Chapter 5 - The Coded Transmission
The first thing Kora Whitlock noticed after she woke was the cold.
Not the men.
Not the coarse plastic zip-tie cutting into her raw wrists.
Not even the phone held six inches from her face while a stranger smiled and told her to speak to the most dangerous man in San Antonio.
The cold.
It crawled through the concrete floor of the abandoned warehouse, through her sneakers, through her bones.
Somewhere above her, old industrial pipes knocked inside the peeling walls.
A naked sixty-watt bulb swung over her head, casting swaying yellow shadows across the damp room.
Stefan Maro stood before her.
He was a hulking brute with a scarred jaw and dead gray eyes.
He tilted his smartphone closer to her face.
On the screen, a speakerphone connection was active.
“Tell him you're alive,” Stefan growled.
Kora stared at the glowing digital numbers.
She could hear Damon breathing on the other end.
That frightened her more than shouting would have.
Damon Vascari did not breathe like a frightened man.
He did not plead.
He did not panic.
According to every whispered story in San Antonio, Damon Vascari was the man other dangerous men called when they were already out of options.
And yet Kora knew, with terrifying certainty, that tonight he was afraid.
For her.
Six weeks earlier, she had been standing behind a folding table selling eighteen-dollar bracelets and joking about becoming a mafia boss's queen.
Now somebody wanted to know exactly how much the mafia boss would sacrifice to get his “queen” back.
The absurdity might have made her laugh if a black semiautomatic pistol had not been resting on the folding table three feet away.
Stefan smiled a greasy, cruel smile.
“Go ahead,” Stefan mocked.
“Say goodbye or beg for help.”
Kora raised her chin.
Her head throbbed from the chloroform, and her lips were cracked from the draft.
And because she had spent most of her life surviving frightening things by noticing what everyone else missed, she did not say what Stefan expected.
She did not scream.
She did not weep.
She took a deep breath, inhaling the damp air of the basement.
Mixed with the mold and copper pipes was a thick, unmistakable fragrance.
It was the heavy, citrus-infused caribou leather oil.
The exact same dressing oil Garrett Vance had worn in Damon’s office.
Garrett was in this building.
Or this was Garrett’s personal off-the-books storage facility.
Kora leaned toward the microphone.
“Damon, I’m okay,” she said clearly.
“And this basement smells like leather oil.”
Stefan’s greasy smile faltered.
His brow furrowed in confusion.
Kora kept going before Stefan could pull the device back.
“Really strong leather oil.”
“Funny, isn't it?”
“Garrett always told me he’d never been inside this building.”
Silence hung over the phone line for two excruciating seconds.
Then Damon spoke.
His voice was not loud.
It was a flat, lethal whisper that sent a shiver through Stefan’s spine.
One single word.
“Understood.”
Stefan grabbed the phone away and cursed loudly.
“What was that gibberish?” Stefan roared, slapping the phone onto the table.
Kora smiled.
It was a very small, bloody smile.
Her lip had split during her capture, but her eyes were clear as winter ice.
It was the smile of a woman who had just moved one piece on a board full of armed men.
Stefan did not realize what she had done.
He thought she was babbling from delirium.
He walked over to a steel door at the back of the basement and banged on it with his fist.
The door opened, revealing Garrett Vance standing in the shadows, holding a heavy duffel bag packed with stolenbearer bonds.
“Did Kesler approve the ransom exchange?” Garrett asked nervously.
“She spoke to Damon,” Stefan replied, scowling.
“The girl is crazy.”
“She started talking about your leather coat.”
Garrett froze.
Color drained instantly from Garrett’s face until he looked like a corpse.
“What did she say?” Garrett hissed, his voice cracking with panic.
“She told him the basement smells like leather oil!” Stefan shouted.
“So what? It’s an old tannery warehouse!”
Garrett dropped the duffel bag onto the concrete.
“You idiot,” Garrett whispered, his hands trembling.
“The old South Side tannery on Mitchell Street is registered under my deceased mother’s maiden name.”
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“Damon helped me buy this property seven years ago.”
“He knows exactly where we are.”
