Page 22 of A Knight’s Revenge: The Complete Series

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“ B ack entrance is clear. Ready when you are.”

Dom’s deep voice boomed in the tiny earpiece I wore, and Max tapped at his own before he whispered, “Roger. Entering now.”

Thank God. We’d been hiding in this narrow alleyway for an hour, and the stench of the dumpsters and piss was starting to make me nauseous.

Max and I pulled our black balaclavas up over our faces, and he took a moment to fuss over my thin Kevlar vest like a tall, tactical-geared mother hen.

“It’s secure,” I whispered, slapping his hand away. “I haven’t forgotten how to do this, you know.”

His bright white smile was hidden under his mask, but I knew it was there all the same. “Just double-checking, JoJo. That bougie Academy would rot a lesser girl’s brain.”

“Will you two get moving? Christ,” Dom barked in our ears.

Max turned to offer a salute across the street in the general direction of the Dorada Hotel where Dom was holed up in a room facing the Euphoria Club, manning the computers and probably watching us through the scope of his Barrett M95.

We crept around the dumpsters, confident that all external camera feeds had been looped for the next hour, and we entered the Euphoria Club’s kitchen door—left propped open ever so slightly for us after the last employee had called it a night.

The Shadows really did have connections everywhere.

We found the kitchen dark and deserted, as expected. It was nearing midnight on a Wednesday, and most of the Club would be shut down or near it by now—except of course for the escorts that worked on the third and fourth floors. I doubted those hard-working men and women ever had a slow night.

“You remember the way to the basement door?” Dom asked, still managing to hover even though he was not physically here.

“Yes, Dom,” I huffed. “I studied the blueprint before I left, and it’s on my phone if we get lost.”

“You do not have time to get lost,” he replied. “Just like you would not have had time to pick this lock if you didn’t have an exact copy of the key.”

“Dad, stop lecturing us,” Max groused. “You’re being distracting.”

“I am watching your asses,” he retorted.

“Both of you, shut it,” I hissed as we reached the swinging saloon doors that led from the kitchen to the main Club floor.

I dropped to my stomach with Max following suit, and I quickly rolled under the door before popping back to my feet and smashing my body up against the wall in the dim hallway that stretched off to the right of the Club floor entrance.

From my vantage point, I could just make out a sliver of the interior of the Club.

Dark wood floors reflected the dim blue lighting that shone throughout the room.

The long bar took up the far wall, and the shelves behind it, lined with colorful bottles of liquor, rose all the way to the second floor of the Club’s main interior.

A few of the burlesque dancers appeared to be blowing off steam after their shifts at the bar where men and women dressed in gorgeous, expensive lingerie and costumes sat together, chatting and laughing.

Round, golden tables dotted the floor, each surrounded by plush teal chairs.

The second floor was open to the first, its art-deco-style railing running around the full circumference of the room.

I couldn’t see the stage from where I stood, but I knew from photos that it sat along the north wall and was framed by black curtains woven with gold geometrical patterns.

Max’s big shoulders pressed into mine as he took his place next to me, and he nodded toward the end of the hallway.

“The offices are all clear,” Dom said. “It looks like the only people still on premises are a couple of bartenders, a bouncer, and some of the dancers who haven’t gone home yet.

Remember, you’re looking for the nondescript gray door at the end of the hallway, right before you get to the service elevator. ”

“Got it,” I whispered, and then I darted down the hall with Max on my heels.

We passed several office doors, including the spacious one Andrea Ferrero used to meet business partners and important clients at the Club.

At the end of the hall, before it turned a sharp corner and continued around to the back of the stage, was the service elevator.

Beyond the service elevator was the back entrance to the club, accessible from the parking garage that Andrea had built for the Club ten years ago when she gutted and remodeled one of the last public housing complexes left in the City proper.

“Parking garage is currently clear,” Dom informed us, and I could hear him clicking away at the computer in front of him. “Quickly. We don’t know when the rest of the staff may head out.”

