Chapter 22 - Beatrice
We got in the car, and I was still trembling with fear, even though I knew that I was now completely safe. Arko had one hand on my thigh, and I saw him clock a worried look in my direction more than once.
“Are you okay to go to your brothers first?” he asked. “They’ll be worried sick about you.”
“You told me I’m safe, haven’t you? And what about Anton?” I asked, turning to him.
“My family is still working on leads. Caspian said he’d like to see you in person,” Arko said with a clenched jaw. I knew what he was thinking. He hated that Caspian didn’t trust his word about me, when in fact, it was clear as day that Arko would have burned the world down to see me safe.
“Sure,” I shrugged, settling back into my seat. A while later, Caspian’s compound came into view, and I felt myself getting on edge, prepared for the cold treatment Arko would receive, the accusations of him putting me in danger, and the demands for me to stay back home.
But when we reached the house was already buzzing with chaos, which made no sense since they knew I’d been found. Arko, when he helped me out of the car, looked equally confused at the men shouting orders and pulling up convoys.
“What’s going on?” I asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said, leading me toward the front steps with a hand to the small of my back.
But before we could even reach the door, my brothers tumbled out of the house, each one rushing toward me. I could barely catch my breath as Caspian pulled me into a hug.
“Thank god you’re okay,” he said.
“Beatrice!” Dante was the last to run out toward me. He held me by the shoulders, taking a good look at me. “Christ, where were you?”
“We were worried sick!” Achille said as Giovanni turned to Arko.
“Thank you,” Giovanni said, and I saw the surprise I felt on Arko’s face. “For getting her back to us.”
“I had no other choice,” said Arko, his voice hitching in his throat. A small silence fell over the group, and call me crazy, but it almost felt like peace.
“What’s up with all the action?” I broke the silence, pointing around us.
“Right. That. There’s something you need to know,” Caspian said to Arko. “Let’s head inside.”
I couldn’t believe my brothers were ushering us in, Arko included, like he was a wanted houseguest. We walked into the living room, and Federico and Achille passed around some scotch before we settled in.
“We were coming up with a game plan,” Caspian explained. “We know where Anton is.”
Arko lurched to the edge of the couch just as I felt my heart stop. “What are you saying?” he asked.
“Before you called us to tell us you had rescued Bea, our men were out scouring the city. We had all our operations on lockdown and our properties guarded, in case another attack occurred. In the process, we got a call,” Caspian sighed.
“About twenty minutes ago, they spotted suspicious activity at one of our old properties. The distillery on the east side that we shut down last year,” added Federico.
“The Franklin Street location?” I asked.
Caspian looked surprised as he turned to me. “You know it?”
“I know all our properties,” I said simply. “I was always curious about the family business, even though you all preferred I stayed out.”
My brothers looked guilty, but Arko looked at me and stilled, as if he’d seen something my brothers didn’t.
“So what were you saying about Anton?” Arko asked, breaking his gaze away from me to turn back to my brothers impatiently.
“Right.” Caspian shook his head to clear it.
“We couldn’t get into our property. There are armed men inside; they’ve taken the place for themselves.
We knew that wouldn’t fly and wanted to attack and regain ground, but one of our men managed to get a look in and turns out, Anton’s being held hostage in there. ”
A chill went through me just as Arko went rigid. “Do you know who they are?” he asked.
“Not a clue,” Caspian said. “But it looks like whoever it is was trying to pit our families against one another. Why else would they have taken your brother to our abandoned distillery?”
“It’s a trap designed to set us up!” Arko said, jumping off the couch. “I need to go get him back.”
“It’s not that easy,” I said sadly, looking up at Arko and gently tugging at his hand to get him to sit back down. “That place is a fortress.”
“There are at least six armed men inside,” Dante explained as he pulled out a laptop and put up some grainy images, passing it to Arko. “They’ve got Anton in what used to be the main storage area. Our scout managed to get a glimpse through a window before they had to pull back.”
“Is he hurt?” Arko’s voice was tight, but we could all hear the fear in it.
“He’s conscious, tied to a chair, and has some bruises on his face,” Dante said gently. “But he’s okay.”
