The guy in front snorted. “You think this is about money?”
“We don’t need your money,” another snipped, and a few of them broke off, walking around Levi. He felt them getting closer around him, muttering under their breath.
“Money can’t save you.”
“Filthy bastard.”
“I’m not surprised,” the guy in the front said. Where everyone else was dressed in T-shirts and jeans, he was the only one wearing a button-down. “Thinking you can throw around your wealth like it’s going to gain you any favor with us. It won’t. You can’t control this situation with your dirty money.”
Another laughed behind him. “Times come for the rich to get a taste of their own medicine. Thinking they walk on this earth and rule everything. You guys need a reminder that you’re not above everyone else.”
The guy in front bent down, getting nearer to Levi. He could see the man was around forty years old with wrinkles. Someone that worked hard, and instead of seeing it in his mind, it showed on his skin.
He narrowed his eyes on Levi. “It’s about time all the billionaires learned a lesson. You’ve been doing whatever you want for too long. But that’s all about to change.”
Levi swallowed. These people didn’t look like kidnappers, but they were certainly out for blood. He took a steady breath in before he spoke up. “What do you want with me? Why me?”
“Your technology. That piece of shit metal you sell at a high price that promises people answers and solutions that does nothing but cause more problems. You and the others aren’t caring about what you’re doing to people or the planet, and it’s about time that stops. We’re going to use you and send a message that we aren’t going to be pushed around anymore.”
Levi stiffened in his chair. They were out for revenge, and he knew there was nothing he could say to change this. They wanted him dead.
“Prepare to die,” someone said behind him, laughing once more.
Levi swallowed as the guy in front smirked. “You’ll be the first to die. We will use you as an example, and if the others don’t fall in line, then they will meet the same fate as you did. But I’m sure they will get the message.”
Levi suddenly felt his heart spike. He didn’t want to die. He wasn’t ready to die. He had so much he still wanted to do.
“You see those nozzles?” The guy pointed at the wall. “They are going to release carbon monoxide. We are at least giving you a painless death. I can’t promise the others the same, so be grateful.”
Levi suddenly felt the panic set in. “You can’t kill me. People will look for me.”
“We are counting on that,” he said, leaning back. “And we count on people learning about this. The more, the better. The more that do, the quicker it will get to the people we want to see it.”
“You’ll go to jail,” Levi snapped. “You’ll be labeled murders.”
“Ifwe get caught,” he said, giving Levi a smirk. “But we are just regular people. No one will suspect us. Besides, people will rejoice over this. They won’t feel bad about your death, so they won’t really look hard for your killer.”
That was the point, to blend in. They did it well. Too well. Levi frowned. “You’re killing an innocent man.”
“You’re hardly innocent,” he said, and everyone turned to the door. “You have blood on your hands. You might not have held the gun to murder someone, but you made it. That’s just as bad.”
Levi yelled, but no one listened. They slammed the door behind them, and Levi started to panic. He was done for. There was no way out, his hands were still bound, and any second now, those nozzles were going to release the gas that would kill him.
“Let me out!” he screamed, his voice echoing around him. “You can’t do this! You’re committing murder! If you kill me, that doesn’t make you saviors! You’re murderers!”
Silence.
There was no way anyone would hear him if he kept screaming. No one was going to save him.
He suddenly wondered if maybe being the Junior Hot Sauce King would have been a perfectly fine job. He knew that he wouldn’t be sitting in this chair if he had been. He wouldn’t have gotten himself kidnapped.
His father, the inventor and owner of a locally famous hot sauce brand didn’t have enemies like Levi clearly had. That idea made him frown, realizing his parents were going to have a dead son.
Levi looked around for any answer to help him out of this situation. But there was nothing to help him, nothing to save him.
And that punched him hard in the stomach. He was going to die. He was going to die alone, in an empty, dark room. He wouldn’t know what love was or what having a family was like. He wasn’t going to be surrounded by people who loved him and wished him well.
No, Levi would die with people waiting outside the door, wanting him dead. People who would cheer after he died. His heart sank further.