Gage noticed the movement and immediately pressed his boot down harder on my spine. "Hey! He's got a phone!" Gage barked.
I didn't try to dial a number. The phone only had one pre-programmed function. I flicked the top open with my thumb, pressed the single red button in the center of the keypad, and held the speaker near my mouth. I didn't yell. I spoke with the chilling, mechanical authority of a man who had commanded thousands of heavily armed men.
"Code 50," I said clearly. "Lock the exits. Erase the trafficking ring."
Julian froze. Then, he burst into hysterical, booming laughter. He laughed so hard he had to lean against the hood of his Lamborghini.
"Code 50?" Julian mocked, mimicking my voice. "Erase the trafficking ring? Who the hell are you calling, grandpa? The Avengers? The local sheriff? Let me tell you a secret—my dad pays the local sheriff a hundred grand a month to look the other way!"
Julian stepped forward, violently snatching the flip-phone out of my hand. He held it up to the diner's neon light, looking at the outdated, scratched plastic casing. He laughed again, tossing it onto the pavement and driving his heavy heel down, crushing it into useless pieces.
"Nice try, old man," Julian said, shaking his head. He reached out and snatched the stun gun from Ivan’s hand. The device sparked with terrifying blue electricity, the ozone crackling in the dry night air. "But playtime is over."
Julian leaned down and drove the live prongs of the stun gun directly into the back of my neck.
The shock was absolute. Fifty thousand volts of electricity ripped through my central nervous system. Every single muscle in my body violently seized. My vision exploded into a blinding array of white and red sparks. The pain was indescribable, a hot wire burning through my spinal cord, locking my jaw so tightly I tasted blood from my own cheek.
"Scream!" Julian yelled, holding the trigger down. "Scream for me, you piece of trash!"
But I didn't scream.
I bit down on the pain, focusing all my energy on the sound of the desert wind. I forced my mind away from the electricity tearing through my nerves. I thought about the little boy trapped in the car. I thought about Marcus Vance. I thought about the terrifying machine I had just set into motion.
When Julian finally released the trigger, I slumped flat against the pavement, panting heavily, my body trembling with involuntary aftershocks. The silence in the parking lot was deafening.
Julian stared at me, genuinely disturbed by my silence. "Crazy old freak," he muttered, tossing the stun gun back to Ivan.
"Mr. Vance," Gage said quietly. His voice had lost its confident edge.
Gage was staring down at me. When Julian had stomped on my phone, he had kicked my ruined motorcycle helmet out of the way. My leather jacket had shifted, revealing a small, faded logbook tucked into the side pocket of my saddlebag. Gage was looking at the way I had taken the beating. He was looking at the impossible calmness in my eyes.
"What is it, Gage?" Julian snapped impatiently.
"He said Code 50," Gage said, swallowing hard. "I've... I've heard stories about a Code 50, boss. In the pen. Ten years ago. The old-timers used to talk about it like it was a ghost story. It’s a cartel-wiper protocol."
"You're an idiot," Julian scoffed, running a hand through his perfectly styled hair. "He's a homeless mechanic who watches too many action movies. Look at him. He's bleeding in the dirt."
But I saw the hesitation in Gage’s eyes. He didn't understand the clues perfectly, but his survival instinct was finally kicking in. The waitress inside had seen my wrist. The encrypted phone. The sheer, unnatural silence in the face of torture. Gage was beginning to realize that something was terribly, fundamentally wrong with this picture.