Second Chances by Andrea Speed, A.B. Gayle, Jessie Blackwood, Katisha Moreish, J.J. Levesque

pulling the strings? Probably not the Russian mob, he had a feeling they really didn’t do subtle, but then who?
    Where he was, wherever he was, was no help at all. He seemed to be in a very large building with metallic walls and industrial gray carpeting, and there weren’t a lot of people around, at least not where he was. Save for his big goon companions, who never talked, no matter how much he goaded them. “So, are you guys into dudes or chicks?” he asked, making one last stab at getting to them as they led him down a long corridor. “Or do you not care as long as you’re drunk enough? ‘Cause I knew this one guy down in Resida who said he was straight, but you got half a bottle of Jack into him and he was anyone’s fuck toy. He -”
    “We’re here,” the first one said, as he opened a door at the end of the corridor. There was an edge to his voice, an implied “shut the fuck up”. Well, at least Flynn knew he was straight.
    Flynn looked in. It was a small room that looked like a hotel room. Brown carpet instead of gray, but the walls were still metal, not even livened up by a bad painting. There was a small single bed in the center of the room, a nightstand with an ugly ceramic lamp, and a small door that led off to a private bathroom. That was it? “No TV?” Flynn asked. “What if I want to watch some porn?” The goons just glared at him. Had they no sense of humor? “What about my one phone call? I should get that.”
    “This isn’t a jail,” the second goon said, with a barely suppressed sigh.
    “Oh? Then why won’t you let me call anyone?”
    They didn’t answer him, but he really didn’t expect them to. One of them gave him a slight push in the lower back, sending him stumbling into the room, and they shut the door before he could turn around. It shut with a heavy clunk, letting him know a lock had engaged. “Hey!” he shouted pointlessly, banging the door with his fist. “You guys are douche bags, you know that?!”
    He then shook his hand, as the door was hollow core metal, and it fucking hurt. He was glad he didn’t punch it at full strength, as he’d probably have broken his hand.
    Examining the door, he found it had a heavy duty industrial knob, the kind with no exposed screws, seams, or openings, which meant picking it would be impossible. But there was a metal plate underneath the knob, and there appeared to be a tiny seam where it met the door. He tried to get his fingernails under it, but no go. Of course it wasn’t going to be that easy. Did he really think it would?
    The room was plain, and what he saw originally was all there was to see. They didn’t exactly break the bank furnishing this place. Not only was it cheap, but it kept any potential weapons or tools out of his grasp. Wonderful. “Thought of everything, huh?” He said it aloud because he was fairly sure he was being monitored, even if he didn’t see any cameras.
    He went to take a piss, and the bathroom was as sadly small and utilitarian as the rest of the place. Even the mirror was plastic, not glass but some reflective coating. Not that he cared, glass wouldn’t help, but the metal frame might have.
    He looked around the main room, but there was nothing new. The bed frame was basic, metal, but welded together, so he couldn’t do anything with it. It suddenly occurred to him there wasn’t a window in here, but then again, he couldn’t remember seeing a single window anywhere. Weird. That probably meant something, but he wasn’t sure what right now. At least he knew they were up to something not kosher, mainly because they refused to tell him anything. As a person with something to hide, he knew people hid things for damn good reasons, but they were almost never good.
    He thought about breaking the lamp to be a dick, but they probably expected that. He crouched down to look under the bed, and felt like an idiot. Did he think someone left a tool kit behind? But while there, he looked at the nightstand. It