Disclaimer: I don't own this stuff. It's the property of Angela Robinson and Sony Pictures.

Chapter 4:

I really should have guessed that Ronnie was behind this back on the freeway. The black Buick really should have been the big hint. Ronnie loves big American cars. One of the problems with being out of the game for a few years: you forget these little things.

His chauffeur drives him around in a modified Lincoln Navigator. I guess he thought it was a little less conspicuous than a limo; and just as luxurious if you're willing to drop a mere few hundred thousand on it. One thing that Ronnie is not is flamboyant. He's a thug, to be sure, but he's no moron. He's incredibly good at making himself invisible, and surrounding himself with fanatically loyal people. I was pretty sure that the two occupants of the Buick Amy and I had taken out probably weren't going to talk.

That, actually, wasn't necessarily a bad thing, assuming that Max didn't spill her guts while I was trying to get us out of this mess. The longer it took the DEBS to get involved, the better; assuming they decided to get involved at all. Governments are funky that way: like in a completely ungoverned way.

Ronnie's a tough SOB, but finesse really isn't his strong point. When a job requires a little bit of a soft touch, he usually starts "recruiting."

Which, I was guessing, was why he needed me. And he'd picked just the right leverage; but then Ronnie was always good at picking just the right leverage.

He's more than a little arrogant. He didn't even bother disarming me as he led me out to his car waiting in the back alleyway; in spite of the fact that he knew I was packing at least two pistols.

He also knew that I wasn't going to use them at least until I saw that Amy was okay. Just to be sure though, he almost certainly had one of his fanatically-loyal flunkies standing right next to her with orders to shoot her if he didn't check in.

Which meant that for the moment, I didn't really have much in the way of choices. I needed to wait and see what he would do; then try to out-think him.

Great plan, except that Ronnie's notoriously difficult to out-think.

Going straight can be a pain in the ass sometimes.

I was ushered into the back of a gray Lincoln Navigator. Yeah, Ronnie had spent a lot of cash on this little pseudo-limo. In my criminal mastermind days, I'd ridden in a limousine or two; not many, mind you, I preferred my '67 caddy; and none of them had anything on this car.

The remarkable thing was that from the outside, it looked like your everyday SUV. It was a limousine with camouflage. The rear windows were all tinted; and I imagined they were made out of bulletproof glass. Ronnie is usually cautious about things like that. I was also pretty confident that he'd had the engine worked on; and his driver was capable of maneuvering this huge SUV like a racecar if it came down to it.

Gone, sadly, were the days when my associates had completely incompetent henchmen.

The drive was silent. I spent most of it glaring at Ronnie as he looked passively back at me. He always did have a way of being annoyingly passive.

I tried to get some idea of where, exactly, we were going; but I lost track pretty quickly. Probably because the driver deliberately took several twists and turns specifically so that I couldn't trace the route.

That's Ronnie, always one step ahead of me.

He let me out outside an old factory. I didn't recognize it; but it was just the kind of place Ronnie would've chosen to hide out four years ago.

I guess old habits die hard.

"Now, Lucinda," Ronnie spoke for the first time in maybe a half hour, "I'll be taking those guns from you." Ronnie was still one of only two people who could still get away with calling me "Lucinda." Amy was the other.

Everything Ronnie did had a reason. He didn't take the guns before 'cause he knew I wouldn't use them as long as he had Amy. Once I saw her, he knew that with two guns a former criminal mastermind and an ex-DEB had a real chance to get free. For the moment, though, he was calling the shots.

From under my black denim jacket, I produced the offending firearms, and dropped them on the ground beside me. Ronnie produced a Glock .357, and pointed it at the center of my chest. Wow. He'd had that one pretty well-hidden. I hadn't even been able to tell he was packing; and I'm usually good at noticing these things. Someone picked the two firearms up, carrying them away.

"I want those back," I yelled after him as he scurried away.

"Now, Lucinda, if you'll be so kind, could you please put your hands on your head?" Bastard just had to be nice about holding me at gunpoint, didn't he?

I carefully laced my fingers behind my head. "You couldn't have shot me at the motel?"

"Lucinda," for the record, just because I'll let him call me Lucinda, doesn't mean I like it, "you are not stupid, so please don't act it." He nodded at someone behind me. I didn't bother to turn to look. "Check her," he ordered.

"I'm not carrying," I told him.

"How very kind of you to inform us," Ronnie replied, "but you'll forgive me if I don't necessarily believe you." He nodded again to the man behind me.

I felt a pair of hands clamp down on my right ankle then start walking their way up my calf to my thigh as he rather meticulously checked every inch of my body for some concealed firearm.

"Tell your lackey," I told Ronnie, "that if he doesn't watch his hands, he's likely to end up with a pair of stumps."

"Oh come, now," He replied, calm as ever, "you know you'd be doing exactly the same thing were you in my place."

"I've been straight —," I stopped, rethinking my choice of words, "— legal for four years. I don't think you're likely to find me in your shoes any time soon."

