CHAPTER FORTY-SIX TRACE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
TRACE
Anthony was in a frenzy. He met me at Katya’s front door, looking eighty instead of his near forty years. The guards were with him. Something was already in the works.
“She’s a good person. She’s a great bartender, and I consider her a friend.”
I stopped in my tracks. “What are you talking about?”
He didn’t answer, just stepped aside.
Ashton was coming out of a door. “Trace. Back here.”
That didn’t sound good, and Anthony’s jaw was firm as he looked away, pointedly walking out of the room. Ashton didn’t look much different, but he nodded toward the door. “She beat you here.”
I cursed. “When did you get here?”
“Ten minutes after she did. We need to ask how she found Remmi so fast, because she shouldn’t have.”
I sailed past him but gave him a look. “Are you joking? With her resources?”
He flicked his eyes up to the ceiling, raking a hand over his head. “Then we’re all sorts of fucked if she called in favors.”
“We’re way beyond that.”
I shoved through the door; it led to another back section and another set of closed doors.
Some of Ashton’s men were trying to get in, which said a lot because Ashton didn’t usually bring his guys.
He preferred to travel alone or use my guards, but he’d kept all Katya staff out of this section. That was smart.
Tim turned around, seeing us coming. “She’s barred the door, and we’re hearing hits going on. We don’t know what she’s doing in there.”
Jesus. This had gone from bad to worse, and now it was epically worse. If my sister was harmed, I wasn’t sure what I would do. Remmi was blood. Jess ...
“Move aside, guys. Let him try.”
I pounded on the door. “Let me in, Jess.”
Nothing.
Thumps. Or what could be slapping sounded.
But there was nothing else. No cries. No screams. No yelling.
Something wasn’t right here.
“You have feeds in there?”
“No.” But Ashton sidled up next to me, an iPad in hand, and he hit a button. “But watch that.”
It was the security feeds showing Jess walking inside.
She was moving calmly but with purpose, and when she hit the hallway leading to Anthony’s office, Remmi stepped out.
She saw Jess and froze, and suddenly Jess rushed her.
She grabbed her, twisted her arm behind her, placed another hand on the back of Remmi’s shoulders, and she marched her right through the next set of doors.
The feed switched to the room where we were in, showing no one in the vicinity as Jess guided Remmi through the doors that were now barricaded. No one put up a fight, even Remmi. It was all done with utmost professional efficiency.
“Rewind it.”
Ashton did, and I studied my sister’s face, noting how she just looked surprised. She wasn’t crying or wincing from pain. Just shocked.
That eased some of my concern.
Ashton had been rewatching with me. “She’s good. No one even knew they were in there until I showed up looking for her.”
“There’s feeds from the back of that room?”
“Back of that room goes nowhere ...” He stopped talking as a strange look came over him. “But it leads to a basement that we’ve never utilized.”
“Let me guess. There’s no feeds down there either.”
He grunted. “I can’t believe we never thought of that.”
“But I can believe she did. Also, why the fuck do we have a basement that we don’t use?”
He shrugged. “It’s New York. It’s probably bricked up from the Prohibition days.”
We shared a look because why weren’t we using that again? “I highly doubt she’s interrogating or whatever she’s doing to her in the basement. If they’re down there, there’s an exit.”
“You’re talking like she’s taking your sister hostage. This is Jess Montell. We know her day job. She’s going to do whatever she needs to do, and then she’ll cut her losses. She won’t prolong this.”
Which alarmed me even more. I looked around, seeing an exit door. “Come on.”
“Where are you going?”
“Have your guys blow that door down.” I had my phone out, sending off a text to tell Demetri and Pajn to come in and block the other set of doors so no staff could get in.
This was the definition of where we didn’t want our Mafia business to cross over into our non-Mafia business.
Any staff saw anything, and that would happen.
I wasn’t including Anthony because he took off when we showed up. He knew the deal.
As soon as that text was sent and it buzzed back that they had gotten it, I was through the exit door.
Ashton was right behind me, stepping out into the side alley where some of the staff kept their vehicles, those who did drive to work.
“What are we doing?”
I was looking around. “I don’t know, but I can’t stay in there. I can’t do nothing.”
Ashton grunted, moving to walk beside me as we went to the back of the building. “You’re looking for an entrance to our own basement, the one we didn’t know we had.”
“Exactly.” Though I hadn’t formulated it into an actual thought, but yes. That’s what I was doing. Or what we were doing.
The back of our building ended with the side exit door where we’d stepped out, but there was another parking area in the rear.
The farthest door leading here was one that most of the staff took, from the main hallway.
I had waited here on the night I’d given Jess a ride home.
She’d used this door, but there had to be another entrance. Why go into that room?
“Hey.” Ashton had rounded to the other side of our alley, on the complete opposite side of our building.
He stood just above a set of small storm doors.
They looked like they were leading into the other building, not ours.
He indicated them. “I’ve looked at all the blueprints for our neighbors, and these weren’t on them. I just never looked hard enough.”
I swore. “You’re honestly suggesting we should try and open them and go down into a potential basement that we have no idea actually leads to Katya?”
His head went back, and he started to lift his arms. “Well, when you put it like that—”
“We’re doing it.”
I said that at the same time he finished with, “—hell yes.”
We shared a grin, but then reality hit me. “What the fuck are we doing?”
He jumped down, bracing on either side of the doors, and flashed me a grin, his entire face lit up way too much for what we were about to do. “We’re exploring. Call us the New York Goonies.” He bent down, took hold of one of the doors, and hoisted it up.
It wouldn’t go, but there was a little opening.
I dropped down, braced myself, and grabbed the other door. Together, we lifted them, seeing they both had to open at the same time.
After that, total and creepy darkness.
“I can literally hear the rats scampering.”
“Let’s just hope there’s no New York alligators we don’t know about.”
“You know people probably have snakes as pets, snakes that got away through their toilets.”
I suppressed a shudder. “You could be a serial killer. You’re that kind of sick and disturbing.”
He barked out a laugh but pulled out a flashlight and handed it over to me. “Here.”
“You just keep these on you? For days when you might have to explore a creepy basement?”
Another flash of a grin as he pulled out a second flashlight and put it in his mouth, then reached for something else.
It was his gun, and he switched his hands, positioning the flashlight over the gun so he was holding both together.
He dropped his voice. “I have flashlights on me because you never know what the hell we have to do for our families. Also, you lead.”
“Always gotta be prepared, huh.” But I was stalling, and I knew it was time.
I aimed my flashlight down, seeing it was a set of crude carved-out stairs that led down into this tunnel/basement.
I suppressed a shiver and started down.
It didn’t occur to me until Ashton was fully behind me that he should’ve been the one going ahead. He had the gun.
I told him, “You better have that thing aimed down.”
“Of course, in case I need to kill any New York alligators.”
“Dumbass.”
“Uh, I’m the smart one. I got you to lead the way.”
That was true. I was the dumbass.