We raced on light feet toward the elevator. As we approached, I scanned the walls for the door.

“There,” I whispered to Max as we slowed our steps about ten feet from the elevator doors. Imbedded in the wall was a narrow, unmarked door painted a drab gray that looked like it would house equipment or something equally boring.

Anyone who spent any length of time working for Andrea in this Club knew of the existence of this door, but most could only speculate as to what it led to.

The official blueprints of the Club showed it to be a simple storage closet, but we knew, courtesy of a few ex-Ferrero employees that had later joined the Shadows, that it actually led to a large basement area where Andrea kept an additional office as well as a… workspace .

“Fuck, Dom wasn’t kidding about this lock,” Max cursed as we approached the door. “That would’ve taken us a while to get into.”

The doorknob itself looked old and almost rusted over, but there was a matte black K1000 lock just above it. A Knight model that touted itself as virtually unpickable, it was the cream of the crop if you wanted to go old-school with your security.

No lock was unpickable. Every lock was made to be unlocked, somehow, whether it was by a code, a fingerprint scan, or a simple brass key.

High-tech locks could be hacked; key codes could be stolen from an unsuspecting TA by his student; ID card barcodes could be cloned.

An old-fashioned deadbolt lock could be picked, but we knew from experience that this one could take even the most skilled locksmith fifteen minutes or longer.

Time we didn’t have.

Good thing I had an exact copy of Zach’s key.

“This better have been worth getting my head bashed in and having to fuck up a sexual predator,” I murmured, pulling the key from the little pouch on my belt.

I disengaged the lock with ease, and we cracked the door open a minuscule amount, peering into the darkness to see if there were any signs of life down below.

There were no cameras for our team to hack into down there.

“It’s clear,” Max whispered, and we both slithered through the crack in the doorway before closing it quickly behind us.

“Locking up,” I reported into my earpiece as I turned the deadbolt from the inside.

Max beamed his flashlight down the narrow staircase.

The stairs were cement, unremarkable, and free of anything immediately incriminating—like bloodstains.

We hustled down to the bottom and found ourselves in a large open space.

Max’s light bounced off the high ceilings, revealing dark black support beams running along the length and held up by sturdy poles placed intermittently throughout the room.

“Her office should be just beyond an area that looks like a lounge,” Dom said.

We continued into the space, and Max’s flashlight passed over what was basically a dad’s basement mancave, except I was certain the furnishings cost thousands more dollars than the average dad would spend.

There were several leather couches, a coffee table, a few lamps, and even a bar cart along the wall.

The reddish rug that was now under our feet felt plush and new .

“Damn, okay,” Max exclaimed in a low voice as he shone his light beyond the lounge.

The rest of the large space was bare, but I had a pretty good idea what the chains hanging from the hooks drilled into the ceiling beams in the middle of the room were for, as well as the wall of sharp objects that lay just beyond them.

The floor was cement, and I’d bet my inheritance there was a drain in the middle of the room.

“There’s the office,” I said, pointing to the red door just behind one of the big couches.

We crossed the room and made quick work of the much more pickable lock on the door.

Once I’d popped it, we darted quietly inside, still working only by the light of Max’s flashlight.

This office was small and sparsely furnished—a stark contrast, I suspected, from what Andrea’s “public” office upstairs would look like.

There were a few wooden chairs set in front of a simple black desk.

There was an old landline phone on the corner of the desk, a monitor that was not connected to a computer, and a whiteboard hanging on the side wall.

Dom’s voice came through my earpiece again. “Top drawer. Hurry—we have a car entering the garage.”

“Shit,” I hissed, moving quickly behind the desk.

“It could be nothing,” Max assured me. “Someone coming to pick up one of the dancers. Janitorial staff. Literally anyone except the handful of people who have a key to the basement.”

I nodded, taking a breath and focusing on my task. The top drawer of the desk was locked but once again easy to break into. I had it open thirty seconds after I pulled my lock picks from my belt.

