32. Savage
32
SAVAGE
The gunfire outside the office gets louder. Sounds like someone is making headway, hopefully it’s our guys.
The longer Paige is out of sight, the less I fucking like this situation.
One of Fabbri's goons pokes his head out, and it's the last thing he does. I pull my gun back, kick out the magazine and replenish with a new one. Glad I brought extras.
There’s no more movement. Are we out of targets? Seems that way. “Poe, Crank, any on your end?”
“Think we're clear,” Crank replies. “They've either run or died.”
There's still plenty of action going on outside the office, but in here we've cleared out. Poe looks at the door at the end. “Time to get Paige and Heather out?”
“Yeah.” Fuck, every second I don't see her, I fucking worry. Burton’s involvement was always a crapshoot for us. We went along with it to see if he was worth having as a contact, but that played out about as expected. I nudge his body with my boot. “The cops are fucking amateurs. He had one shot to be something more than a desk jockey and couldn’t even get that off.”
“What about the money?” Crank eyes both the bag we brought and the little suitcase that got knocked to the floor.
“Take what you can put in your pockets and leave the rest. It's just a distraction. We're getting the girls the fuck outta here.” I throw open the door to the bathroom, only to find… no one. “What the fuck?”
Crank pushes past. “Shit. Look around. We woulda seen them come out so there has to be a hidden door here somewhere.”
I'm liking this less and less, and I already fucking hated it. “Well, this is fucking bullshit. I knew we shouldn’t have trusted her.”
We spread out, searching for anything that might operate a hidden door. Buttons, switches, loose tiles, anything. I rap my knuckles on the wall of the shower, moving systematically from spot to spot. It pays off.
“It’s hollow here. Listen.” I rap on the wall, slowing to map out the area that sounds different. “Question is, where’s the mechanism?”
“I am the mechanism,” Crank declares. “Outta my way.”
I move just in time for him to come barrelling.
He slams into the shower wall and bounces right back off. “Ow! Fuck!” The wall slides smoothly from left to right, revealing a dark hallway. “I did it!”
“No, I found the button,” Poe says dryly, his hand near the back of the toilet. “But I appreciate your enthusiasm.”
“Faith trusted her,” Crank growls, rubbing his shoulder
“No one fucking betrays you like family,” Poe says bitterly.
Usually I'm pretty fucking collected, and I’m not a fan of hurting women, but if her aunt led Paige into a trap either on purpose or through pure stupidity, I might make an exception. “Let’s go. They had to have gone through here, and the more time that passes, the worse our chances get at finding her.”
I don’t like not knowing if we are going in the right direction, but if Paige went down here, then she probably had a reason. We head into the unknown, and as soon as we’re in the hall, the door shuts behind us and a light comes on.
Poe looks around. “Fancy, can we get one of these at the clubhouse?”
“Sure, drop it in the suggestion box.”
“We have a suggestion box?” Crank asks as we jog down the corridor.
At the end of the corridor, there’s an open door. A body comes into view, their gun up. All three of us aim at once, only to find Lash, Sinner and Hellfire at the end of our sights. “Fuck, we almost shot you.”
“Good thing you didn't,” Hellfire says dryly. “Where's Paige?”
“Was hoping you'd know that. She disappeared down this way along with her aunt. Who may or may not have led her away on purpose,” I spit out bitterly. Paige has so little fucking family left, it sucks that her surviving in-law is likely a traitorous bitch.
“Fuck.” Hellfire's expression darkens. “They came this way?”
“Yep.” Poe opens another door. “And I think I know where they went.”
We look past him to see the fire escape leading down to the ground behind the building. “Someone should've seen them, right?” I ask Hellfire. “We had the place surrounded.”
He shakes his head. “Could be, but who the fuck knows? It was chaos after we charged with all the fucking cops swarming in. Probably not. Sinner and Lash. You boys go back and start asking. See if anyone caught it. Suspect we woulda been told if someone did, though. Our guys would’ve noticed Paige.”
Poe starts down the spiral staircase, with me, Crank and Hellfire following. The metal rattles beneath our boots. At the bottom, the gate barred gate that’d typically be locked is swinging open, and there's skidmarks on the asphalt.
“Someone was in a fucking hurry. I bet my balls it was Fabbri,” Hellfire says.
“Fuck!” Crank kicks a rock across the parking lot and into a garbage container with a metallic clang. “Motherfucker! Now what? Give me something to fucking break.”
“Let’s go. Someone saw something, and standing around isn’t going to get her back.”