Page 118 of Contempt

John looked like he was chewing on his inner cheek before he muttered, “Toward the middle of the place. There are some … uh, car lifts and things. It was setup right between two of them. You know those lifts with the fucking cement holes beneath them for someone to go under and work on the cars?”

Renzo nodded. “Yeah.”

“Those.”

“Are there cars on the lifts?”

John shrugged. “On both, yeah.”

“So, he was trying to hide them, then. Or … make them blend in a bit.”

The man behind John let out a hard sigh, and passed the two of them a look. “How the fuck are we getting out of here, huh?”

“I don’t know yet,” Renzo replied.

“Well, don’t you think you better fucking figure it out?” Andino snapped. “Because I’ve got fifteen men inside this warehouse, not including us, and they send in you. You’re supposed to be the goddamn bomb specialist, right? That’s what John said. So, why don’t you stop talking about bullshit, and get on with telling me how you’re going to get me out of here and back to my wife and kids.”

Renzo arched a brow. “No.”

Andino turned to face Renzo head-on. “I beg your fucking pardon?”

“I don’t have to tell you or anyone else anything. This is my show. What I want, and how I work, and the way it’s done … that’s all on me. I can work while you watch, or I can work alone. I will work silently, unless I choose to do differently. My work? It’s fucking intense. I’m controlling, and focused. You don’t like it? Fuck off. Get used to it, man. Step up and let me do what I’m here to do, or step the fuck off.”

John cleared his throat as the silence between Renzo and Andino stretched on. “Listen, he’s wound a little tight right now. He doesn’t mean to be an asshole, he just doesn’t deal with this kind of shit well, that’s all.”

Well, that was all nice and great.

Except for one thing …

“I’m in here, too,” Renzo replied. “I’m going to die, too. So, fuck off, and let me work.”

• • •

This is not good.

Oh, this was so not good.

Renzo used the tip of an icepick-like tool from his small kit to peel up a cluster of wires so that he could get a better look at where it was connected to. The problem was that the setup used for this particular bomb was not the norm—it didn’t mean that Renzo didn’t understand what he was looking at, but rather … he understood what it meant to be looking at this fucking mess.

Actually, calling it a mess was … offensive.

This bomb was amazing.

Brilliant.

Deadly.

Typically a large cluster of wires on a bomb would go to the same fucking place—the cluster would connect into the same general area, but not on this bomb. No, on this one, the cluster then broke off into several snakes of wires that went to all different places on the bomb.

To several batteries to keep the electronics running. The problem with that? It removed Renzo’s ability to cut the power source when there were several, and he was sure, just by the electronic setup, that if he cut one power source, it would set the timer currently sitting still at ten seconds to start counting down.

Ten seconds.

That’s what he fucking had.

All of ten seconds after he cut a wire to move.

He couldn’t get to the other side of this fucking warehouse in ten seconds. That was a joke. This bomb was a guaranteed death trap, and he wished he knew who had built it for Christian. It could be any number of bomb experts. There were only a handful in the world who could create a masterpiece like this. If only Renzo could nail it down to which man had made this bomb, then he might know where to look for the failsafe.