Cal’s GPS could barely keep up — he’d sped back into city limits within minutes, praying silently that he didn’t see the telltale red-and-blue lights that would delay him in getting to Marcus. Luckily, he’d avoided any law enforcement, and finally reached the address on Sunset that the caller had mentioned.

Cal parked his car around the block, grateful that the building seemed more or less abandoned, an oddity for this part of town. It was a brick sort of warehouse, with busted windows, several stories high. Outside, the sidewalks were littered with bits of steel and nails, as if whatever foundry that had been here had simply tossed their parts out onto the street when they’d closed.

Approaching as stealthily as he could, he made his way to the back of the building, pistol drawn, checking corners and blindspots before each move. He found an unlocked door and made his way through, coming into a stairwell. It only went up, so Cal followed it. At the second floor, he paused, unsure whether he should continue — but a quick glance up the flight showed that the next floor was blocked off by some debris that had collapsed in front of the entry to the third. He opened the door to the second level, and came into a dark hallway, with only one door lit near the end. 

He made his way through, careful to avoid stepping on any broken glass, not wanting to announce his arrival before he’d gotten a chance to get his bearings.

On the drive here, he’d wondered about who was on the other end of that call — trying to think through a mental list of everyone he’d wronged, boyfriends or even husbands of women he’d pursued, colleagues of criminals he’d knocked off. The list was long, but this sort of thing was normally Cal’s specialty; he prided himself on his networking skills, always remembering names and faces, connections, who was who and what they did. The voice, though familiar, still hadn’t turned up a face in his mind. He had no idea what he was walking into.

He heard a cough as he neared the door, and froze. Silence followed, and he peeked around the threshold. Marcus was there, sitting in a chair tied up, similar to the way John had been tied up in Cal’s own building. Marcus looked unscathed from what he could tell, and Cal waited another beat, ensuring no one else was in the room, before he pushed the door open.

Marcus met his gaze and his eyes widened. “Boss, [i]get out of here[/i]!”

Cal shot him a look, making quick work of untying his hands. “Who is this guy? And how the hell did he get his hands on you? You’re twice my size, and I practically live at the gym.”

Marcus didn’t look amused. In fact, he looked grim. “I was at a bar with some of the guys getting a drink,” he said, “Just trying to catch the Lakers game. Must have been something in my drink, because next thing I knew, I woke up here.”

With the guys. Cal wondered if whoever had done this was one of his own.

He finished untying the binds, and lifted Marcus to his feet. Marcus leaned hard into him, and Cal struggled a bit under his weight. Obviously, the drugs were going to make getting him down the stairs difficult. “Let’s get you out of here. We can deal with this asshole later. I’m taking you back to the house, you can stay there until we—”

Before Cal could finish, he heard the unmistakable racking of a handgun behind them. He froze, Marcus teetering a bit against him. 

“Leaving so soon?” he heard, the familiar voice just behind his head.

Cal took a steadying breath. “If you wanted to talk to me, this was a hell of a way to go about it.”

“Who said anything about talking?”

He wasn’t sure he was going to get out of this. Marcus, who was usually the muscle of his operations, was incapacitated, and none of the other guys knew they were here. “Let him go, and I’m all yours.”

A hand grabbed his shoulder then, whipping him around to face the source of the voice.

[i]Danny?[/i]

It was the IT guy from the Vanderbuilt operation. Before, Danny had seemed like the helpless, nerdy type, with his nervous questions and constantly wringing hands. Now, with a 9mm pointed steadily at Cal’s face, he realized he’d misjudged him. “Danny? What the fuck? What, you didn’t get a big enough cut of the Vanderbuilt job? How much do you want?” 

Danny grinned, shaking his head. “Always so arrogant. I have much bigger things in mind, Calvin. That’s the problem with your type — you get so caught up in your big world with your big parties and big-breasted women, yet you forget how to think big.”

Cal’s patience was running thin. Whatever they’d hit Marcus with, he was practically drooling on his shoulder, and would likely need a hospital. “What do you want, kid? Let’s just get this over with.”

“I did some digging,” Danny said finally, as if excited that Cal had finally gotten him to the point, “While we were prodding around in the Vanderbuilt accounts, I looked into some of your own. You were so pressed about how Charles was dealing arms to terrorists — and yet, it appears you’re the terrorist in our own back yards, aren’t you Calvin?” 

The question wasn’t rhetorical, and Cal made a face. “What are you talking about? A terrorist?”

“Close enough,” Danny continued. “It turns out that Circus Corp is only really a Corporation in name, isn’t it? It seems like those clean buildings and glittering facades are hiding something much darker, underneath, no? It would be a shame if that got out to the public. Or to the FBI.”

Cal swallowed. “Danny, you don’t understand. I’m not — I know how it looks, but you have to trust me, I have my reasons, and—”

“Of course you have your reasons. I’m sure Charles Vanderbuilt had his reasons too — those reasons probably looked something like yours. Dollar signs in the eyes. You’re all the fucking same.”

“What do you want? You might as well kill me here and now, because you’re clearly not going to listen to what I have to say. Do you want money? Want me to pay off your student loans? Drugs? What is it?”

Danny grinned, and there was something sinister in his eyes, something that made Cal certain he would regret coming here, even if only to retrieve his best friend. He lowered the gun finally, stepping up so close that Cal could feel his breath on his face.

“I want in.”