Two men sat quietly together at an outdoor café table.

The kind with the woven, rubber-covered metal lattice work that threatened to drop crumbs over the pavement. They kept to themselves, neither speaking as they sipped almost robotically at drinks in unmarked cups, as they watched in almost timed tandem a building just steps from where they sat. A building that, with the tinny, heart-stopping shriek of a bell, emptied of people in halting streams.

Neither man moved for a second but when they did, it happened as if one brain shared two bodies. They disposed of their cups and trekked into the avalanche of people moving in and out of the building like a barely controlled tide. But it was as if they skated through them, seen only for a second before disappearing into a shadow of memory. No one noticed them, even if they twitched as a breath passed over their skin, but they were invisible to all the unseeing eyes. And so their movements coordinated seamlessly as they converged in a pincer move on the periphery of a tall, stocky young man with dark hair busy over his phone.

A phone that stopped him noticing when the two men moved to the side and behind him. If anyone around him had paid attention, without their headphones or their eyes glued to their phones, they might have turned at the electric fizz of a handheld taser. Or noticed the young man slump into the grip of the two men before they bundled him into a car waiting on the side of the road.

In total, it took less than ten minutes. Ten minutes and the car pulled away as if only picking someone up for a second. And when no one saw it, when no one noticed, it was almost as if it never happened.

But it did.

Of that they made certain.

The blind sheep they insulted from the interior of their car paid them no mind. Their melodic voices speaking a language older than the university's grounds they infringed on wove in and out of the boy's ears as his body jerked from the residual charge dissipating through his body. But he recognized the language. Even spoke enough of it to understand them as his eyes fluttered and his mind tried to reconnect fried synapses and nerves to return to life.

He groaned and immediately choked on the hand slapped over his mouth. His face stung with the intentional slap and barely managed a grunt before sticky tape stuck to his skin and rubbed over his lips. Muffling his voice as he called out only had the men laughing at him in their poetic tongue before one of them spoke in accented English.

"Is the little prince comfortable?" He refused to answer, taking in the details of the car and the windows as he pulled at the arms holding him immobile. The one who spoke first laughed again. "No, no. We're not so stupid as to let you go."

Then the dark bag went over his head and his lengthy body crowded into the tight space and the front as two sets of hands forced him between the seats. His hands they trapped behind his back before the sting of plastic bit into his wrists. The contortion of his body soon sent his limbs to sleep so that when the car stopped, and they hauled him free, he stumbled and faltered on his way to the second location.

His legs only just regained full motion when his ass hit a chair with enough force to almost send him backward. The second his life flashed before his eyes cut short when hands grabbed his arms to cut his wrists loose. But the blood only had seconds to return to his tingling fingers before both wrists slapped against the arms of the chair and the bite of new plastic held him immobile. A similar treatment to his ankles kept him in place as the bag whipped off his head and a bright light blinded him in an otherwise abandoned space.

"Smile for your father." The same man from before spoke as he ripped the tape from the man's mouth. "He's watching."

The man blinked against the glare, his mouth and cheeks smarting from the tape, and almost reached for his face but for the zipties holding him in place. He winced, squinting to see the other man holding a phone horizontally to record. Swallowing, and coughing against the scratch I his throat, "You've got the wrong person. I'm no prince."

"We know." The first man held up a wallet, jiggling it between his fingers before opening it and pulling out a card. "We've got Brendan Coyle here."

"That's right."

"Wrong." He winced as the student ID hit his nose before the wallet landed in his lap where the man threw it. Hands latched over his wrists, digging them into the chair to leave Brendan grimacing. "We've got Brendan Bates here."

"My ID clearly says-"

"You think I'll believe the shit they put on this card?" A hand held the card in front of Brendan's face again, almost hitting him in the eye and forcing him to flinch away from it with enough force to buck the chair. "It's not a bad cover but they chose your mother's maiden name and we knew that."

"Of course it's my mother's name. I lived with her until-"

"More lies." The man released Brendan's wrists, allowing him a moment to breathe. "You were raised by your grandmother in Dublin. After you spent a few years with your father in Dubai."

"I've never lived in Dubai."

"Do you remember when you lived in Tehran?"

"It was only a year. Barely any time at all."

"And yet," The man paused, his voice switching back to the more beautiful language. "You understand my Farsi. The way you understand Arabic and Urdu."

"I study them at school."

"You've been learning them since you lived in Tehran. When your father was the English Ambassador there. Now," The man switched back to English, ushering the one holding the camera closer. "What would you want your father to know?"

"I don't talk to my father."

"Hm." The man grabbed Brandan's hand and wrenched one of his fingers. An audible crack left Brendan crying out in pain as he stared in horror at the digit immediately blooming purple from the awkward new angle. "You've nine more fingers. Then I start on your nails. So, I ask again, what would you tell your father?"

His face closed in, almost blocking out the pain with the maliciously mischievous intent to inflict more pain etched on his face. "What do you want to tell your father, the great Ambassador and human smuggler John Bates?"

Brendan forced himself to breathe through his nose as nausea watered his eyes and twisted his stomach. His eyes scrunched shut, trying to avoid seeing his mangled finger, and he focused on his breathing. After a minute the taste of bile left his mouth and he opened watering eyes to look at the man.

It took another moment for him to speak without the lurch in his throat urging him to vomit. "Tell him B.B.'s in trouble and needs help."

"There." The man patted Brendan's cheek before grabbing his broken finger again. "Was that so hard?"

He twisted the finger back in place and Brendan cried out again before passing out from the pain.