Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Lucian
Smoke rises from the east row. Thin at first. Then thicker. Dark against the snow.
For half a second, I am back in the warehouse.
Heat. Screams. Men trapped behind doors that should have opened. Isobel’s voice telling me she might be pregnant. Carlos whispering that love makes men weak.
The past closes its hand around my throat.
Then Erin touches my wrist. Not holding. Not pleading. A reminder.
Green.
I come back.
Snow. Gates. Smoke. Erin beside me. Isobel ahead. Rafe at the lead vehicle. Gregory pale over his laptop. Blaze smiling like violence finally received an invitation.
Carlos made his first move.
Now he dies.
“Positions,” I say.
Rafe’s voice snaps through radio. “Outer team holds. No one enters until Gregory confirms the relay.”
Blaze takes one step forward.
“Blaze,” Rafe warns.
“What did I do? Breathe too soon?”
“Do less.”
Gregory’s fingers fly over his keyboard. “The smoke isn’t fire. It’s triggering safety protocols. He’s recreating the fire without burning the Village down.”
Memory, not destruction. That is worse. Carlos doesn’t want rubble.
He wants me standing in fear, making mistakes.
Every instinct in me screams to put Erin in the SUV. Send her to Norway. Lock countries and steel between her and that smoke. But I don’t, and the restraint feels like it’s carving me open.
“Gregory, Rafe,” I say. “Find him.”
“I can, but I need the old route to answer once more,” Gregory hisses. “We are so close.”
Rafe’s eyes cut to mine. “Not the gate.”
“No,” Gregory says quickly. “A ghost knock. We make the system think the family entered the perimeter, but not through the door Carlos wants. Then I can trace his exact location, and we can send in the troops. So. Close.”
Erin’s voice is quiet. “Make him think he has the play without giving him the stage.”
Gregory points at her. “Exactly.”
Pride hits me hard enough to hurt. Carlos wanted a pawn. But he gave me a queen that night.
Dressed in an inadequate coat.
“Do it,” I say.
Gregory hits the key.
The Village answers beneath our feet. One low pulse. Old stone recognizes old blood.
Carlos’s voice returns through every radio. “You always were sentimental, Lucian.”
I turn toward the speaker above the gate. “Still hiding?”
A soft laugh. “Still pretending she is not bait?”
Carlos wants proof that he can still reach inside me.
I give him nothing.
“She isn’t bait,” I say. “And she’s not my mistake. It was your mistake to send her. Now, we’re all stronger.”
Silence. Small. Sharp.
Then Carlos says, “Love does make men stupid.”
“No,” Erin answers before I can. “Ego does.”
Blaze mutters, “God, I love her.”
“So do I,” I say.
Erin turns her head.
Carlos goes silent again.
Rafe mouths, Keep him talking. More.
I hate talking.
I prefer killing.
Today, I do both.
Erin’s word stays with me; ego makes men do stupid things.
“You killed your men because you feared they’d follow me.
You killed Marina before she could turn on you,” I say.
“You stole my father’s seal because you had no authority of your own.
You used Isobel because she left you for me.
You used the Morettis because you couldn’t reach me on your own, and you used Caleb to get to Erin because you didn’t have the power to get to me yourself.
You sent a girl to do your job. And even that didn’t work. ”
The snow falls harder.
“All because you couldn’t be a Bachman. You knew they wouldn’t take you. Because you build your world on other people’s shoulders,” I say. “Then call yourself powerful.”
Carlos’s voice lowers. “Careful.”
The first crack.
Thank god.
Gregory hisses, “Four seconds. I need four more seconds.”
“Then we battle.” Blaze exhales happily.
Rafe’s voice shakes. “He shifted. East row confirmed. Old courier chamber. Sublevel two. We need ten more seconds.”
Carlos says, “And you have all the power of the mighty Bachmans behind you and you still can’t strike.”
Carlos’s voice turns venomous. “You should hear her scream before you get poetic.”
Everything in me stops.
Erin’s hand closes hard around my wrist. “Remember who you are, now,” she whispers.
Remember who you are now.
For her. To whom. Who she’s built me back up to be.
Carlos waits for me to break.
I don’t.
I wait.
“I have him,” Gregory says.
Sheer joy runs out the terror in my blood.
Rafe’s screen stabilizes. “East row. The old Bachman Jewelers. He is inside. He’s communicating from inside.”
“Bachman Jewelers wasn’t only a store,” Gregory says, his voice going thin in that way it does when history becomes a murder weapon. He’s researched every map and every building plan of the Bachmans he could find. “None of the old businesses were only businesses.”
Rafe drags the old schematic across the screen.
Bachman Avenue. Daughtry Clothiers. Clara’s Children’s Boutique. Bachman’s.
