Page 15 of Under His Heel: A Kidnapping

Tracht sent the image on to both Espinosa and Anja Nilsen.

Then there was nothing left to do but wait.

[Chapter 6]

Alex’s mouth hung open, and blood and drool dripped down the side. He should probably close it.

Even swallowing hurt.

He kept his eyes closed, because if he opened them he’d have to look at that tray of implements, with the blood-stained pliers and his tooth lying next to them.

Same tooth. The same damn tooth that had been fixed once before. The tooth Tracht had given him back.

He was probably crying. His eyes felt swollen.

The bitch and her dog were saying something. He couldn’t really hear them. He flinched away when her hands touched his jaw, but that made her grip even tighter, and the pain flared up again.

Peter Nilsen laughed in his ear, only that couldn’t be right. He blinked away the wetness in his eyes and looked up. Only masked faces, stuffing cotton into his mouth to soak up the blood.

Crying, somewhere in the room. Maybe it was Nick, begging for another chance. Begging for them to spare him.

Yeah, Alex would go into bond servitude if it kept him from having to deal with this anymore. If his jaw could move, he’d tell them so.

Nick should just get on with talking them out of trouble. That was Nick’s job. Alex was too stupid for any of that.

If his mouth didn’t hurt so much, Alex would beg for forgiveness. Tracht liked it when Alex begged. Alex was good at begging. He tried to say “please” but all that came out was a pained moan.

How was he going to get Tracht to forgive him now?

The crying in the room got louder. Alex closed his eyes and tried very hard not to think about his mouth.

==

Nilsen contacted Tracht two hours later.

Found them. Come to the underside warehouses, alone. A set of coordinates was included after that.

“Alone” was dangerous, but Tracht didn’t even think about refusing. He told Anna he was going to check on his ship, ignored her anger, and left.

It took another half hour to wind his way to the underside warehouses. They were a layer below the docks, meant for long term storage of goods. Tracht had been there on occasion, meeting with a client who had something stored here that they needed transporting, but overall it was not a location that Tracht was intimately familiar with. The hum of the station’s main engine was louder here, and the only light came from the dull street lamps. The upper levels of the station were already approximating a dawn; down here, nobody could pretend they were anywhere but in space.

A larger vehicle was waiting at the specified coordinates, and the door opened when he got closer. Cautiously he approached, and Tracht saw Anja Nilsen sitting inside.

“Do join us,” she said, and Tracht obliged since he had little other choice.

Anja Nilsen sat on one side, her two brothers across from her. Her youngest brother, Peter, was blond with a full beard, dressed in what Tracht considered ‘organized crime casual.’

The other brother, Erik, was slimmer, with darker hair and sharper features, but the family resemblance held in the nasty expression on his face.

Tracht settled himself next to Anja Nilsen. “Well?”

“Straight to the point, I see. Scarface is being held inside here,” Anja Nilsen pointed to a map on her tablet. “Which is funny, since I’m pretty sure I own at least part of that building, and I never gave permission for its use.”

“The image of the vehicle you sent was helpful,” Erik Nilsen said. “We were able to match it to footage on our security cameras.”

“Still don’t see why we’re even bothering,” Peter Nilsen muttered, but he shut up when Anja Nilsen shot him a glare.

“I’ve got people going in there to neutralize the culprits. Got any requests?”

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