23. Dante
23
DANTE
M oneybags continues to struggle against my hold as I drag her through the dank tunnel. She fails to understand the severity of the situation and physically pulls back at every turn. I keep going, pulling her along with me, even when she goes tumbling to the ground. I lift her up by the underarms, press her into my side, and hurry down the tunnel toward our security exit.
When we are out of the tunnel, I lift my hand to the electronic panel and punch in a set of numbers. There is a series of beeps, before the wall slides back and we emerge into the night. Looking left and right, I pull Kingsley behind me, leading her into the backyard, where I open a gate and we slide behind it and into the rear garden of the neighboring house. We cross the rear yard, cutting through two back yards until we reach a house a few doors down from where we’d been. We enter the house through a huge metal door at the back after I enter a code into another electronic panel. I punch in the code again after the door swings closed behind us, ensuring there is no way in or out without the code.
“What is this place?” Kingsley whispers, standing in the middle of the room, turning in a small slow circle to take in the wall to wall monitors that cover every inch of every wall.
“It’s a panic room,” I tell her, tapping at one of the keyboards until eight screens spanning the length of one wall merge into one screen and we have an external view of the house we had just left. The house is being pelted with bullets and grenades.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kingsley whispers, her hand flying to her mouth as she points to the motorcycles parked across the road from the house.
I ignore her and watch as men surround the house, engaging fire with my men. My body seethes with rage as I watch them throw grenades into the house, intending to immobilize my men long enough to gain entry. I hear the sudden squeal of tires as a black SUV comes hurtling down the street, and watch as Marco flies out of the car, his gun aimed and shooting off bullet after bullet as he ducks behind his open car door. The attackers, realizing more back up is arriving, scatter, heading toward their motorcycles and leaving the scene. One of the men limps toward his motorcycle, his blood coating the pavement as he drags his bloody leg behind him. The gunfight subsides, until there is only Marco, who shoots off two more bullets for good measure before he rises from behind his car door. He holds his gun at the ready and makes his way toward the house, talking on his comms as he pushes the door open.
“I just want to know what the fuck you’ve done to piss these guys off,” I rage, without turning to face Kingsley. One way or another, I’m going to find out what happened between them, and how they found us. Our safe houses are failsafe; finding our location would not have been an easy feat. And the Savages MC, of all people. We’d never had an issue with them.
Until Kingsley.
* * *
With the flick of a switch, I turn off the cameras and leave Kingsley in the panic room while I meet with Marco in an adjoining room.
“Men all safe?” I ask him, as he holsters his gun.
“A few scrapes and bruises here and there, but otherwise fine,” he informs me.
“That was a pretty brazen attack. You sure it was the Savages?”
“Confirmation via one of the deceased,” he tells me. “He’s been on their payroll for fourteen years.”
“Bodies?”
“Two. Taken care of.”
I pace around the room, the pad of my thumb tapping the pad of my index finger as I delve further into the troubled state I’m in. Something about this doesn’t seem right and I know I’m missing a crucial piece of the puzzle here.
“This have anything to do with you using the police to cut them off a few weeks ago?” Marco asks, giving me an unsure look. My mind wanders back to the night I’d rescued Moneybags from the motorcycle gang, how they’d followed us through the darkened night and we couldn’t shake them until I called in a favor and got the police to pull them over so we could lose them. Something wasn’t gelling. They wouldn’t go to such extraordinary lengths to hit us over something as simple as an incident of road rage. I can’t imagine that they’d be willing to lose any of their men to something so insignificant. I also can’t imagine that their President would sanction such actions over a girl refusing one of their own. No one wants that sort of attention pointing towards them. And no one wants to make an enemy of the Accardis.
“I can’t imagine it would have anything to do with that,” I tell him, confusion clouding my mind.
“Then what do they want?”
“This has to be about the girl. Definitely the girl. But more importantly – how did they find us?”
There is a buzzing at the side of my head, like a gnawing feeling that refuses to die, trying to tell me something. I am definitely missing something, and that something lurks in the back of my mind, a puzzle waiting to be deciphered.
“You sure our team is airtight?” I ask him. Marco I am sure of. There is nothing he wouldn’t do to protect me. Some of the others though, although carefully vetted and working for us only after Marco had run them through rigorous security checks and even stricter training, had not been with us as long. Marco shakes his head vehemently. He would stake his life there wasn’t a leak in our camp.
I walk around the room, then stop, lifting my head and closing my eyes, reviewing everything from the night I first came into contact with the Savages. I had pulled a gun on them, allowing for Moneybags to run and retrieve my car. We’d driven through dark, deserted streets, at breakneck speed, trying to ditch the motorcycles that were on our tail. We’d enlisted the help of the local police to have them sideline them as we made our escape. We’d eventually ditched them and made our way to the cabin. In the morning, my car was gone and so was Moneybags. The car was returned…
I open my eyes suddenly and look down at Marco, my blazing eyes like focused pinpoints cutting through him.