The Biker and the Baby Wayne Hid

“I did what I had to do to stay alive!” Dad bellowed. His voice bounced off the padded walls. He jabbed a thick finger toward me. “You think you’ve got it all figured out, Leo? You think everything’s simple?”

His face had gone hard and empty. “Brenda discovered I was making deals behind her back. She said she’d turn me in to the Feds unless I handed over seventy percent. After that, I belonged to her.”

He looked toward Julian. The boy had pressed himself against the wall, as if he could disappear into it. “His mother was about to expose the whole business. If she spoke up, Brenda would fall, and she’d drag me down too.”

Dad’s gaze stayed on Julian as he edged nearer. “I never wanted to kill the inspector. She wouldn’t let it go. Then this rat took the master ledger.”

“For three weeks, I tried to make him tell me where he’d put the drive,” Dad continued. “I gave him food. I kept him warm. He only had to tell me where it was, and I would’ve let him walk.”

Julian shook his head. Tears gathered on his lashes and spilled down his cheeks. “You’re lying. You were never going to release me.”

His voice wavered, but he kept going. “You put me in that jacket you’d given me so Brenda’s thermal drones wouldn’t pick up my body heat.”

Julian’s fingers curled against the wall. “You weren’t trying to keep me safe. You wanted to conceal me until you could collect the fifty million dollars and leave me down here.”

“That’s right, Julian,” Dad answered, without a trace of warmth. “But there’s no more time. Brenda knows what I’m doing, and Vance is on his way for his child.”

His shoulders tensed. “So we’ll settle this by force.”

Dad sprang forward.

He ignored me. His charge was aimed at Julian, his hands reaching with the thick plastic ties ready to bind him.

“No!” Clara cried, rushing between them.

Dad swept her aside with one brutal motion. My fourteen-year-old sister struck the padded wall and crumpled onto the floor, a sharp breath escaping her.

Something inside me snapped. Whatever part of me still wanted to obey him, whatever childhood trust remained, vanished in a burst of scorching anger.

I didn’t shout. I didn’t stop to think. I swung my right arm as hard as I could.

The heavy brass padlock slammed into the side of Dad’s head. It was the jagged lock tied to this room and all the lies he’d built inside it.

Brass struck bone with a crack that filled the small chamber.

Dad lurched away. Blood ran dark from his temple. The plastic ties slipped from his grasp as he brought both hands to his head, making a stunned, choking sound.

“Julian! Get the chains!” I yelled.

Julian didn’t hesitate. He dropped to the concrete and grabbed the thick steel lengths fastened to the central iron ring.

Dad recovered in a blink. He roared and rushed at me, reaching out until his hands closed around my throat.

His weight drove me backward into the folding metal desk. The laptop crashed to the floor. Its screen broke, but the video kept flickering in the darkness.

His thumbs pressed into my windpipe. No air would pass. I gagged, black spots scattered across my sight, and I clawed at his forearms.

“I gave you a roof!” Dad snarled. Spit struck my face. His eyes looked wild. “I gave you everything, and this is how you repay me?”

My lungs ached as they emptied. My vision narrowed until the room seemed to close around me.

Then Clara moved.

She’d pushed herself upright. She had no weapon, only the broken plastic tie I’d cut away from the duffel bag earlier. She slipped it around Dad’s neck from behind and yanked with all her small strength.

The tie couldn’t choke him, but the sudden pull caught him off guard. He released one hand from my throat and reached back to seize Clara.

That brief easing was enough.

I drove my knee up hard into Dad’s groin.

His eyes bulged. A thin wheeze burst out of him as his grip fell away and his legs folded.

He dropped heavily onto the concrete beside the large iron ring.

“Julian—now!” I rasped, dragging in air and clutching my battered throat.

Julian scrambled over him. He pinned Dad’s right wrist to the floor with his weight, then clamped the heavy iron cuff over his forearm.

Clack.

The steel lock caught. The sound rang through the room, sharp and final.

Dad understood too late. He bucked and screamed, twisting as his free hand reached for Julian’s neck.

I planted my sneaker on Dad’s left wrist and pressed it to the concrete. Then I seized the second cuff, still attached to the central chain, and forced it around his arm.

Clack.

The cuffs locked, leaving Wayne restrained in his own soundproofed cell.