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I still practically bounced in my seat with pent-up nerves. When the driver and Mikhail were watching the street from the parking garage, I snuck one of the guns from the arsenal into the front seat. A small handgun that fit nicely in the waistband of my jeans and could be easily covered with my oversized t-shirt. Hopefully, they wouldn’t notice it was missing because I refused to be unarmed.
If I saw anyone who had something to do with Leo’s torture, it was going to be me who put the bullet in them.
I stopped looking out the window when we moved into more deserted territory and concentrated on the map. When we arrived, I looked out to see the same parking lot from the street view map, and it was still completely empty. The two other cars in our original convoy pulled up a moment later. It was time. I pulled on the kevlar vest and got out before Mikhail could order me to stay put, turning in a circle to assess the area.
The parking lot was smaller than it appeared, only about ten spots, the yellow lines almost completely faded, and the asphalt cracked and pitted. It had been unused for quite a while by the clearly abandoned office complex it was attached to. The brick building was much longer than it was tall, taking up half the block and three stories high. It might have been one of the old cigar factories, but then modernized and converted to offices. Based on the sagging, padlocked doors, and mostly boarded-up windows, it probably hadn’t seen any legitimate business in at least ten years.
The place was one of many in a long row of industrial buildings, half abandoned. The few companies that seemed to be hanging on by a thread in the sorry place were closed since it was after five. But I took note of two cameras that might still be working and might come in handy if Leo wasn’t here.
Please let him be here and be okay.
Mikhail got out and did the same slow sweep I did, nodding curtly to me. “Stay with the driver,” he said, moving closer to the chained and locked front door.
The driver got out and pulled out his gun, standing at attention at the front of the car. I pulled out my own pilfered gun and hurried to catch up with Mikhail.
“I’m not staying back,” I said, meeting him at the door.
He noticed my piece right away but only raised an eyebrow. “You think you’re faster than me with that thing?”
I lowered the gun to my side, pointing it at the ground. With my free hand, I grabbed a handful of his shirt and stood on my toes to get right in his face. “You will have to kill me to keep me from going in there.”
He rolled his eyes and sighed. “No, I won’t. Don’t be ridiculous, Evelina. You agreed to do what I said.”
Frustration made me huff like a bull being taunted with a red cape. “Then I will make you pay until the end of your life if you don’t let me.”
Then I realized I didn’t need his permission. He might have been in charge of me years ago when I was at Kristina’s house, and he was the only adult around. But I was an adult now. He knew it, too.
“Go ahead and shoot me if you want to, Mikhail,” I said, slamming the butt of my gun down on the old, rusty padlock. With a crack, it fell open, and I slipped it off the chain. “I’m going in.”
I heard him release a string of swear words, but he soon fell into step beside me. I didn’t grin at him triumphantly, and he didn’t scowl at me. We had a job to do. He did a quick sweep of the big lobby, empty except for an ancient desk that listed to one side on only three legs and an accumulation of broken liquor bottles lining the stained walls. And the stink. It reeked of stale beer and piss, and I struggled not to gag.
The place was so old it still had the kind of elevator that you had to pull the cage door down and was cobwebbed over and growing moss inside. I opened the emergency stairwell door, and he poked his head around it, quickly ducking back out. The smell in there was worse than the lobby, wafting out after him.
“There are some offices down that hall,” he said. “Start there, you think?”
We looked into the first one. It was too small and too bright, with the late afternoon sun spilling through the broken window. The next office’s window was boarded up, but it was still too bright, and the walls were cheap, moldy paneling. The room Leo had been in had plain cement block walls.
“I don’t think it’s any of the offices,” I said, starting to feel defeated.
Location data on images was often inaccurate, and while I knew we were in the right general area, there were still lots of other buildings around. Every minute that passed was time that Leo wasn’t getting the help he needed. On the other side of the lobby was a metal door with fresh handprints in the thick layer of dust.
“Look at this,” I said, perking up as I hurried to open it.
Mikhail hissed and jumped in front of me. “Will you be careful? There could have been an ambush.”
I steadied my patience and let him look before me, then he nodded the all-clear. There were more stairs, but this time leading down.
“Buildings in Florida don’t usually have basements, do they?” I asked.
He nodded. “It would be awfully convenient to find one that did, though.” He took my wrist and gave me a stern look. “I’ll go down first. Don’t follow until I tell you it’s okay.”
I nodded and waited until he was three steps ahead of me before following, ignoring his sigh. When this was all over, I would explain I wasn’t trying to be stubborn or flout his orders. I understood he was concerned for my safety, but I was only thinking about my brother when we might be close enough to free him. Fear of what might be waiting down there threatened to suffocate me, but Leo had to be all right, didn’t he? Surely I would feel it if he wasn’t.
Once we were halfway down, the stairwell was almost pitch black, with barely any light from above filtering down and obviously no windows below. Mikhail pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight, casting a spooky glow on a dusty concrete floor. He stopped at the bottom and waited for me to catch up, keeping me from moving past him.
It was huge down there, probably as long and wide as the entire building, and his light only showed a small portion of it. There was a gloomy air of desperation about the place; the only positive was that it smelled slightly less awful than the lobby. More mold and damp than anything else. He cast the beam at the walls, and I sucked in a breath.
“The same cement blocks,” I said, trying to brush past him. “He’s here. He has to be.”
