It's strange how slowly I started being able to think again. I mean, I'm not actually stupid, despite a lot of my behaviour. I'm supposed to be pretty smart. And yet I don't think anything that could be classified a thought crossed my mind for minutes.

I think it was Lucas's fear that changed things. It altered the situation from them all being simply Bad Guys to there being one Bad Guy I really had to worry about. And then things started whirring and clicking, and I realised that they were taking me with the single purpose of getting at Joe. This had nothing to do with me except that he cared about me. It was why they'd come after me, thanks to Rita's willingness to believe them.

And I was in a crowded airport. They weren't going to stab me here, in front of hundreds of people. Not with CCTV and security guards scattered around the place.

So I stopped in front of Lucas and said, "No."

His expression didn't change, it just froze in place for several seconds while I tried to go on thinking.

"You don't have any choice, dearest."

The bald guy made the point a little clearer by digging the knife into me until I knew it had pierced my sweater and shirt and cut into my skin. I tried to flinch away but he was holding onto me too tightly.

Come on. Think. Think.

What do they want? What can you do?

"What is wrong with you?" I asked, rounding on him. "I'm so sick of all this bullshit! I don't want anything to do with you or him. He's a cheating asshole and good riddance to him."

When I turned back to him, I saw a flicker of something on Lucas's face. It was an uptick in the fear. I tried not to look anything but upset and angry as he watched me, trying to work out if I was telling the truth; if I really didn't mean all that much to Joe-Moe.

My phone buzzed, and his eyes narrowed, consideringly.

Shit. Please just let it be Mom.

My hand went to my pocket, but the bald guy had my phone in his hand already. I didn't even have a proper lock-screen, so he swiped it open, and then held it out to me, expressionlessly.

It was the kind of text that would have brought a warm, squishy kind of feeling to my insides and made me smile in an annoying way in any other circumstances.

I think you forgot to text and tell me you miss me already. I mean, just commenting and all.x

"Doesn't sound like a cheating asshole to me."

I looked up at him, out of ideas, and then beyond him, to where a pair of Massachusetts State Troopers were wandering through the airport.

"Help-"

Was what I wanted to say as I lunged forward, but the bald guy grabbed me so hard towards him that my nose slammed into his shoulder. I couldn't see anything, but I could smell him. A horrible, slightly sour smell as if he hadn't washed his clothes quite enough or had sweated in them too much. And then suddenly there was something else in my face, something whitish, and I thought they were trying to choke me with it. I fought, but my vision and my balance started going and I was falling somewhere, shouting Joe-Moe's name for all I was worth.

I can't have been out for that long. I was hazy when I woke up, but with a memory of where I'd been, and what had been happening, and I tried to scrabble from what felt like half-lying to standing.

It didn't work. My arms and legs weren't quite under my control and my head thumped into something before I fell sideways. Which was when I realised I was in a car, before my eyes had really booted back up again.

A grip like a wrench came round my wrist, and I heard a terse order to "Sit still!" Which by that point I'd realised I had to do. I was too dizzy and the car was moving too fast for anything else.

So I sat, and gradually worked out that the bald guy was next to me, holding my arm; that the huge guy who'd come looking for me with Rita was driving; and that Lucas was next to him. Smarmy little Lucas was turning to look out of the window, trying to look casual, but I could see the way his fingers were tapping on the dash in little off-beat staccatos, and he shifted in his seat every few seconds. I'd been right about him being scared.

It was an expensive car. The seats were real, soft leather in dark grey and it moved smoothly even at speed. The fear had kicked right back in, and I had such an intense moment of longing for Joe's beat-up old motor instead that it felt like a pain in my stomach.

I remembered my cell-phone, and went to get it out with my free hand. It wasn't there, of course.

"Where's my phone?" I asked, not really expecting them to answer. But to my surprise, the bald guy pulled it out of his own pocket without letting go of my wrist and waved it at me.

"We needed it to send your boyfriend a little message."

I felt cold. Worse than cold. I'd already let them use me to get to him.

"What did you say?" I whispered.

"To wait until we called him. I think we got his attention."

I imagined Joe panicking. I imagined him angry, and raging, and as afraid as I was.

I imagined him wanting to bring down punishment on all of them. I wanted to believe that it would work, but I wasn't even sure it was possible on so many people. And I was with them. Could he control it enough to make sure I didn't get hurt? Would he even risk it? And that was assuming they didn't do anything to me before he even got there, which was terrifying in itself.

I was so wrapped up in stressing myself out over it that it didn't even occur to me to work out where we were driving to. Not until we pulled down an alleyway I half recognised and then through an open pair of gates into a tiny enclosed courtyard. It was surrounded by a tall building quite cheerfully painted in pale blue, which was totally out of step with the heavies in the car with me.

"Out you get," the bald guy said, reaching across to open my door.

I gave serious thought to running. I'm not exactly slow, and with the amount of extra weight the big guy in the front was carrying, I doubted he'd be able to catch me before I made it out onto the road. Which always left the prospect of them shooting me in the back, but I was almost willing to gamble on being worth more to them as a living hostage than as a dead one.

But even as I was climbing out of the car and bracing myself to push off it, the gates closed with a quiet metallic noise. There was no way I could scale those before someone grabbed me. I was here with them, wherever here was.

The big guy was out of the car now, too. I nodded at him as he gestured ahead of him, towards a stone staircase leading to a white-painted door. I hoped if I went quietly enough that there would be no manhandling.

Lucas was ahead of me going upwards, and he let himself in with a swipe-card that reminded me of the ones at MIT. This whole place was a jumble of different things. Old building, pastel colours, modern technology... and gangsters.

