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“Your point of exit and entry from the manor is a Kowalczyk family secret. Don’t let anyone catch you coming or going from it, and trust no one. Not even my sister Bea or Marek. If you get into trouble, you hightail it out of there and call me immediately. Understand?”
He put his cigarette out on the trunk of a tree and pocketed the butt before nodding his head. “Something tells me babysitting your shithead brother is going to be way more complicated than I thought.”
“Nothing with Piotr is ever simple. Now, come with me. I need to get back to where we lost Marek’s son before he figures out that I didn’t actually go across the border.”
He watched me put my bike in neutral, and followed suit, pushing his bike alongside mine through the trees. After only five minutes, sweat trickled down the side of his face. He might be skinny, but he was far from in shape. Not with the number of cigarettes he smoked.
“Jesus, you’re not even breathing heavily,” he complained, steadying his bike while he used the bottom of hisMetallicaT-shirt to wipe his brow.
“Our father believed in being mentally and physically ten steps ahead of your enemy. When we were boys, he’d take us back here. If we made it back to the house before he caught us, we’d earned our freedom. If not, we got the whip.” I shrugged. “Some habits are harder to break than others.”
He shook his head. “And I thought running the streets while my mom entertained johns was rough. At least I didn’t have to run all over creation only to have my ass whooped.”
We pushed the bikes in silence for another few minutes before there was a break in the trees and the path became visible. The dirt underneath our boots was hard packed and just wide enough to accommodate a car, gently sloping downward until it dead ended at a rock face. I stopped and put my kickstand down, Cannon mirroring my movements, his brow crinkled in confusion.
A thick tangle of vines and overgrowth hung down from the top of the rock, creating a natural barrier. Sticking my hand through the thick vegetation, I felt along the right side until I came to a depression in the rock. When I pressed it, the steel door opened to reveal a tunnel.
“This is someJames Bondshit,” Cannon muttered, his brown eyes widening as he stared into the tunnel.
My father had been right about at least one thing, it was better to be prepared than dead. For 99 percent of people in the world, that meant having flashlights and canned food on hand in case of an emergency. In my world, being prepared meant you had a contingency plan for your contingency plan.
The tunnel was simplistic in design, nothing more than a cement circle large enough to drive an SUV through. It wasn’t without its perks, though. Lights built into the sides of the tunnel came on when we rolled the bikes inside, the door automatically closing behind us.
“Damn,” he grumbled. “Now I can’t decide if I’m disappointed or not that we aren’t going allIndiana Jonesin this bitch and lighting torches.”
“You’ve been hanging around Beast too much.” I swung my leg over my bike and started it up, the rumble echoing around us. “Come on.”
He tilted his head back and laughed as he got on his bike. “Someone has to provide the comic relief around here and it sure as hell won’t be you.”
He was probably right on that score. My mind was focused on getting him straight so I could ride back out. A certain blonde and I had unfinished business, and Cannon was keeping me from it. But hopefully not for much longer.
We roared down the tunnel, the air that hit my face more stagnant than refreshing, and I was glad when we pulled up behind my father’s oldBugatti. Right where it should be. It was the only chink in my plan. If it hadn’t been here, I would have had to take another one from the garage. Piotr probably wouldn’t miss one of Father’s, but it was still risky. Cannon needed to blend in, and he couldn’t very well do that on a chopper.
“Is that what I think it is,” he asked, pointing to the car. “Left down here to rot in a dusty old tunnel.”
“Yes. If my father had to flee, he’d take this car before he would any of us. My brother must have forgotten it was down here or he would have already sold it.”
“Can’t say I would blame him considering how much this baby is worth.” He whistled low, running his hand along the sleek lines of the car. “I’d sell it too. After I drove it one last time, of course.”
“My brother doesn’t need the money. He’d sell the car to spit in our father’s face for leaving me in charge of the brotherhood. And you will drive it, probably more than once.”
“Seriously?” His eyebrow lifted. “Don’t fuck with me right now, Hunter.”
“I assure you, I have better things to be doing than fucking with you. There are only a handful of places Piotr regularly frequents and if you’re going to tail him, you’ll need to blend in. Part of that will be the car you drive.”
Motioning with two fingers for him to follow me, I turned around and walked away. His boots were quiet on the pavement behind me, but that damn jean jacket of his swished with even the smallest movement, and it graded on my nerves.
“What’s the other part?”
He was going to hate it, and the sadistic asshole in me smiled internally even though my mask of indifference never slipped.
“A new wardrobe,” I said, climbing up the steel rungs of the ladder.
“Where the fuck are we going to get that?”
“You’ll see.”
I twisted the circular latch and pushed the door up a centimeter, peeking around. Thankfully, only the staff frequented the wine cellar, and dinner was still hours away. Pushing the hatch door all the way over, I pulled myself up. After Cannon had cleared the small hole, I closed it back up, pointing to the chip in the cement that would grant him access to the tunnel so he could come and go from the manor without being noticed.
