Page 5 of Hidden Ascent

Jay put his hand on the boy’s shoulder but pressed down to keep him in the seat instead of doing what he was asked.

Benny couldn’t have been more than eleven, and he was scared.

“Jay, what are you doing? I gave you an order. Drag that piece of garbage over here. I don’t want to get blood on the furniture.”

Jay couldn’t figure out what annoyed him more, that Spider thought he could order him around or that an eleven-year-old kid was about to be tortured for information.

“You gave me an order, did you? Last I checked, I don’t work for you, Spider. Besides, this was never part of the arrangement. I don’t do torture.”

“I never asked you to do it, did I?”

“I think it’s time to let the kid go.”

“Not until he gives us Ezra.”

Ezra was the reason Spider’s uncle had hired Jay. He’d made a mess, and Jay was good at cleaning up messes for whoever wanted to pay him. Often it was other criminals, but he’d been known to do jobs for the feds every now and then too.

“Hurting kids was never part of the plan.”

“Don’t tell me you’re soft.”

“I have standards.”

Spider laughed and looked at the other two guys with him to make sure they joined in. “Standards?” he spat. “You hear that, boys? Jay Parker has standards. Well, Parker, that’s not what I hear.”

“I don’t actually care what you hear.”

Jay knew the talk that went around about him. He was fine with it. It gave him a scary reputation, and most of it was true. Truer than he usually admitted to himself. It was the reason he’d set boundaries for himself. He’d gone down a dark path for a while and had barely come out of it alive. He had to make sure he never went down there again.

“You should,” Spider said. “My uncle hired you to help me. He gave you to me. Now you do as I say, standards or not.”

“Shoemaker hired me to clean up after Ezra, not be your lapdog.” And Jay preferred to walk in neutral territory. He didn’t pick sides. He did what he was paid for and moved on. And he certainly wouldn’t ever agree to work under someone else’s command. “I knew I never should have taken this job.”

“Oh yeah? Then why did you?”

“I wish I knew.”

When Spider’s uncle had offered Jay the job, he’d known in his gut he should turn it down, but he’d ignored it. So here he was being told what to do by a cocky narcissist who didn’t care what damage he did as long as it got him his own way.

Spider was a twenty-two-year-old who’d been given authority way before his time by some idiot who should have known better. And Jay was going to pay for it. The power had gone to his head, and people like that can’t be reasoned with.

Spider pulled his gun and pointed it at Jay. “What’ll it be? You gonna do what I say, or am I gonna have to shoot you dead?”

“You’re going to shoot me now?”

“Why not?”

“’Cause it would be a waste of a bullet.”

Spider ran his tongue along his teeth. “Maybe, but it sure would feel good.”

“Fine, shoot me. But I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“We didn’t pay you to think, we paid you to do a job.”

“Thinking is part of my job,” Jay said, then added in a mumble. “Imbecile.”

Spider flinched, then stepped up to him. “What did you say to me?”

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