Free Road to Darkness by Tim Miller

home. It didn’t work that way. They wanted me to always drive for them, and they showed me the girls in the back. They were drugged and stuffed into these shipping crates. It was awful. They said if I tried to quit, they’d kill you and Taylor, and make me watch. So I did it. They paid me a lot for that last run because there were…complications.”
         “Like what?”
         “I think I’ve said enough for now. I don’t think you could handle much more.” Tony said. He was amazed she wasn’t coming unglued already. Though the look on her face told him none of this had quite sunk in yet.
         “Where are we going?”
         “I figured get to Austin and stay somewhere for the night. Find a crowded, busy hotel where no one will come near us for now. Then I’ll try to think of a plan there.”
         “Oh my God. Can’t we go to the police? Or the FBI?”
         “They got cops working for them. I don’t know about the Feds. These guys are well connected.”
         “Jesus,” Kim said, staring out the window.
         “Are we gonna die Daddy? Are you a bad guy?” Taylor asked from the back seat.
         “Jesus,” he muttered as his heart instantly broke. He had always been his little girl’s hero.  “No honey. No one is going to die. We’ll all be fine sweetie.” Everything is fine.
     
    Chapter 19
     
              Slade wasn’t sure how the boss found out about the robbery, but he’d been summoned to see the big man. He was waiting outside in the hallway next to a guy named Hector. Hector was an enforcer, so Slade had no idea what he was doing there. Unless Slade was about to get whacked, but he didn’t think he’d committed a whackable offense. Hector didn’t look like much of a hit man. He was short and skinny. The guy was in his forties but could pass for a teenager from a distance. Close up his face looked like it had been run through a speed sander.
         Hector kept sucking on some metal stick, which looked like a dog whistle.
         “What are you doing?” Slade asked.
         “I’m sitting here.”
         “No, that thing you keep sucking on, what is it?”
         “Oh, this is my vape pen.”
         “What the fuck is a vape pen?”
         “You know, the e-cigarettes. You put this stuff in here, and you inhale it and get the nicotine, but without the smoke. The boss doesn’t allow smoking in the building. So I can use this and there’s no smoke, just vapor.”
         “Why not just smoke cigarettes?”
         “I just told you dude.” Hector said as he took another puff. “It’s good. Here , try it.” He held the pen up to Slade.
         “No, I’m good.”
         “You sure man?”
         “Yeah, I’m sure ,” Slade said.
         A man stepped into the hall and pointed at Slade.
         “Boss will see you now.”
         Slade stood as Hector walked in behind him.
         “What are you doing?” Slade asked.
         “Going in too. Boss said he wants to talk to both of us.”
         Slade’s mouth went suddenly dry as he looked around. There wasn’t anywhere for him to run off to now. He was boxed in. He should have left as soon as he saw Hector. He took a deep breath and tried to keep from shaking. Getting killed was always a risk in this job. Slade had just hoped he wouldn’t see it coming when it was his turn. As he stepped in, the boss was smiling from behind his desk.
         “Gentlemen, come on in. Have a seat,” he said. This was odd.
         The two men pulled up chairs next to each other.
         “So it seems we have a situation,” the boss said. “We have some clowns who think it is ok to steal from me, and we have a driver on the run. Is that right?”
         “It seems so. The driver panicked. He figured once he’d been robbed, that we’d kill him.” Slade explained.
         “Well , we would.”
         “Yes, but he didn’t know