Arko handed the laptop back to Dante, and I noticed how tightly his fists clenched on his lap afterward. Without thinking, I reached over and placed a hand over his. He looked up at me, with eyes blasted with fear.
“I think we’ll need back-up,” Caspian said kindly. “Let’s call your brothers and hatch up a plan.”
“Y…you’re going to help?” asked Arko, his brows softening at the realization. I, too, was stunned by this turn of events.
“You helped us get back Beatrice,” said Dante, smiling as he looked between Arko and me. “We believe this is a no-brainer.”
Arko pulled away his hand and reached for his phone, tucked in his pocket. “I’m going to call Andrey,” he said. “They’ll be on standby for when we move.”
By the time Arko returned, Caspian and the others had managed to pull out some maps of the distillery and the surrounding areas on their computer.
“Tell me what we’re looking at,” Arko said desperately, as we made space for him around the coffee table we were crowded around.
“They’ve got all the doors wired with what looks like explosives,” said Giovanni. “We can’t just walk in through any of the doors, even with guns blazing.”
I stared at the blueprint, remembering back when I’d visited that distillery with Caspian years ago.
I’d memorized the layout because I’d stolen the plans for the renovations, but the numbers hadn’t made sense.
I’d spent weeks going through every inch of the place on the blueprint to find the discrepancy.
When I couldn’t, I’d bribed one of the guards to take me for a visit when the place was empty.
“There’s another way in,” I said quietly.
“We’ll know it if there was,” Caspian dismissed me, but then, I heard Arko speak.
“Beatrice,” he said quietly, “you said you know these properties, and I don’t want to take a chance assuming we know something we don’t. Tell us what you think.”
All my brothers looked dazed as Arko gave me the floor. For a moment, I lost my own voice, not believing what I was hearing.
“Go on,” he said, encouragingly. My entire life, I’d been overlooked when it came to contributing to family affairs outside the house. My career wasn’t even on the table. I knew my brothers were trying to shelter me, but it had become so deeply ingrained that I felt nervous having the floor.
“Umm.” I cleared my throat. “Remember the back of the distillery on the north side?”
“Yeah?” Dante leans forward, too, curious to see where I was going.
“Doesn’t it have that rusted drainage trench? I remember it’s narrow, but it opens up into the utility corridor, and maybe you could access through that.”
“But we sealed that off, didn’t we?” Caspian asks, frowning.
“Yes, but four months ago, the maintenance company reached out, remember? They said the weld broke, and we could fix it if we liked. I think you guys forgot…” I trailed off, my eyes landing on Arko, who looked so fucking proud that I thought I’d melt into the floor.
“Oh, fuck,” said Giovanni, his eyes widening in surprise. “With everything that happened,” he, too, threw Arko an accusatory look, “we completely forgot.”
“Which means we can tear off the weld and get someone inside.” Caspian broke into a smile, shaking his head at me in disbelief.
“Correct,” I shrugged.
Arko smirked as he inched closer to me and bumped his shoulder against mine. “Thank god we heard you out.”
I smiled back just as my brothers started discussing how to get a man to reach for the trench.
“They might have guards circling the perimeters,” Caspian sighed. “We can’t risk sending someone in. They could get shot.”
“How many do you think there are?” I asked.
“Considering there are six armed men inside that we know of, and the fact that they consider the distillery abandoned, not too many, I’d guess,” said Arko, once again looking at me with curious eyes.
“Okay.” I looked at the map again and grabbed a notebook from the side.
“Looking at the perimeter and the average pace of walking, I’d say it takes someone thirteen minutes to take a loop around the place.
If you place a spy out there now, and they count how many men are patrolling, we’ll know when there’s a blind spot… ”
I did the rough math as everyone held their breath. “If it’s one man on patrol, we have thirteen minutes to reach the trench after the patrol leaves. If we have two, then roughly seven and a half minutes before one passes and the second arrives. Get it?”
“She’s right,” whistled Giovanni, looking at me like I’d just dropped from the skies. “Holy shit.”
“So we have a plan then?” I grinned at them.