A ring of luxury built around a secret.
“The Village was hidden behind the backs of those buildings,” Gregory continues. “No rear windows. No normal exits. Each Bachman-owned shop had a concealed access point in the back. Office, storeroom, cloakroom. A blocked exit only family could use.”
The gates are wide enough for our cars and each car is programmed with a sensor that automatically opens the gate, like our thumbprint. Which leads to a second gate. Which leads to our Village.
The businesses and shops that form the square are all owned by Bachmans.
They all have blocked exits, accessible only to our family.
My stomach drops. “Bachman Jewelers had one too,” I say.
Rafe nods. “Behind the back office.”
Lucian’s face turns deadly still.
“It leads to a black gate,” Gregory says. “Then a second gate. Then the Village.”
Blaze leans over the screen. “So Carlos doesn’t need to break through the front.”
“No,” Rafe says. “He needs the system to believe a Bachman is coming home.”
Gregory points to the blinking line beneath the jewelers’ floor plan.
“The twelve-second delay isn’t opening one gate,” he says. “It’s waking the old family route.”
Lucian looks toward the half-built Village beyond the glass.
“Bachman Jewelers,” he says quietly.
Not a store.
A door.
And Carlos had found the handle.
“Gregory?” My voice is clear.
Gregory looks up. “Confirmed.”
The world narrows to one building that I can see from where I stand.
“Mack.” I look at him. “Closer.”
Mack moves to her shoulder. Erin opens her mouth. I look at her. “Do not.”
Her mouth closes.
The second miracle today.
I turn to Erin. “Stay visible. Stay alive. Do not make me return to an empty space.”
Her eyes soften. “I’ll be here.”
“I love you,” I say, holding her face in my hands.
She smiles. “I love you too.”
“God save it for the altar, will you?”
We all know the man who muttered those words. I let them go, my attention solely on Erin as I say goodbye.
I give her a quick kiss, and then I move. I lead. Reliable Rafe at my right. Blaze the blade at my left. Two of our men ahead. Gregory at the vehicle, keeping the system breathing. Mack with Isobel and Erin.
We don’t use the gate. Carlos expects the gate. We take the side route.
Under the cigar bar we stand in, is a tunnel. One that leads straight into the Village. From there, a hidden backdoor of a small office set at the back of the jewelry store awaits us.
And Carlos will be inside.
I lead the men to the basement. Our guards have already moved the shelving unit that conceals the tunnel entrance.
A round metal seal, embossed on a massive circular door, stands before us.
This building was not touched in the Village’s reconstruction.
The damaged tunnels were the first to be rebuilt.
I press my hand to the black pad and smile as it lights up. A locking mechanism whirs.
Under construction sheeting and scaffolding, the tunnel under the building didn’t lead through the front gates. It fed into the old service corridor behind Bachman’s, the same hidden route the family once used to pass from store to Village unseen
Rafe says through the radio, “Twelve-second delay starts the second you open that door, Lucian.”
“Copy. Count it off for me, baby brother.” I look at my men. They are ready. I take the handle. And I open the door.
Twelve seconds.
Twelve seconds to lead these men down the tunnel and climb back up the street to get inside the walls of the Village without Carlos being alerted of our presence.
And we run. Breathlessly we run. My lungs are searing as I tear through the dark tunnels.
Gregory counts over the earpiece in my ear. It hits me in this delicate moment: my brother is a Bachman and maybe this can be his way. Out of the direct line of fire, angling the guns.
The Village is being rebuilt above us, but underneath, the old bones remain.
Finally, we see daylight pouring down into the tunnel, cold air rushing toward us. The latch is open and our men wait to lift us to safety. We race up the ladder as Gregory gets to three.
“Hurry!” Strong hands reach down to grab us. We scramble up and over the edge of the opening of the tunnel.
Gregory: “One.”
Our men hop back down into the tunnel, closing it from the outside in. Blaze Rafe and I take one moment to breathe, then we’re crouched in the short alley that leads to the secret back door of Bachman’s Jewelers.
Two men step from the dark.
Blaze grins as his switchblade flashes from his pocket. I know how lethal he is with a knife, but I’m amazed every time I see it in action. He drops the first with his blade. Rafe handles the second one before he can shout out alerts to more of Carlos’s men.
His men are slow. Out of shape. They look like life has treated them harshly.
The slain guards must be the low-hanging fruit on his gang, those he was willing to sacrifice.
Who is he not willing to sacrifice?
The corridor beyond is narrow. New drywall gives way to old brick. Modern wiring runs over rusted pipes. We’re almost at that hidden backdoor.
Carlos’s voice spills into my head. “Mistake, leaving your women without your protection, Lucian.”
I want to rip the piece out of my ear. I don’t.