“Where is it, you heinous bitch,” I murmured as I rifled through the contents of the drawer. A small handgun, a bunch of loose-leaf paper that I only wished we had the time to study or even just photograph, a box of condoms….

“Gross,” Max spat as I set the condoms on the desk.

“Rumor is, she’s been fucking her bodyguard for years,” I informed him. “Maybe even before Zach’s dad died.” My hand finally snagged on something that felt promising at the back of the drawer. “I’ve got it!”

I pulled out the simple old smartphone—a Knight model that hadn’t been manufactured for at least fifteen years. I hit the little green power button on the bottom, and I watched with increasing dread as the blue screen flickered to life.

“We’re sure this is what she would’ve used?” I asked, my hand suddenly starting to shake.

“If there was any communication about your parents’ murder, she would have used that phone,” Dom replied, his voice gentle.

“It’s what she uses for the stuff that’s below board.

The account is registered under a fake name, and the bill is paid yearly in cash.

If we’re lucky, there’ll be text messages or at least logs of calls to the Enforcers we’ve identified in the footage from Hargraves Tower. ”

“I’m… I’m trying,” I whispered, my shaking hands fumbling over the screen’s few icons. “Fuck.”

“I’ve got it, Jojo,” Max said, reaching over the desk to slide the phone out of my hands.

“Shit, red alert, guys,” Dom barked into our ears. “Two high-level Enforcers just exited the car in the garage, and Zach’s Ferrari just pulled in behind them.”

“No, fuck,” I cried, my shakes escalating to a full-body tremble. “We can’t leave without what we came for.”

“It’s okay. I’ve got it,” Max said, his voice soothing me like a balm. “I’m pulling a copy of the SIM card onto my drive. It’s almost done.”

“Guys, I think you’re about to have company. They’ve got a captive.”

“Shit.”

“Shit,” I agreed, taking big breaths and trying to focus only on Max’s serene face.

After a few more seconds, he snapped the phone closed and tossed it back to me. “It’s done. We have to hide.”

I shoved the phone to the back of the drawer again, tossed the papers on top of it, and tucked the condom box back into its corner. I slammed the drawer closed and followed Max as he raced out the door.

I spun in a circle, my eyes more adjusted to the darkness than they were when we first arrived, my adrenaline pumping hard.

My gaze snagged on some scaffolding that had been left along the wall just near the stairwell.

The top of the structure was at least partially obscured by the ceiling beams and the darkness, and we really didn’t have shit else for options .

“Max! Climb!” I whispered urgently, directing him toward the steel structure.

We scaled the narrow, rickety ladder to the small platform, which put us about six inches beneath one of the dark beams that held up the tall ceiling.

We flattened ourselves to the floor of the platform, our black clothes blending with the beams and darkness.

All we could do was cross our fingers that if Zach and his Enforcers came down here, they wouldn’t have any reason to look closely at the ceiling in this quiet little corner of the room.

Dom’s quiet voice sounded in our ears. “Incoming.”

The door banged open, and the sound of muffled voices, along with some struggling and grunting, floated down the stairs.

Max and I watched, silent and still as the dead, as two burly Enforcers, dressed in their black tactical gear that sported the Ferrero serpent crest, hauled a thrashing man into the room.

They bypassed the lounge and headed straight to the torture area, and within seconds, the man had been strung up by the chains, his arms flailing and his feet dangling inches above the floor.

They stripped his lanky form naked, tossing his tattered clothes into an unmarked bin next to the wall.

More stomping and male voices sounded on the stairs, and I sucked in a breath as Zach came into view wearing a black jacket over a tight white T-shirt and dark jeans. He was followed by a guy I hadn’t seen in person since I was nine years old.

I let out a tiny gasp.

“Fuck, is that…?” Max whispered.

I gave him the barest of nods.

It was about to get really fucking bloody in here.