20

Luc was vaguely aware of what was going on around him… Kent moving to the door, trying it, unable to open it… he and Brad futilely throwing their weight against it… their panicked cries about being trapped.

Other words had a death grip on his thoughts… She thought you were in trouble. She was worried about you. She cared about you…

Each word, each syllable was a drop of acid eating through Luc’s brain.

Poor Nadia. She was looking out for me while I was contracting her death. What have I become? What sort of monster am I? What brought me so low?

He raised his head from his pool of misery and found Dragovic staring at him from the far side of the table.

“So,” the Serb said with a lopsided grin. “It is just the four of us again.” He rose and moved along the table with a barely perceptible limp. The wound wasn’t slowing him down. He pointed to the stranger’s package. “Let’s see what your man left us.”

“He’s not our man,” Kent said. “We’ve never seen him before in our lives. At least I haven’t.”

“Me neither,” said Brad.

“He said you hired him.”

“Never!” Brad cried. “He said he ‘was hired.’ But not by us.”

All eyes turned to Luc.

“You got rid of the Radzminsky woman without checking with us,” Kent said. “Did you hire that man as well?”

Luc said nothing. He no longer cared what they thought.

Dragovic pulled at the paper towels wrapped around the stranger’s package. They unrolled in one long strip until four carving knives fell free and clattered onto the table.

“Oh… my… God!” Brad whispered.

Dragovic picked up the longest and ran his finger along the edge. “Sharp,” he said, grinning. He shoved the point toward Luc. “Want to feel?”

Luc gripped the front of his shirt and ripped it open, sending a button bouncing across the table. He thrust his exposed chest at Dragovic.

“Do it! Go ahead—do it!”

Luc was not bluffing. He was sick to his soul and could almost welcome ending it all right here.

“Don’t dare me. Because I will—and your two partners as well.”

“Don’t even joke about something like that!” Kent cried.

“Who’s joking?”

“Start with me,” Luc said. “I don’t care anymore.”

It was something of a shock to realize that he truly did not care, and that granted him a bounty of wild courage.

Dragovic stared at him, his grin gone. “You will care when this bites into your throat.”

“Stop this talk!” Brad said. “You can’t get away with harming any of us. We’re all trapped here until the cleaning service shows up.” He glanced at his watch. “And they should be here within the hour.”

“Right,” Kent said. “You don’t want them to find you here with a dead body and blood on your hands, do you? Even your lawyers won’t get you off on that one.”

Dragovic considered this, then shrugged. He tossed the knife onto the table. “Some other time, then.” He leaned closer to Luc. “When you care. Because I want you to care.”