Page 82 of In The Trenches (Owens Protective Services)

“That’s a good question, Adam. Do you want to tell me why your employee went missing just a few hours ago?”

His eyes went wide as I rounded the desk and grabbed him by the shirt, picking him up and slamming him down on the desk. I pulled my gun and pressed it into his face.

“Tell me where the fuck she is!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” he said, trembling beneath me.

“Don’t fucking lie to me! You were having her followed, weren’t you?”

“Only for her safety,” he said quickly.

“Why? Why would she need to be protected?”

“I…I don’t know!”

Obviously, the gun wasn’t scary enough. I stepped back and nodded to Red. “I think the elevator is in the basement.”

He nodded and grabbed Hayes from the other side of the desk, dragging him across until his body fell to the floor. He hauled him out of the office by his arm, his legs dragging on the floor as Hayes tried to find purchase. Red walked him right over to the elevator as Kavanaugh and I pried the doors open. We were on the fourth floor, which should be enough to scare the piss out of him at the very least.

Red jerked him to the edge, leaving him hovering over the gaping hole. “Where did your men take her?” Red asked.

“I don’t have any men!”

“Then why all the guards in the lobby and outside? What do you need so much protection for?”

“I swear,” he sputtered. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Let’s see about that,” he said, grabbing the phone from Hayes’s pocket. He tossed it to me and I redialed the last call he made.

“Boss, we’ve got the girl. When are you getting here?”

I narrowed my eyes at Hayes, watching as the color drained from his face. “Hayes can’t come to the phone right now. He’s staring down an elevator shaft, and if you touch a hair on the girl’s head, I’m not only going to drop your boss down it, I’m going to come after you. Only your death will be much more painful.”

The guy on the other end hung up.

“I guess he didn’t want to talk, but you’re going to. Otherwise, Red is going to throw you down that shaft. If you’re lucky, you’ll die on impact. If you’re not lucky, you’ll break a lot of bones and be down there for hours, possibly even days, suffering as you wait for someone to find you.”

“She’s a fucking nobody, man,” Hayes bit out.

“Wrong answer,” Red said, dragging the man’s body over the edge as he planted his boot against the elevator door. I grabbed the back of his vest, ensuring he didn’t follow Hayes over as well.

“Alright! Alright! I’ll tell you. Just don’t fucking drop me!”

Red cocked his head at him. “Are you sure? Because I don’t mind doing this again.”

“I swear! I’ll tell you!”

Red looked back at me and I nodded. He pulled Hayes back and flung him across the floor, slamming him into the wall. I walked over and knelt beside him. “Why do you want her so bad?”

“Because she saw the men that broke in here. She wouldn’t tell me what they looked like.”

“Why do you need that information?”

He dropped his eyes, taking a deep breath.

“You know what? That doesn’t matter right now. You think really hard about your answer. For now, I want the location of where your men took her. We’ll discuss the rest when I get back.”

He nodded and gave us the directions.

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