My brothers nodded, each of them shifting to widen the circle to make a place for me around the table, before we moved on to the next round of discussions.
***
The plan hatched was pretty simple. We drove toward the compound and parked the cars far away, making way on foot under the cover of the forested region circling the distillery.
Dante, Caspian, Federico, and Dante’s brothers Alek and Artyom were to squeeze in through the trench, making way to the utility corridor, then finding a way in.
Artyom had some experience with explosives, so he planned to go find a way to dismantle them, while Alek would find where they kept Anton.
Meanwhile, Gio and the rest of my brothers were to coordinate a distraction at the front to help lure the men out, and Arko’s brothers were to secure the perimeter.
Every man was needed on the front. Before the men began to move, Arko gently pushed me back against the bark of a tree, from where, if I twisted, I could peer out and see what was happening at the distillery.
“Keep the radio on at all times,” he told me. “And whatever happens. Do not come in. The guards patrolling the forests will keep dropping by every five minutes to check on you.”
I sat at the base of the tree, my heart hammering as I watched Arko check his weapon one last time before heading out.
“Be careful,” I whispered, catching his arm.
His eyes softened for a moment. “I will be,” he said softly, leaning down to give me a parting kiss.
I watched the men scatter away and made myself as small as I could under the shadows. “Check?” I asked, putting on my headphones and waiting for the comms to come through.
One by one, each team confirmed they were in position. I sat in silence, the cold night seeping through my bones; the only sound was the crickets. A couple of minutes later, a pair of guards crossed the path, and I waved them on, telling them all was good.
“The patrol just left,” Dante hissed into the comms. “We’re scaling now.”
I looked past the window and watched Dante, his brothers, and mine scale the walls. They stuck to the ground, and I couldn’t see a thing past the boundary walls. I waited, my hands jittery, and I only stopped panting nervous breaths once Dante confirmed they’d broken through the weld.
“Hurry,” I muttered, looking at my watch. “You have three minutes to get in.”
“We’re sliding in now,” Dante whispered. “Artyom wiggled his way through.”
I heard the muffled sound of effort, then a quiet crack. “We’re through. Tunnel confirmed.”
I felt a small sliver of excitement race down my spine. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t just bearing witness to who we were. I was a part of it, helping my family in whatever way I could.
“We’ve got the perimeter secured,” said Andrey. “The guards on patrol were shot on sight. Perimeter’s clear.”
“Distraction team going in,” Giovanni whispered through the comms.
It was happening. The plan was going exactly as we wanted, and for the first time that night, I felt the edge wear off. I knew we weren’t out of danger, but I was foolish enough to think that maybe things were smooth sailing from then on.
How fucking wrong I turned out to be. For fifteen minutes, everything was fine. But then, out of nowhere, an explosion rocked the front of the building.
“Arko?” I asked, scrambling to my feet as panic filled my chest.
Shouts erupted through the comms, something about Caspian’s team engaging with unaccounted-for guards at the front.
Gunfire erupted, feeling closer than I thought they’d be.
I flinched, pressing the headset tighter around my ears to make sense of what was going on at the other end.
The boundary walls were too high, and I couldn’t see a thing inside.
The comms were filled with overlapping voices, shouts, and the sounds of war.
“We found Anton,” Arko whispered. “Heading to extract—”
Just then, another massive explosion shook the building, and all the comms went dead.
“Arko?” I called, frantically trying to adjust the frequencies. “Arko, are you okay?”
The static gave way to a dead signal, and I hissed, looking around for one of the guards. I needed them to escort me to the comms vehicle parked half a mile off, so I could go in there and ask what the hell was going on.
But every minute that passed by felt like agony. The guards were taking longer than I thought they would, or maybe time flew more slowly, but I knew it had been too long to not hear from Arko.
If they had Anton, why the hell weren’t they out?
My eyes were preened on the walls, but no one seemed to be making an exit. Arko and our families were inside, and there was no sign from them, no communication.
I couldn’t just sit out here and pretend they were okay. What if something was seriously wrong? What if they were shut in that tunnel with no escape? Maybe the cover over the weld fell back into place, so I didn’t need to move it.
Without thinking, I ran to scale the wall.