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“How is this possible?” Angelo looked to Carl for an answer, even though he knew that his little brother had no more information than he did. “How could it not have worked?”

Carl shrugged. As far as he was concerned, their rapidly rising bank account balance meant that everything was working just fine. All they needed to do was bring in another eighty thousand dollars and then they could call it quits. Eighty thousand more dollars and they could be done with the Backstreet Boys forever.

“It’s not going to work properly if we can’t figure out where their true allegiances lie.” Angelo continued to grumble as he watched the five men on the screen. “That stupid southern kid has messed everything up. Who in their right mind would rather be branded with a cattle prod than tell the bloody truth?!”

“You were gonna brand him anyway.” Carl shrugged again. “Maybe he figured that out.”

“It doesn’t matter what I was going to do.” Angelo rolled his eyes and took a massive bite of his salami sandwich. “All that matters is that, now, we don’t know who to use as bait when it comes to everyone’s favourite Backstreet Boy.”

Carl glanced down at the sandwich crumbs littering the keyboard. He had always known that his big brother was callous, but this situation had quickly revealed his true colours. Part of him hoped that they reached their eighty thousand dollar target before the poll even ended, but the other half of him knew that it didn’t matter. Angelo was dead set on making sure that none of the Backstreet Boys left the basement with their hearts still beating; a notion that made Carl’s stomach churn. He knew that he was doing all of this for the good of his family, but the thought of killing five innocent men was eating away at his conscience. He had to figure out a way to make Angelo change his mind before it was too late. He wasn’t opposed to injuring one or two of them for the sake of the cause, but murdering all five of them was too much, even for him.

“Have you made the second installment already?” Angelo transferred his sandwich to his left hand and minimized the video feed in order to check the account balance. His eyes popped slightly as he looked at the total figure. “Damn.”

“I made it.” Carl nodded and pointed out the withdrawal notification on the screen. “Fifteen thousand dollars gone in a matter of seconds.”

Angelo grunted indifferently and took another bite of his sandwich. His eyes returned to the figure at the bottom of the screen; $36,730.00 and climbing. “At this rate, we’re gonna clear forty-five grand before the poll is even over. We might actually come out of this with a profit.”

Carl swallowed hard. He had known that his brother wouldn’t be willing to stop. He had known that Angelo was going to see this through to the bitter end; that he was going to milk the situation for every last cent.

“How much time is left for people to vote?”

Angelo crammed the last piece of his sandwich into his mouth and clicked back to the video feed. “Twenty-three hours.”

“Twenty-three hours!” Lauren tossed her phone onto the bed and dropped down next to Leigh as dramatically as her pregnant body would allow. “Twenty-three hours until my husband is dead!”

“Easy there, woman!” Leigh laughed as the bed bounced under Lauren’s weight. “You’re flopping for two now, remember?!”

Lauren groaned. She rolled over so that she was facing Leigh. “In less than a day, there will only be two members of the Carter family left; me and the baby!”

“I’m sure they’ll be plenty more Carters hanging around once the baby arrives.” Kristin grimaced. “In fact, I’m willing to bet that Jane will reappear almost instantly.”

“Oooookay!” Rochelle tore her attention away from her phone and looked around at the other women. “Let’s try to think positive thoughts. No Jane, no death ...”

“We don’t even know what’s going to happen to the winner.” Leigh pointed out. “They haven’t killed anyone yet ...”

“You sound like the police.” Lauren blew a strand of hair away from her face and frowned. “Did you all see that pathetic excuse for a press-conference last night?”

“You mean the one where a couple of rambling, useless, idiots stood up in front of a crowd of reporters and essentially stated that they knew absolutely nothing?” Kristin rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I saw it. Pathetic.”

“Baylee probably has more technical skills than those supposed expert hackers that the police have brought in.” It was Rochelle’s turn to roll her eyes. “I mean, how hard can it be to trace an IP address?”

“Actually, Mrs. McLean, it can be extremely challenging.”

The four women turned at the sound of Nate’s voice. He and Julie were striding into the room; Baylee trailing behind them.

“Bay, when I gave you my extra key-card, I meant that you were welcome to come in at any time, not them.” Kristin shot the detectives a disdainful look. She propped herself up into a more upright position on the bed and watched as Rochelle did the same next to her.

“They just followed me in.” Baylee sighed. He hoisted himself up onto the bed that Leigh and Lauren were lying on and began to swing his legs back and forth. “I didn’t think that I could say ‘no’ to the police.”

“Where’s your mom?” Leigh gave Baylee’s shoulder a quick squeeze; choosing to ignore the detectives’ presence.

“In our room.” Baylee paused. “Crying.”

“We’re not here to take up a lot of your time.” Julie cut in. She could feel her face heating up with embarrassment. It was painfully obvious that the Backstreet wives thought that she and Nate, and most likely the entire New York City Police Department, were completely useless. “We just wanted to let you know that we’ve finally got a lead.”

“You do?!” Lauren struggled to pull herself up into a sitting position. She grabbed at her stomach as Odin began to smash his tiny foot against her ribcage. “What is it?!”

“Well, ‘lead’ is a bit of a strong word.” Nate shot Julie a guarded look. “What Detective Gallagher meant to say is that we’ve finally had a break in terms of figuring out the location of the live broadcast.” Nate hurried to continue as he watched five mouths fall open in almost perfect unison. “Our team of specialists have been able to narrow down the signal to Hempstead; a fairly large suburb, approximately two hours outside of New York City.”

