Page 103 of The Chemist

Around the room, the other captives squirmed and began to cry out, begging for mercy and to be released. But not Diesel. He was too proud for that. Diesel would never give this asshole the pleasure of seeing him scared.

“Oh, and just in case any of you were thinking of escaping, good luck. We’re surrounded by sixty kilometers of forest on either side of this private facility. Even if you do manage to escape, you’ll never find your way out of the darkness… especially with your mind belonging to me.” The doctor gave them all a sinister smile before breaking out in an evil-villain laugh.

Diesel watched as the doctor left the room without even bothering to give them one last glance. And why would he? They were nothing but lab rats being used to test out his new designer drugs and apparently provide live entertainment to a bunch of bored old rich people.

The woman beside Diesel screamed as one of the men pierced her arm with a needle.

This was it. This was how the Diesel Pratt story came to an end. Alone and in the most painful way imaginable.

It was too bad, really. He would have liked to have seen what life could have been like having Zero by his side. As much as he hated to admit it, he was really falling hard for the annoying, washed-up CK model.

Yes, the man was arrogant and cocky and way too good for his own liking, but Zero also cared. He had a good heart, and most importantly, he saw Diesel. He understood and always encouraged him to be who he was. That was the type of man that you could be proud to have by your side. The type of man that you could spend your life loving and sharing life with.

Too bad he wasn’t going to get the chance to see what could have been. No, this was how his life was always meant to turn out, it seemed. Alone. Sad. And always in darkness.

He couldn’t say that he was surprised. He kind of always knew that this was how his life was going to end. No happily ever after, no loving family by his side. Just him, alone, high as fuck, and probably in as violent a way as possible.

Diesel felt a prick in his arm, and then his lids got heavy as the drug slowly entered his system.

It was strange how a drug could make you feel both cool and warm as it spread through your veins.

39

ZERO

If there was one thing that Zero learned these past twenty-four hours, it was that Diesel’s family—not his biological one—but his French stripper-club family was crazy. The whole lot of them.

The father, Matteo—the one who tracked his boy—was like some kind of mafioso godfather-type man who apparently lived in a castle and had a team of super assassins at his beck and call.

Ares, the godfather’s “husband,” who had also been shot by said husband, was apparently wanted by half the world’s governments.

Then, of course, there were Diesel’s so-called brothers. A pack of emotionally damaged guys who were also apparently undercover stripper-badass heroes who fought crime and rescued their siblings on weekends.

Chase was the unlucky person who got to call Matteo and inform him that one of his favorite sons, a so-called recovering drug addict, even though he didn’t seem to be cutting back on all drugs, had been drugged and kidnapped by a deranged doctor who was in the process of transporting him and a few othersback to his super-secret villain lair, way out in the middle of nowhere.

After what sounded like a million death threats and more swear words than a drunken sailor with Tourette’s, the head of the naked crime family hopped onto his private jet with his stripper guild and league of super-secret assassin commandos and met Chase and crew at the airfield so that they could jump into a fleet of souped-up vans and hunt down and rescue the godfather’s missing son.

He couldn’t make this shit up even if he tried.

On the plus side, Diesel’s tracker had come back online two hours ago and settled on a spot deep in a secluded forested area a few hours outside of London.

Working, yes. But that wasn’t to say that the watch was not still working on Diesel’s severed arm, which had been buried apart from the rest of his body. Just because the thing was working didn’t guarantee that Diesel was alright.

Zero shook his head. What was wrong with him? The guy who he kind of, sort of, maybe perhaps kinda loved was being held captive by a crazy mad doctor guy.

“I fuckin’ hate long-ass car rides,” one of the guys from the super-secret assassin crew said as his body bounced up and down in sync with the bumps in the road.

They had left the pavement about twenty minutes ago and were now venturing through secondary roads that no doubt led to something evil and sinister.

For a bunch of badass meatheads, this one did a lot of whining and complaining.

“Have some vodka. It will toughen you up and put some hair on those raisins you call balls,” Ares yammered, holding out a bottle of vodka he had been drinking.

The guy raised his middle finger as he leaned back against the wall in the back of the van. Ares returned the gesture with asmile. There were six of them huddled in the back of the van—three on one side, three sitting directly across.

Behind them were two other vans also containing a mixture of strippers and super-secret commandos who apparently ate nothing but protein shakes for every meal—the commandos, not the strippers. The strippers apparently ate veggies and cock, according to Levi, who was busy complaining that one of the commandos—a big burly Serbian named Vukan—smelled like fried liver and beans.

They were about thirty minutes away from their destination. They pulled over the vans and began getting themselves ready. They weren’t sure what they were going to find, so it was safer if they got dressed, applied their camouflage, and loaded their weapons before they arrived.

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