Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
Alexei
Ican tell from just looking that we're not going to find anything here.
Stepping out of the car, I sigh as I survey the building. A two story flower shop squeezed amongst other buildings that look just the same. All of them dark. All of them looking abandoned with pieces of the exterior missing.
The streetlights flicker overhead like the city can't be bothered to upkeep this stretch of land either.
It does sit exactly halfway between Rushkoff and DeMarco territory, in the poorly maintained middle zone.
While I don't put it past Chet to use something so ridiculous as an outpost, I no longer think I'm going to find anything useful here.
Freddie slams his door and comes to stand next to me, folding his arms.
"We're not going to find Chet hiding in there of all places," Freddie says, stating the obvious that we all see.
"I can see that, Fallon," I reply.
"What exactly was the intel you were following here? Is that what basement guy said?" Freddie asks, addressing his question more at Isla than at me, and I am very happy for her to handle him instead.
"Apparently," Isla says, daring him to challenge her with her eyes, though she's well aware that this is a long shot, too.
Isla wins the stare-off, of course.
Sage exits the car now, shivering in the cold, her skin rising with goosebumps. When she looks at me, her eyes narrow and she does her best to hide the shivering.
"We should probably split up once we get in there," Isla says, drawing my eyes away from Sage to where she rounds the car and pops the trunk.
"You gonna get in trouble for letting Anton's little princess out on a sweep tonight, Fallon?
" I ask, smirking as I lean up against the car with folded arms. I'm not watching for Freddie's reaction, but Sage's hateful stare returns to me and my body floods with warmth.
Like a brat, she turns on her heel to ignore me, flipping her hair when she does.
My traitorous heart skips a beat at the way it falls over her shoulder, like it actually sparkles in the moonlight.
My smirk drops, turning to something like awe, shock or horror. It's hard to say. Fallon clears his throat, smirking at me instead.
It's simply a shame that someone so pretty has to die.
"Why don't you just focus on Chet for now, Rushkoff," Freddie says, smiling like he thinks he's smarter than me while he fiddles with his gun arrangement. "After all, he's so powerful now because of your brother."
He loads a gun, and the click mimics the pain that ricochets through my chest at the mention of my late brother. He'll get no reaction from me. I've put in the work to control it. But I still feel an eclipse of emotions warring between sadness and forceful rage.
Whether or not my brother was a good man is irrelevant. Perhaps with all this time to think, I can admit he wasn't good. But he was still my brother. He was still mine. My family. Regardless of whether he was right or good.
Freddie pushes past me, jolting me away from my thoughts.
I clear my throat as I sling my gun over my shoulder.
"Two should take the back," Freddie says. "The others go through the front."
Sage shuffles nervously in the background, looking at her pistol like the weight of it hurts her hand. She freezes up when there's a gun in her hand. Something she didn't do before all this. It's a weakness I could one day exploit to play with her.
It's no fun otherwise, without a little game. Not when the prey is this weak.
"We should swap pairs. One Rushkoff, one DeMarco. So we know there's no double-cross planned," Sage says.
A laugh escapes my throat.
"Paranoid much?" I say, advancing on her until her pretty face is tilted up towards me in a way that looks like it hurts her neck. "I'm happy to pair up with you, princess."
She smirks back at me. And I realize this was her plan all along. Try to take me out while I'm distracted with Chet. Stupid. But hey, I won't pass up an opportunity.
"Absolutely not," Freddie says.
"Agreed," Isla says, sharing a knowing look with Fallon before she looks back at me. "Sage and I will go together. Alexei go with Freddie."
Damn.
The door of the shop lets out a jingle when we step through. It wasn't even hard to open, run down and abandoned like it is. I step through first, more aware of Fallon than I ever have been as he steps through behind me and broken glass crunches underneath our shoes.
Fallon isn't someone I know how to work with, or even really trust at all. A reminder to watch my back and my front when I'm working my way through this building.
With flashlights up and guns at the ready, we work our way through the shop. Fallon is instantly attracted to the shiny things, going to the back of the store to check out the shelves and empty vases.
I choose to go over the perimeter. There's a very clear path that is followed through this building and I see it when I round the counter to look through the back.
"Fallon," I say. He immediately drops the vase, leaving it to fall and crash against the floor with a ridiculous bang.
I roll my eyes and point down at the floor.
He nods when he sees it too, raising his gun.
The front clearly hasn't been touched, but the back of the shop is clean, without dust, and a trail of worn flooring that leads towards a staircase.
We crowd together in the doorway.
"Up or down?" I ask.
Freddie shrugs. "Same odds either way. Let's go down."
I tap my shoe against the wood, stepping carefully, as each stair feels vulnerable underfoot and unkempt enough to break at any second. Fallon follows closely behind. It doesn't escape my notice that we are both well practiced enough to not make a single sound on descent.
He pushes open the first door to an empty room.
Shrugging, he gestures to me to open the door behind me. It's tight but I push it open with a bang, sending dust flying into the air.
This room is certainly not empty. While it's empty of people, it's still full of surprises. Ones I don't love that Fallon is seeing.
"Wow," Freddie says, lowering his gun as he pushes past me to look around. "This is a lot."
My teeth grind as I take in what I'm seeing. My temper wants to run free, but there's also the squeeze of panic clawing up my chest. Instinct tells me to smash this all down before anyone else can see it, but I'm frozen to the spot.
There's two couches set up across from each other.
A coffee table holding remnants of the last people to meet here.
Worst though, papers stocked with intel spatter around the room.
Intel on me. Intel on my people. But also intel on Sage and the rest of the DeMarcos.
I recognize the layout of their estate on the blueprints.
Freddie spots it too, picking it up and flicking through the papers that are with it. "I imagine this would've been helpful in attacking our estate," Freddie says, kicking the chair. "No wonder they could get to us so easily."
"Dammit, Vic," I mutter under my breath.
I feel my body cooling. Anger fading away from me as deep sadness takes its place.
Everything in this room screams my brother. There's vodka glasses that it looks like he didn't fully finish. Red couches that I swear I can still see him sitting in. If I take a deep breath, I can still smell his cologne in the air.
This is just what the house felt like right after he died. Littered with memories of him that I carefully filed away. But this place… Well, it's as if he could've been here yesterday. As if he just walked out the door and I've only missed him by a minute.
"This part isn't Chet," I say. "It's my brother."
Every document in this room is intel he gathered in order to betray the DeMarcos and hand Sage over to Chet. Freddie drops the papers and for once, the attitude, watching me with something that looks like pity. Whatever it is, I hate it.
"Your brother?" Freddie asks, finally taking this in. "This was supposed to be a Chet outpost."
"Maybe it still is," I say, grinding my teeth. "They worked together after all. All this information is useless now though. Vic already used it all to get close to you. To try and..."
I don't have to say anymore to make him get it.
I can't decide whether to break down in pain or anger at the picture this room paints for me. More secrets. More of my brother doing the wrong thing. For fuck's sake, Vic. So much hiding.
I want his revenge.
But I can't stay in this room without seeing every part of my brother that deserved everything he got. And the guilt from thinking that makes me want to vomit.
I stomp out of the room with Freddie close on my heels.
"Rushkoff do you-"
"No," I say, stopping him short.
"We should find Sage and Isla," Freddie says. I scoff, not particularly caring about Sage and not particularly worrying about Isla.
"Let's just get out of here, this is a bust," I say.
We head up the stairs, Fallon following close behind me, and I resist the urge to look again at the space my brother kept from me.
With every step I walk away, I wish that I could burn that room and erase every bad thing he ever did.
Once again, I wish that I could have changed his fate.