beside her. “Do you know this one?”
The man glanced at Nick. “No, sir.”
“And—” Boris leaned forward, lifting