“Wait a minute!” Kristin interjected. “You’re telling us that our husbands are being tortured less than two hours away from us and that you still can’t find them?! How in the actual fuck ...”

“Mrs. Richardson, I can appreciate that you’re all very upset. However, as we’ve told you before, these people have created a very extensive and highly sophisticated broadcasting and money collecting system that has been extremely difficult to track. We only managed to get as far as we did because one of our Cyber Crime team members got a hit on a suspicious money transfer from an offshore account. While we’re still working to determine the exact account to which the money was transferred, we’ve managed to narrow it down to a well-known financial institution that has multiple branches in the Hempstead area.” Nate bit at his lower lip to keep from sounding overly agitated; the women sitting before him were getting on his last nerve.

“So, now that you do have this piece of information, how long is it going to take you to figure out exactly where the boys are being kept?” Rochelle cocked her head at Detective Hurley. She didn’t appreciate his condescending tone, but she didn’t want to rock the boat by being overly snarky.

“It’s hard to say.” Julie leapt in before her partner could continue. “All I can tell you for certain is that our team is going to need at least another forty-eight hours to ...”

“Two days?!” Lauren’s exclamation came out sounding more like a shriek. She fell back on the bed; Leigh and Baylee both bouncing from the movement. “Nick will be dead in less than a day!”

“Lo, even if Nick does win, they’re not going to kill him.” Rochelle soothed. “I mean, even if this is the last poll that these sickos have planned, the police will be able to pull their heads out of their asses and find them before anything terrible happens ...” She trailed off and looked pointedly at the detectives. “Right?”

“Nick’s not even in the lead anymore.” Baylee wiggled his phone at Lauren. “My dad’s beating him now.”

“What?! Give me that!” Lauren fought to push herself up into a sitting position for the second time in less than fifteen minutes; snatching Baylee’s phone out of his hand as she propped herself up against the pillows. She dropped her eyes to the screen before looking back up at Baylee. “Three votes? Brian is ahead by three votes? That’s not a lead!”

“Yes, it is!” Baylee retorted. “My dad is winning!”

“Okay, children, that’s enough!” Leigh pulled Baylee’s phone out of Lauren’s grip and shot them both a no-nonsense look. She opened her mouth to point out that winning, in this case, wasn’t exactly a good thing, but promptly shut it again as her brain registered the current poll results.

“What?” Kristin immediately noticed Leigh’s shocked expression. “What’s the matter?”

“It’s Howie.” Leigh shook her head in disbelief. “Howie’s in third place.” She hastily checked the numbers again to make sure that she wasn’t mistaken. “And his numbers are going up like crazy.”

“D, you’re seriously climbing in the poll.” AJ leaned back against the coolness of the cement wall and massaged his temples. The urge to down an entire bottle of vodka was still with him; especially, after having witnessed the situation with Brian. “Where have you been hiding all of these supporters?”

“It doesn’t make sense.” Howie shook his head. “I should be last. I’m always last.”

“That’s not true.” Kevin smirked. “Sometimes I’m last.”

“At this point, I would give anything to be last.” Brian gently pulled his shirt away from his chest and peeked down at the angry red welts. Thanks to Nick’s first-aid skills, the branded letters had finally stopped oozing and were beginning to scab over. He shuddered at the thought of what his chest was going to look like when they finally healed.

It was AJ’s turn to smirk. “Speaking as the person who’s actually in last place, I can safely say that ya’ll don’t want to be sitting here either. Who knows what these assholes are gonna do. For all we know, they could turn things around and take out their aggression out on the guy who comes in last.”

“Maybe whoever ends up in first place will get to leave.” Nick interjected. “You could be getting out of here, Bri.”

“Not so fast there, Nicky!” AJ laughed. “You’ve, once again, taken the lead by twelve votes.” He paused to re-check the totals. “And it looks like Mr. Howie D has officially taken over second place! D, you’re now three votes ahead of Brian. Kevin and I are still bringing up the rear.”

“Seeing as how I’m pretty sure that our new friends aren’t just going to let the first place guy go free, I can’t say that I’m excited.” Howie directed his comment at Nick. “You guys do realize the only reason that I’m getting a lot of votes is because people have probably realized that the winner is gonna be either killed or severely disfigured, right?”

“Why do you gotta be like that, Howie?” Nick sighed. “People like you, man. You’re always so down on yourself. It’s annoying.”

“People don’t like me, Nick. People like Brian, and even more people like you. That’s why they’re voting for me all of a sudden. The fans don’t want to see the two of you get hurt any more than you already have, so they’re voting for their least favourite.”

Howie stated his opinion with a distinct lack of emotion. He knew that what he was saying was true. The fans were being strategic. They were trying to run up the numbers in a way that would allow Nick and Brian to go free. Once again, he was the scapegoat; the one that everyone could live without.

Kevin stared down at the tablet in AJ’s lap as he listened to the exchange between Nick and Howie. He licked his lips and winced both from the searing pain in his shoulder and from the fact that Howie had just taken the lead in the poll. As much as he didn’t want to believe Howie’s words, he knew that what the Latino was saying was true.

The fans had obviously found some way of rallying together to ensure that Nick and Brian didn’t win. By making Howie their “favourite”, the fans were ensuring their most desirable outcome and proving to Howie that he was, in fact, the most overlooked and undervalued member of the group.

The notion made Kevin’s stomach churn. He wanted to scream at the camera; to tell the fans to vote for him instead. Of course, it didn’t matter what Kevin wanted. He was too far behind. With less than a day left to vote, and the numbers now climbing at an alarming rate, Howie’s fate was likely already sealed.