Page 109 of Collateral Claim

I rest my foot on a stool and pull up my pants to assess my wound, discomfort with having to cut the side of my pant leg in front of Wilfred creeping up my body.

“Do you mind?” I ask and search for scissors inside the top drawer of a metal medical cart. At this point, my knee throbs with a heartbeat of its own.

The container tilts sideways, and my foot hits and unlatches the brake on the cart I’m searching. It rolls past the curtain and into the adjacent curtained-off space. It hits the wall and bounces off something, making it roll to the left. I’m about to rush after the cart when someone grabs my ankle.

I look down and gasp, covering my mouth. The callused hand belongs to a naked man with dark hair, a long dark beard, and dirty fingernails that haven’t been cut in a while. He wears a thick shackle latched to a short chain that’s attached to the iron flooring. A Jolly Roger tattoo on the dirty skin between a forefinger and a thumb tells me this man can only be Cass Macarley.

But there are many people with such tattoos.

It could be anyone. It really could.

But it’s not. I know it’s Cass Macarley.

Once the train levels out and we stop tilting and shaking, I think about how I will handle this situation.

“This is the man Endo Macarley is looking for, isn’t it?”

“Endo is dead,” Wilfred says, and I feel the grip on my ankle tighten like a vise. If I doubted it was Cass, I don’t anymore. I want him to know that I recognize him and that his brother is searching for him.

I tug my leg, but Cass holds on tight. I tug again. He lets go.

I walk up to Wilfred, who says, “We kept the Macarley dog here.”

“But if Endo is dead, why are we hiding inside a moving train?”

“We’re not hiding.”

“We both know we are. We both know you’re as scared of Endo Macarley as I am. This man…” I point to Cass on the floor. “He’s all Endo wants. Give him what he wants, and he’ll stop hunting you.”

Wilfred bares his teeth. “He’ll stop hunting when he’s dead.”

I don’t flinch. “Or when you are.”

A man wearing headphones joins us. “Endo is in pursuit. It’s just a matter of time until he figures out the tunnels. Then our problems will quadruple.”

Wilfred curses and looks from me to Cass Macarley, then back to me. “Your dad won’t give him Cass alive.”

“Do you always do what my dad says?” I challenge.

Wilfred’s jaw works as he thinks. He’s not like Endo. Endo decides in seconds. Even if he’s wrong, he’s decisive. But I can tell Wilfred wants something, even if that something goes against my dad’s orders. I wouldn’t mind if Wilfred betrayed my dad.

“By the time you make a decision, Endo will have caught up to us,” I say.

“I’ll release Cass under one condition.”

“Name it.”

Chapter 44

She did it

Endo

It seems I’m always chasing after Scarlett. It’s my first time chasing after a woman I care about more than I care about my own safety or the safety of pretty much anyone else.

I hate that I care about her.

I can’t stand it.