The man finished and stood behind me for a moment. My right elbow slammed backwards, catching him in the bridge of the nose. He dropped heavily to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Ronnie's gun rose a few inches to point at the center of my forehead. I put on my best innocent look. "Sorry," I said in my sweetest voice, "slipped."

"What have I done to earn this level of hostility from you?"

"Oh, should I start with kidnapping my girlfriend or holding me at gunpoint while one of your flunkies cops a feel?" I replied.

"Ah, yes. The DEB," Ronnie nodded slowly, "I must say I didn't see that one coming. You do realize that her organization has made it their personal mission to bring you in, don't you?"

"Cut the crap, Ronnie, where is she?" I asked, frustrated.

He shook his head, disapprovingly, "in my day, a lady wouldn't have spoken this way."

"Yeah, well, in your day, I wouldn't have been a lady. I'm gonna ask you again: where is she?"

"You are not in a position to make any threats, Lucinda." His voice was ominously threatening.

"You sure of that?"

"Yes," he said simply.

He would be a lot less annoying if he weren't right all the time.

"Bring her to the holding cell," he nodded to another of his lackeys. He seemed to have an endless supply of 'em. "And attend to Charles."

I heard a soft click and felt a gun press against the center of my back. "Forward," a man's voice growled from behind me. I decided that acting in any overtly hostile way was a pretty bad idea. This guy had a gun.

He directed me to a small metal door which he opened for me. I stepped into the darkness, hearing the door clanging shut behind me.

The room was pitch-black. It was as if the entire room had been sealed against any kind of light.

"H- hello?"

"Amy?"

"Lucy?"

"Yeah," I tried not to let the relief I felt show; then realized in the pitch blackness, not letting it show was pretty stupid. Chalk it up to years as a criminal mastermind. You get an image as a tough bitch that's hard to let go of.

"They got you too?"

"Yeah," I replied. "They got me." I squinted, trying to penetrate the darkness, no luck there. "I can't see shit, Amy, can you?"

"No, it's pitch black here. I've been here for hours and my eyes still haven't adjusted enough to see anything."

"Okay, Marco?"

I could almost hear Amy smile slightly, "Polo."

It took me a few tries, and running into the wall several times, to find my way over to Amy. Figures she'd be in the farthest corner from the door.

Finally, my toe bumped into something soft. I knelt down, grabbing a slender ankle. I followed the leg it was attached to all the way up to the body; then I felt a pair of slender, but powerful arms wrap around me.

Neither of us spoke a while. We just knelt in the pitch-blackness, holding each other as if we'd been apart for years, rather than just a few hours. In the end, though, the silence was finally broken by Amy.

"So… what's the situation?"

That was her DEB voice again. I'd missed it. "Not good," I replied, trying to sound equally businesslike, and probably failing rather miserably.

"Who is this guy?"

"An ex-associate of mine when I was a Badass criminal mastermind," I smiled again before I realized that she couldn't see it.

"So what's his beef with you?"

"Doesn't have one, as far as I know. The jobs he did with me made him a pretty rich man," I replied.

"So what's he doing?"

"Dunno yet," I replied, "but I'll bet that he has a job he wants me for. You're the leverage to get me to do it. So don't worry, as long as I'm working for him, you're safe."

"And after, he just lets us go?"

I winced, "I doubt it. Odds are that we're both dead once this job is done."

"Great friends you got there," Amy commented wryly.

"I never said he was a friend," I defended myself, "just that I worked with him. Besides, you don't see me heckling you about the fact that you worked with a kleptomaniac, a sex addict and a borderline sociopath, do you?"

"Touché," Amy admitted. "Any chance that the DEBS could help us on this one?"

"The DEBS? They couldn't find their plaid-skirted asses with both hands and a flashlight," I winced, "no offence."

"None taken," she replied.

"At any rate, I think we're pretty much on our own here; so we're gonna have to be really careful how we do this."

"How are we gonna do this?"

I shrugged. "I haven't the foggiest."

I don't know exactly how long we were in there. An hour, maybe. I couldn't tell. There wasn't enough light for me to read the face of my watch. Neither of us really said much. I guess we didn't have much to say. We both knew how bleak the situation was. We were alive, we were together; for the moment, that was going to have to be enough. It was dead silent in the tiny room, so we both jumped when the door swung open with a metallic groan, throwing harsh light into the room.

The man silhouetted in the doorway spoke: "boss wants to see you."

I was still shielding my eyes when Amy and I stepped out of the room. Ronnie was waiting.

I took a deep breath. I'd tried so hard to get away from this life. I'd dumped just about everything I'd ever stolen; gave it all back. I'd given up that life and moved to Barcelona to rent sailboats to tourists. Now not only was I being dragged back into it; but I was dragging Amy back into it with me.

Karma's a bitch sometimes.

I looked up at Ronnie. He looked back at me completely calmly.

I hate this, I hate this, I hate this.

"Okay Ronnie, you win."