Page 46 of Striker

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Queenie wakes up the next morning with renewed vigor. She goes right back to bullying the crew. Only this time, she has the added advantage of them knowing their boss has a gigantic crush on her. That makes her even more untouchable than she was before. She’s louder and more exhausting than she was yesterday.

She has already worked out which of them she rattled worst on the drive here and picks on them first. She targets Theo first, somehow managing to wrap a reminder of his humiliation on the way here into a specially targeted insult. “I’m really sorry I kicked you in the balls, Theo. That wasn’t a very nice thing to do, though I’m sure it’s not the first time. You look like you got bullied a lot when you were younger. Small, weak men like you often do.” Then she follows up with, “Theo is such a nice name. It must be short for Theodore—God’s gift, that’s what your name means, did you know that? Your mother must have been so happy when you were born to name you that.” After a three-second pause, she asks, “Does your mother know what you do for a living, Theodore? I think she’d be ashamed if she knew you were out kidnapping women and roughing them up.”

He goes ramrod straight and the color drains from his face. He spins around so we can see the effect her words have on him.

Twenty minutes later, she’s wondering out loud, “I have to admit that you boys are growing on me. I worry about how many of you the Sons of Rage brothers will leave breathing and how many they’ll leave in the ground.” She says it so sincerely that two of them get up from the card table and walk right out the front door.

After that, Roderick storms in and glares at her before saying, “You need to keep that mouth of yours shut. You’re freaking everyone out.”

Queenie just folds her arms over her chest and says with a cold smile, “Your boys sure do scare easily. Are they scared of the dark too?”

Roderick just stares at her for a long, hard moment before pointing at her with one stubby finger. “I’m not fuckin’ jokin’. Cut it the hell out. Things around here are stressful enough without you running your mouth constantly.”

She just shrugs. “They say work stress can really take a toll on a person. Maybe they picked the wrong career path. I’ll talk that over with your boss when he comes back. He seems like a reasonable man.”

That shuts Roderick right up. He stalks over to the card table and flings himself into one of the chairs. That’s when I realize the only reason he’s here is because Queenie literally ran all the others off. I grudgingly admire her bravery, dedication to the strategy she’s decided on, and the amazing talent she has for getting under their skin.

Throughout the course of the day, these men, who started out confident and cocky, slowly run out of steam. By the afternoon they’re wary and unsettled. By the time evening rolls around, something interesting happens. They all look a bit ashamed and can no longer meet our eyes, much less treat us like shit. Queenie is small but fierce. She’s somehow managed to spook the entire crew. Even Roderick is looking uncomfortable.

I also realize they are calling in reinforcements. A slow trickle of trucks brings men that don’t leave. Instead, they take up positions around the building. There are nine men by that evening. And by my count over a dozen by the end of the day. The men showing up now are a little older and they have hardened, battle-worn expressions.

Something out there is squeezing his whole operation down into this one filthy building, and I don’t have to think too hard to guess what that something is. I’ve reconciled enough ledgers over the last three years to know what a business looks like when it’s about to close up shop. Step one falls into the category of acts of desperation. Most businesses don’t resort to kidnapping, but they resort to other desperate measures to rectify what they think went wrong. The second sign is closing down sites and sending employees to a centralized location, hoping to keep all the balls in the air until they fix what’s broken. I see that pattern happening right now. The signs are all around me.

Eventually, the old man shows back up. I still don’t know his name. The other men mostly call him sir or boss. I overhear one of the new men call him Mr. Delaney. So now I have a name to attach to the evil that somehow crept into my life.

His phone never stops buzzing, and every time he answers it or one of his men comes in to report something, a little more of the polish flakes off. The affluent grandfather persona slowly fades, revealing that something darker was hiding underneath all along. Finally, he gets frustrated and begins silencing his phone every time it buzzes.

He’s got some kind of strange obsession with that expensive leather messenger bag he wears slung over his body. He never takes it off. I’ve only seen him open it a time or two to pull out stacks of cash to give to his men for various things. I swear that sometimes he fondles it without seeming to realize it. Delaney is a strange man. There’s more going on here than I can get my head around. I’m almost sure of it.

We’ve been here for nearly two days. I’m starting to wonder if we’ll ever get rescued. Queenie tells me to hang tight and says that the Sons will be coming. She says that the fact Delaney’s getting more rattled shows that they know who he is and they’re trying to get to him. It’s only a matter of time before they track him down to his hideout.

And even though he’s slowly unraveling, his attention keeps drifting back to Queenie. That part I already understood, from the way he looked at her that first night. I realized he was infatuated with her the first day. What I didn’t pick up on until now is how much stress his fixation puts her under. She’s as standoffish as a woman in her situation can be without provoking his ire. He either doesn’t seem to notice or thinks he can get her to warm up to him with enough time, attention and consideration.

He circles around her, stops to shoot the shit, asks her opinion about things not related to our situation, and lets her select the food and drinks. She’s exactly polite enough to keep him warm and not thinking about killing us.

I feel terrible that she’s in this situation. It’s my fault. I dragged a bunch of nice people into the shit show that’s my life. And now Queenie is separated from her loving biker family and having to deal with Delaney’s unwanted attention when everyone knows how dedicated she is to her husband, Rock. They built a nice life for themselves, and she doesn’t deserve to be here. Neither of us does.

On the second evening, Delaney starts breaking down. His mask slips a little more after a particularly distressing phone call. He crosses the room to confront me, his voice shaking with anger. “Do you have any idea what they’re doing to me?”

I’m taken aback. “I’m being held hostage. How would I know anything?”

“Thirty years of work is going up in smoke. All because of you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say defensively. Glancing nervously around at his crew, who are all staring at me, I fold my arms over my stomach and try not to look browbeaten by him.

He shoots back, “You know something? It’s not even the money, though God knows they’re costing me a small fortune. It’s the time you’ve cost me. Because of you, my son has been wasting away in a prison cell for three fucking years. And now, those damn bikers are destroying everything that was supposed to be his. They’re burning my entire legacy, all because of you.”

That’s when everything finally clicks into place. This isn’t actually about springing the only man in the world that launders his money. It’s because my old boss is his son. This isn’t about money; it’s about blood.

“Vale is your son?” I ask.

His mouth snaps shut. He doesn’t really have to answer my question because in the heat of the moment, he’s already let the cat out of the bag.

“You’re not spending all that time and money to get him out on a legal technicality because he’s good at what he does professionally. It’s because he’s your son.”

I don’t get confirmation, only a cold stare for two seconds before his hand darts forward and wraps around my throat. “You think you’re a smart little bitch, don’t you?”