Page 39 of Devil's Deal

Dante blinked. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

He started patting the wall on the other side. “Well, shit. No wonder he’s got someone wandering in and out of the guest’s hotel rooms.”

“And now I know exactly who it is,” I growled. I noticed a framed photo of Cory and his nephew that I’d never seen before, and I realized that I’d almost forgotten about the kid. Cory’s last remaining relative. First, I’d get my boy back, and then I’d investigate that. Everest was right. My boy needed someone to watch out for him.

I slid my hand up under the picture and felt a slight depression. I pushed harder, and a door-sized crack formed in the wall. “Yes.”

“That’s cool,” Dante said, sounding awed. “Tunnels are kickass.”

“Don’t get too excited. Huey knocked Cory out with the barrel of his gun and rolled him into here in his office chair.”

“You’re shitting me.” Dante pulled his piece out from the back of his pants. “Let’s go take care of this fucker.”

We went through, going to the left until we hit the corner where the tunnel split. It went up to the right at an incline, or if we went straight ahead, it went down at a decline. Since he’d had Cory in that chair, I’d bet money he went down. Cory had been down here at least half-an-hour, and I didn’t want to gamble on his life with a psycho with a gun.

“What do you think?” Dante asked. “Up or down?”

I hesitated, then pointed down. Moving as stealthily as possible, we headed down until we came to a sharp turn to the left. There were a couple of stairs and then another decline. “What do you think? Keep going this way or head back up?”

What did I think? I thought I was going to pull Huey’s heart out through his mouth. I didn’t feel rage or fury, but fear so heart-stopping that I was ready to come out of my skin. I’d never experienced anything like this. I’d never cared about the well-being of someone else in such a fundamental way like this before.

I was ready to turn around and go in the other direction when I heard a raised voice from deeper down in the tunnel. Dante and I exchanged a look, and then treading softly, I went to get my boy.

Chapter

Fifteen

CORY

Somehow,I’d ended up in hell. I came to slowly, trying to lift a hand to my throbbing head, but my wrists were bound together with rope in front of me. Blinking sluggishly, I fought to open my eyes. Muttered words hit my ears as what happened slowly began trickling into my mind.

“Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. You lost your shit. Now what are you going to do?”

Peering through the slits of my eyelids, I saw Huey pacing back and forth, clutching his hair and muttering to himself. I wanted to get my bearings before he knew I was awake, but a cough choked out of my throat unexpectedly. He spun in my direction, his hands falling from his hair, and he glared at me.

“This is your fault.”

“Huey.” I coughed again, then cleared my throat. “What are you doing? Where are we?” My voice sounded so rough to my own ears, hoarse and scratchy, like I was recovering from strep throat.

“You did this!” He screamed. “It’s you and people like you that screw up everything. You have this big, beautiful hotel, and you couldn’t even let me have this.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, and my head hurt so badly that I didn’t have it in me to worry about him. But no, I had to care because he’d me tied up. “I’m sorry, Huey. Whatever I did, I’m so sorry. Can you…can you untie me?”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a gun, aiming it at my chest.Applesauce.That’s right.He’d hit me with his gun. This wasn’t good. “No. You’re going to stay right here until I figure out how to get out of this mess. Shit. This is all your fault.”

“What did I do? I’m sorry, but I don’t understand,” I admitted. I hadn’t felt this confused since the police officers arrived at my house to tell me that Mac had died in a car accident.

He waved the gun in my direction again. “Of course you don’t. Why would you? You’ve had everything handed to you on a silver platter. You don’t care about people like me. My grandfather always said that it was people like you who ruined everything for the rest of us. But I didn’t listen to him, Cory. No, I believed you. Big cheese, my ass.” He spit on the ground.

My head throbbed, and his babbling wasn’t helping. He made no sense. Moving my head just a little, I tried to take in my surroundings. We were in some kind of metal-like box with a hole the size of a door opening into beyond. He had a lantern on top of a table with fast food bags, paper cups, and wrappers. On the floor behind him, it looked like a sleeping bag and pillows in a crumpled heap.

“Huey, have you been sleeping here?”

“Sometimes. When my girl throws me out. Or when she’s nagging too much. She always wants something. That baby’s always screaming. You always want something. Why won’t anybody ever leave me alone?”

He clutched his head between both hands, the gun pointing up at the ceiling. I wondered if I could take him down if I rammed my shoulder into his stomach. He was a lanky man, bordering on scrawny. He’d never made use of Vigor or any of the other facilities here, so I knew if I was fully functioning, he’d go down easily. Especially since it hadn’t occurred to him that my legs weren’t bound.

The problem was, I wasn’t at full capacity. My head screamed with pain, and without the use of my hands, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get the gun away from him before he used it. How the hell had what should’ve been a simple employer-employee confrontation led to this?

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