Chapter 78
Quatre banged on the door. They could hear arguing from inside the apartment but nobody answered. Perhaps they were arguing too loudly to hear. Quatre looked at Wufei, who nodded and broke down the door.
They were greeted with the sight of Daniel and Delia Fitzgibbons standing over Kiri's prone body. Around her broken plates and food were strewn about. Delia had a cell phone in her hand but it was impossible to tell if she had anyone one the line. There was so much yelling that Quatre figured anyone on the line would have hung up rather than listen to it.
"I told ya not to call him yet!" Daniel yelled.
"You shouldn't'a hurt her!" Delia yelled back. "You know he said she was gonna go to Decart. They won't give us as much for her now!"
"That's why I said not to call yet! If you'd'a waited then when she woke up we could'a cleaned her up and made her lie to 'em about what happened! We could'a said she tripped or somethin'."
Wufei scowled and stepped forward. "We'll take her off your hands," he growled as he stepped between them and knelt to check on Kiri.
Daniel was about to protest when he noticed Quatre standing there. "Ah, Mr. Winner. I see that you're back. Why?"
Quatre kept his face neutral but his voice was steely. "I wanted to check on Kiri this morning. Clearly it was a mistake to leave her here with you last night."
"You don't understand. She was bringing out the breakfast she insisted on making for us and she just collapsed. We were calling an ambulance. They said they'd be here shortly so you can go. I'm sure you've got lots of meetings to go to," Delia smoothly lied.
"If that's true, why were you talking about selling her back to Decart?" Quatre growled.
Daniel and Delia didn't have a chance to answer because at that moment several men came running in, each brandishing a weapon.
Wufei jumped to his feet and found himself hard pressed to get the upper hand against their new adversaries. Quatre wasn't as adept at hand to hand combat and soon found himself overwhelmed. Wufei fought to get the men off of him so he could give Quatre a hand but it seemed that whoever Delia had called had sent over a seemingly never-ending flood of henchmen.
Both men soon found themselves restrained but instead of being dragged off or knocked senseless they were held steady and the other men in the room stepped to the side and fell silent as Donovan Chase stalked into the room.
"You—" Whatever Wufei was about to say was cut off as Chase punched him hard in the gut, knocking the wind out of him.
"Silence, Agent," Chase ordered coolly. "Nobody told you to speak." He looked over the scene with a sneer on his face. "This is not the way I expect my merchandise to be treated, Fitzgibbons."
"Terribly sorry, sir. We weren't expectin' company this morning. Things got a little out of hand." Daniel groveled.
"Who damaged the merchandise?" Chase asked, spotting Kiri lying unconscious on the floor.
"These guys busted in here and tried to take her away and she got caught up in the tug of war," Delia lied. "It was totally an accident but it was all their fault."
Chase looked down his nose at Quatre. "Is that what happened, Mr. Winner?"
Quatre set his jaw and was debating how to respond when Chase reached out and back handed him.
"Now, now Mr. Winner, it isn't polite to ignore people who are talking to you," Chase reprimanded. "Answer me."
"She was like that when we got here," Wufei growled as he struggled against the men holding him.
Chase moved closer to Wufei and punched him in the gut again. "Nobody asked you."
"She was unconscious when we arrived," Quatre said. It wouldn't do them any good to get too beat up before the others could arrive as backup. Quatre had no idea what was taking them so long. He knew that Duo was monitoring the communication lines and would have heard them fighting. He should have sent up Heero and Trowa immediately.
"That wasn't so hard now, was it?" Chase purred as he gently patted Quatre's cheek. He suddenly slapped Quatre. "Next time answer me as soon as I ask."
Glaring at Daniel and Delia he snarled, "I'll deal with you two later."
Chase started pacing in the small area. "Now how to rectify this little mishap. I will be taking Amanda with me of course. But what to do with the busybodies?" A feral look entered Chase's eyes. "Bring them. I'm sure the Master can find a use for them."
Quatre and Wufei resumed struggling against their captors as one of the other men bent to pick up Kiri.
"Enough of this," Chase said with a bored tone. He snapped his fingers and headed out the door, his henchmen following.
One of the henchmen pulled something out a silver case in his pocket. Before Quatre could warn Wufei about the needle aimed at his neck, Quatre felt something prick his own neck. It didn't take long for everything to go black.
A/N: Okay, so this chapter is really short but the next 2 are much longer.