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THIRTY-NINE
Nat
I NEEDED A WEAPON,assuming Byron could successfully pick a fifty-year-old lock in the dark with shaking hands and no proper tools.
I couldn’t stop and think aboutanyof this. I didn’t dare. This situation was a throwback to the days when I had to act on instinct and worry about the fallout later. Days when my adoptive father came home drunk, and I knew fists were going to be flying. When I knew it was either going to be me left with bruises, or my adoptive mother, and I couldn’t let it be her.
Act first; think never. That was the key.
So, a weapon. The half-rotted cardboard banker’s boxes were useless. The piss bucket was rusted so thin it barely had any heft to it. Plus, they’d smell me coming a mile away. I paced around the old office, trying to yank a metal bar free from the window for the umpteenth time, with exactly the same result as all my previous attempts.
Goddamn it, there wasnothing in here. Nothinguseful, anyway. I kicked the leg of the old metal desk in frustration.
We’d checked the unlocked drawers earlier, back when we’d had daylight. They were empty. There was nothing available to jimmy the locked ones, so we’d given up.
I kicked it again, letting out a wordless growl. The drawers rattled.
“Could you fuckingnot?” Byron snapped. “I am actually trying to concentrate over here.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled. Then I froze. “Oh.”
The drawers had rattled.
I grabbed a narrow one that wasn’t locked and pulled it out as far as it would go, then started wiggling it up and down. There was usually some kind of a notch in the metal rails that kept drawers from pulling all the way out accidentally. If I could just—
The rusty mechanism screeched, tiny wheels dipping into the safety notch and popping out on the other side. The drawer came free, heavier than I’d expected, based on its size. I turned it around in my hands, finding a two-handed grip on the back edge that wasn’t too sharp. Giving it an experimental swing, I pictured using the heavier weight of the front faceplate as a cudgel.
On the far side of the room, the lock clicked.
“Got it,” Byron said weakly. “Okay, we need to—”
But I was already across the room, reaching past him to twist the handle. The drawer dangled from my other hand.
“You stay here. You’re too weak,” I told him.
Don’t think. Just act.
“Nat...” Byron growled.
I charged into the hallway, peering around at gray shadows to get my bearings. Fortunately, the office was at the end of the hall, meaning there was only one direction they could have taken Luca. I jogged toward the main part of the building, trying to keep my footsteps light—the drawer cradled against my chest like a pointy metal baby.
Berlusconi had told the goons to take Luca to a different room. I stopped and pressed my ear to each door I passed, buteverything was dead quiet. Double doors at the end of the hall opened onto the warehouse floor. As soon as I pushed through them, the echoing sounds of someone crying out in fear and rage reached me, sending adrenaline coursing through my veins.
Act, don’t think.
I ran toward the noise, only to trip against something blocky and metal that screeched as it skidded along the concrete floor. I cursed, staggering, and regained my balance just in time to see a door open somewhere ahead of me, light spilling out from inside. There were more rooms along the building’s outer wall, then.
“Hey! Who’s out there?” called one of the goons, raising his voice to be heard over Luca’s screaming.