“Flex is the only one who’s killed someone. You can get out of this if you turn him in.”
The ugly man had half smiled, as if he’d felt sorry for the Private agent in front of him. “You really should have stayed in the amateur leagues.”
Knight had heard a sound behind him. Then had come darkness.
He regained consciousness in the back of a van. His head covered, he had no concept of where he was or for how long he’d been unconscious. All he knew for certain was that he’d been abducted, and that he was in serious trouble.
The van stopped, and he felt the suspension move as a significant weight departed, opened the door and climbed into the rear. A second later, what must have been a meaty hand swiped Knight’s hooded head, sending it bouncing off the wooden floorboard.
“Are you awake?” Flex asked.
Knight said nothing. Flex hit him again. Already bruised from the hit he had taken in Mayoor Patel’s home, Knight gritted his teeth against the pain.
“I said, are you awake?”
“I’m awake,” Knight replied, tasting blood on his teeth. The hessian sacking of his hood smelled rank and musty as it pressed against his face.
“Morgan’s on the phone,” Flex told him. “Say hello.”
“Morgan?” Knight asked, raising his voice so that it would carry, “I—”
Flex finished the conversation for him, savagely punching Knight so that the man’s groans carried all the message needed. Then Flex stepped from the van’s rear doors and shut Knight alone in the confines of his misery.
Chapter 98
“STILL THERE, JACK?” Flex said, climbing back into the passenger seat and motioning for Rider to drive.
“I’m here,” Morgan growled down the phone. “Now what is it you want, Flex? You haven’t killed him. There must be a reason. How much do you want?”
“This isn’t about money, Jack. You should know that by now.”
“I’ll give you twenty million dollars.”
Flex laughed, but beside him Rider frowned, tuning into the conversation. Flex tried to silence the man’s piqued interest with a hard look, but it didn’t work.
“This isn’t about money,” Flex said again, as much for Rider’s benefit as for Morgan’s. “The reason he’s still alive is that I want to kill him slowly. And I want you to know all about it, Jack. I want you to see it. I want you to hear it. I want you to feel it. I don’t like my chances of getting you alive, but he’s close enough for what I’ve got planned. You I can deal with later.”
“Why wait?” Morgan asked. “Deliver Knight unhurt, and you can have me. You can have your fun with me.”
“I wasn’t born yesterday, you dickhead.”
There was a moment of silence on the line. Flex felt Rider’s scowl—the man clearly unhappy that £20 million had been so quickly dismissed.
“Talk to him about the money,” the ugly man urged, only shutting up when Flex strained against his seat belt like an angry pit bull.
“Well, if we’ve got nothing more to talk about, Jack—”
“How do you like loose ends, Flex? Because I’ve got one of yours in the car with me, and he’s about to get dropped at Private HQ.”
“Bollocks,” Flex snorted.
“His name’s Chris Herbert,” Morgan announced, giving away the details of how, and where, he had taken the man. Flex’s face grew more angry with each piece of information. “He’s ready to roll on you. You may kill Knight, you may kill me, but this is solid evidence against you, Flex. You’ll be on the run for the rest of your life.”
It took every measure of Flex’s self-control not to dash the phone to pieces. He had never expected to stay in the UK after enacting his revenge, but there was a big difference between being a suspect who quietly slipped off the radar leaving only theories and no evidence, and one of the culprits testifying to his guilt.
“Fuck!” he finally shouted, losing the battle with his rage and the synthetic testosterone that coursed through his body. “I’ll give you your man back once you put a bullet in that useless bastard’s brain!”
“Do your own dirty work,” Morgan replied, the sounds of a panic-stricken Herbert coming from behind him as he strained against the tape on his mouth. “Herbert for Knight.”