The interior was no less surprising. I'd been expecting from the windowless courtyard to step into darkness. But through the door was a huge, opened-out hallway with a glass ceiling maybe three floors above and big windows ahead with a view of trees and a row of buildings behind them. It was a spare place, but where it was furnished, it was lush with a thick rug that begged to have your hands run through it, and a gorgeous scarlet curtains. It was like some kind of a hidden boutique hotel, and I didn't know what to make of it.

Lucas had turned towards a delicately-fashioned spiral staircase, and we climbed up to a suspended floor above, where I had a glimpse of a gleaming kitchen and a large dining-table, and then on up to another. This one was closed off by a wall painted in pale yellow, and there was a plain wooden door set into it.

Lucas glanced at me, trying to smile smugly. But there was more tension in him than ever and it was actually a lot more effective at giving me an extra dose of shit-scared than any sneer would have been.

He rapped on the door.

For a good five seconds there was no reply. It was like waiting for the result of a doctor's scan, or an exam result, only a million times worse. Right then I would have preferred to lose another friend than walk in through that door.

But not Joe, I thought, and it was a weird kind of strength to realise that. I'd sooner walk in than lose him.

And then without any preceding sounds, the door clicked open, and swung silently inwards. Lucas jumped more than I did, and then gestured to me to walk ahead of him, his hand going up to straighten his hair nervously.

I'm going to stop this somehow, I told myself, as I stepped forwards. It was pretty much the only way I could convince myself to go inside. I'm going to stop them from hurting Joe.

And then I was inside, in another brightly-lit room with a view out over greenery and a row of apartments. I suddenly realised where we were. This was Commonwealth Avenue. Lucas's drug-dealing boss had a house - probably two houses together gutted and rebuilt, looking at the size of it all - on the beautiful main street that ran through the heart of the city. He was there in plain sight.

And plain to my sight, too, and he wasn't even close to what I'd expected.

It was partly that he was young. I'd say my age or a little older. For some reason that didn't work with a drug lord. He should have been somewhere in his fifties or sixties, and running to fat, with rings on his fingers and a cigar.

This guy looked like he didn't touch tobacco. Or anything else drug-related for that matter. He was lean and healthy-looking, and he was sitting in front of a laptop at a glass desk, not with the calculated lounge of the master-criminal but with the intent interest of someone at work.

I had a few moments to simply look at him, at the slightly long dark hair that flopped artfully into his eyes, and the thick-rimmed black glasses he wore. I couldn't place his ethnicity exactly, but there was something Eastern in the skin-tone, the high cheekbones and the darkness of his eyes.

When he looked up at me it was with curiosity, and appraisal. There was no sinister smile, and no air of victory. And yet I could feel fear coming off Lucas in waves.

"Thank you, Lucas," he said, quietly.

"Mr. Jeroniri," Lucas said, and it sounded strange addressed to a younger man, that respectful tone.

"You have her cell-phone?"

The bald guy stepped up from behind me, making me jump, and placed it carefully on the glass desk.

Mr. Jeroniri glanced down at it, and he sighed.

"I don't like this way of doing things," he said, his voice light and sounding well-educated East-Coast through and through. "I suppose you know that Lucas here engaged Axel Moritz to deliver a package for me?"

I nodded, guessing there was no reason to deny it.

"I hoped, when the package was not delivered, that we could make simple amends. I much prefer a financial solution to a physical one. This is, after all, a business."

There was a brief chime that sounded like an email alert, and he glanced at the computer-screen, and then back at me.

"But Axel's brother has made things difficult. Two of my own want blood for what he did. One for the injury done to him, and one for his own brother."

I remembered the two guys outside the nightclub, and I wanted to tell him that wasn't fair. Joe had just protected himself, and his brother. But I was wary of arguing, and of making him angry. I had to figure this all out somehow, and making him angry wouldn't help me.

"And I must be seen to be fair to my own. Fair - and firm."

I suddenly caught a trace of the threat that Lucas seemed to feel. His gaze was steady and unflinching and almost fractionally sympathetic. Which for some reason made it all much, much worse.

"I had hoped that bringing in the younger brother would bring in the older," he went on. "But Axel has done an effective job of disappearing, and there is no good in a display of force if it is slow and laboured. Which is where you come in."

I shook my head, but he nodded in response.

"You're going to call Joseph, and tell him exactly what I ask you to. And then we will all of us vanish out of your life like a bad dream. If you don't - it will be you who vanishes, Miss Morgan."

I couldn't think then. I could see the very real threat of death looking at me, but my mind wouldn't go anywhere except to the same place. Over, and over, and over it told me no. I wouldn't help them to hurt him. I wouldn't.

"Then I'll have to vanish," I whispered.

Mr. Jeroniri frowned at me, lines briefly appearing behind his strands of hair.

"You need to think very carefully about this," he said. "I am not naturally violent, but I have removed people from my path before. I wouldn't hesitate. And I will get to Joseph somehow, with or without your help. By making a show, all you're going to do is hurt him the worse before we get to him. Send him mad with guilt. Is that what you want?"

I couldn't think of anything to say, and so I kept my mouth shut, ashamed of the way my lips were shaking. The absolute silence was interrupted only by another chime on the laptop, and the boy in front of me - I couldn't think of him as a man even while he told me he would have me killed - glanced over.

And then he gave me a small smile, and a nod.

"One wishes to vanish, and another one appears."

I must have looked as lost as I felt, and so Mr. Jeroniri explained in careful terms to me.

"Axel has turned up, right here in Boston, and is now with my men. Which means it's time you made a phone-call, Miss Morgan."