PROLOGUE

Ricky Toledo clawed his way out of the blackness, the sticky, drooling nothing of a bender-induced coma. A marching band stomped through his skull and the vinegary tang of garbage squeezed his throat, like he"d spent last night rummaging through dumpsters mouth-first. Christ, how much rot-gut had he guzzled last night? Brain cells fried on rocket fuel masquerading as whiskey.

Snapshots flashed behind his eyes, all blurry round the edges. Pounding shots at the bar until the wee hours. Laughing with those fat-cat donors he called friends, faces smeared like greasepaint. Then getting the bright idea to take the party to the stripclub, hooting and hollering and smashing bottles. Drinking until the stars spun, unable to tell up from down. So pickled he couldn"t feel the breeze.

Yeah, that was his last clear memory before the world slid sideways into oblivion.

He must"ve really done a number on himself this time – even for him. He felt like someone had switched his bones for cinderblocks. Either that or he'd been flattened by a truck and this was some kind of between-world dreamstate where he couldn't move his limbs but could still feel pain.

Ricky tried to shift again, but nothing much happened. Just a twitch of the shoulder. His eyelids resisted fluttering open, glued together with some devil"s-brew combo of hangover sweat and eye boogers.

The first thing that struck him was the chill. His sodden clothes, usually pressed to perfection for council meetings, clung to him like a second skin. It was August the last time he checked, and unless he'd been unconscious for a month, he doubted Virginia ever got this cold in the summer.

Gooseflesh prickled his arms, and his teeth chattered. Where the hell was he? Did he leave a window open, pass out half in some alleyway? His mouth felt like it was stuffed with steel wool, and his tongue probed around for an answer. Came up with nothing but the stale film of too many cigarettes.

Slowly, other sensations filtered in: The rock-hard surface digging into his back. The smell of mold and damp concrete. And everywhere, the cold, settling deep into his bones. What the hell was going on? None of this added up to any kind of sense – not even by the whacked-out mathematics of his usual binges.

Ricky willed his eyes open, lids creaking apart like a rusty gate. He blinked water out of them as his vision adjusted to the darkness. Pitch is goddamn black. Couldn"t see his own hand in front of his face. But he could feel rough stone under his fingers, chilly and slightly damp to the touch.

This was not his bed, nor his office at City Hall.

He tried to move again, straining with all his pickled might. But his arms and legs were dead weight. Leaden. Pinned at his sides by some unseen force. Ricky"s heart rate surged into overdrive as adrenaline rose to chase away the last dregs of hangover. Something was very wrong here.

And then he heard it.

Water.

Echoing off close walls. The sound burrowed into his eardrums, insidious as a rattler"s hiss.

Where was it coming from? His head lolled, neck muscles creaking, as he tried to get his bearings in the black. But it was everywhere and nowhere, impossible to pinpoint.

Then, a new sensation registered: pain. Sharp, stuttering bolts of it, arcing up his legs. Ricky gasped, then bit back a whimper. What the hell? Did he bust them up somehow, falling down drunk? Christ knows he"d taken plenty of headers in his misspent life, but nothing felt right about this.

Another noise joined the steady drip of water: a low groan, ragged around the edges. It took Ricky a minute to realize it was coming from his own throat.

His tongue probed a split lip, the coppery tang of blood mixing with stomach acid.

This was not a dream, nor some drink-induced hallucination. The pain, the restraints, the water at his feet – this was his reality.

As his eyes adjusted to the dark, vague shapes swam into focus. Walls, close and curving around him. A high ceiling is lost in shadow. And just at the edge of his bleary sight, two hulking objects. One looked like a basin, something bulky and solid squatting over him. The other – his own legs.

But not.

His feet disappeared into a mass of something at the bottom of the basin. Solid and greyish in the gloom. It was recognizable as a human, man-made shape, but the rationale part of his brain struggled to accept what his eyeballs were telling him.

His feet were sealed in a block of solid concrete.

A lance of pure, gut-wrenching terror shot through him. Icy comprehension crashed over him in a frigid wave. He didn"t bust up his legs, didn"t injure himself in a drunken fall. Someone had done this to him. Knocked him out, dragged him here, to this dank hole. And they'd done this to him.

Ricky thrashed against his bonds, bellowing hoarsely into the blackness as the water continued to trickle in steadily from above. But the hard stone encasing him held fast, immovable and impassive. His ankles ached fiercely where the cement block squeezed, but Ricky couldn't command any control of them. He craned his neck, searching desperately for an exit, an escape hatch, any goddamn way out of whatever the hell this was. But there was only the suffocating blackness of a tomb.

‘Help!' The word tore from Ricky's throat. ‘God, help me. Someone! Please!'

But his cries dissolved into the ether. His pleas were drowned out by the dripping water.

Nobody was coming.

The water was up to his chin now, and the gnawing fear in Ricky's gut solidified into sure knowledge that was he going to die in here.

In that moment, Ricky saw his life unspool behind his lids in a mocking film strip. All those late nights schmoozing at rubber chicken dinners, pressing the flesh, making promises he couldn"t keep. Fighting with his ex-girlfriend in their kitchen until she stormed out. Missing his mother's birthday, spending too much time hunched over zoning laws, disappointing his friends for the umpteenth time.

He"d failed them all, over and over, and this was the final punchline to a joke only the devil could laugh at.

The cops would find him pruned up and white as a fish belly, eyes bulging. Some ignominious end for a man who should be at the top of his game.

‘I"m sorry,' he rasped to no one, hot tears tracking down his stubbled cheeks. ‘God, I"m so sorry.'

For letting everyone down. For trying to play the hero politician instead of the good brother. He"d make different choices if he had it to do over – to be there more, nag less. To chase fewer highs. What he wouldn"t give for one more shot, one more chance to do right by the few people who held him dear.

As the rising water reached his chin, Ricky squeezed his eyes shut and sent up one last prayer. That those he loved would find peace and purpose outside his wreckage.

And then his body seized in its concrete coffin, straining for one last precious gasp, but there was only choking, spluttering agony – water heavy in his lungs, a taunting void as the cold took him down.