Story code: ST-000787
Part 2: The Setup
The heavy car door slammed shut, sealing them in.
“You’re late, Kevin,” the man in the backseat snapped, his voice tight. “LaGuardia. Terminal B. Take the lower level. I’ll tip you five hundred if we make it in twenty minutes.”
Marcus sat paralyzed. His hand hovered inches above the taped tire iron resting on his thigh. The wealthy man hadn’t even glanced at the driver’s seat. He was already hunched over his illuminated phone screen, typing in a frantic rhythm.
Muscle memory took over. Marcus smoothly slid his hand down, gripping the cold iron shaft, and shoved it deep into the gap beside the center console. He shifted into drive. The worn sedan groaned as he pulled away from the curb, leaving the frost-covered glass of the Cobalt Lofts behind.
The dashboard clock read ten-fifty. One hour and ten minutes until Silas’s men paid his mother a visit.
As they navigated the empty city blocks, Marcus darted his eyes to the rearview mirror. The stranger was vibrating with nervous energy. He reached for the slim leather briefcase beside him and popped the twin brass latches. The metallic clicks sounded like gunshots in the quiet cabin.
When the man lifted the lid, a passing streetlight flooded the backseat with a wash of yellow. Marcus’s breath caught. Inside the briefcase were neatly banded stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Dozens of them. It was easily a hundred thousand dollars in raw, untraceable cash. The fifteen thousand Marcus needed to save his mother’s life was sitting just three feet behind his head, entirely unguarded.
All Marcus had to do was pull into a dark alley, shift into park, and swing the heavy iron rod. But the absurdity of the target willingly climbing into his car had thrown his adrenaline-soaked brain off-balance.
Marcus hit his blinker and took a sharp right turn, veering away from the highway on-ramp. Instead, he steered the sedan toward the abandoned warehouse district bordering the river-a desolate grid of rusted fences and unlit streets.
“Where are you going?” the man demanded, looking up for the first time. “This isn’t the route to the expressway.”
“Road closure,” Marcus grunted, deepening his voice to hide his fear. “Taking the service roads.”
The man cursed under his breath and dialed a number on his phone, pressing it hard against his ear. “Answer, answer,” he muttered. A second later, he exhaled heavily. “It’s me. I’m in a car. I’ve got the liquid assets. All of it.”
Marcus slowed the sedan, scanning the pitch-black industrial road for the right spot to pull over. His knuckles turned white on the steering wheel.
“No, you don’t understand,” the passenger whispered fiercely into the phone. “They found the discrepancy. Silas knows. I don’t know how, but he found the missing ledgers. If his enforcers catch me before I get on that plane, he won’t just kill me. He’s going to make an example out of me.”
Marcus’s foot slipped off the gas pedal. The car decelerated sharply.
The name echoed in his ears. *Silas.*
A cold dread seeped into Marcus’s bones. He stared at the man in the rearview mirror. This wasn’t some random wealthy tenant who owed a debt. This was Silas’s own money man. The man who had stolen from the most ruthless crime boss in the city.
The pieces clicked together with horrifying clarity. Silas hadn’t given Marcus a random mark to pay off a fifteen-thousand-dollar debt. Silas had used him as a disposable pawn. A desperate kid with a tire iron sent to intercept a fleeing accountant because Silas’s own professionals hadn’t been in position yet. And if Marcus actually succeeded in taking the briefcase and returning it to Silas? He would be a loose end who had seen the stolen cash and the accountant’s face. Silas wouldn’t clear his debt; Silas would bury him in the same hole.
Suddenly, the interior of the sedan was blinded by an explosion of white light.
Marcus threw his arm up to shield his eyes as the rearview mirror flared like a miniature sun. The sleek, dark SUV from outside the Cobalt Lofts had appeared out of nowhere. It had roared down the empty service road without headlights until this very second, and was now aggressively riding their rear bumper.
“Oh god,” the passenger screamed, dropping his phone. “They found me! Drive! Step on it, you idiot!”
Marcus slammed his foot on the accelerator. The old sedan’s engine whined in protest, tires spinning on black ice before catching the asphalt. But the SUV was infinitely faster and heavier. With a terrifying crunch of metal and shattering glass, the SUV rammed directly into the back of Marcus’s car.
The impact threw Marcus forward, the seatbelt biting violently into his collarbone.
He fought the jerking steering wheel, desperately trying to keep the car straight as they rocketed down the icy road. The SUV pulled back and rammed them again, harder. The sedan fishtailed, breaking traction completely. Marcus spun the wheel into the skid, but the car slid sideways, hopping the curb with a violent jolt that blew out the front right tire.
The sedan smashed side-first into a heavy chain-link fence, the metal buckling with a deafening screech before grinding to a violent halt. Steam hissed from the crumpled hood. The dashboard clock blinked an angry orange. Ten fifty-six.
Marcus sat dazed, his ears ringing. Beside his leg, his fingers brushed the cold steel of the tire iron. In the backseat, the wealthy accountant groaned, clutching his bleeding forehead, the open briefcase spilling cash across the floorboards.
Outside, the dark SUV parked diagonally across the street, boxing them in. The heavy click of car doors opening cut through the hiss of the dying radiator. Two massive figures stepped out into the freezing night, metal glinting in their hands. Marcus had twenty-four minutes to save his mother, an overflowing briefcase of stolen cash at his feet, and two of Silas’s killers walking slowly toward his shattered window.