Page 109 of Bleed the Shadows

Both men were sick fucks who might be raided by the Feds at any minute. They’d be stupid sick fucks not to plan for an escape, and they hadn’t gotten away with their crimes for as long as they had by being stupid.

Rafe and Nolan disappeared into another hall that led to the stairs. We’d all studied the house’s floor plan: we knew which rooms where which and we knew the entrance to the tunnel was in the room that had been markedDenon the original blueprints.

Jude and I had rounded the corner into the hall leading to the room when we spotted a guy in jeans and a black hoodie disappearing into it.

“There he is,” I said, rushing forward.

He shut and locked the door behind him.

I took a couple steps back and delivered three kicks to it before it finally gave way. We were past the need to be quiet.

Todd knew we were here.

Jude and I stepped through the splintered door and immediately spotted the open bookshelf panel. It was just like the one at Aventine, and I felt the cold air moving into the room from the underground tunnel before I was even halfway across the room.

I hit the stairs leading below ground at a sprint, determined not to let Todd get away.

Jude was right behind me and I leapt off the stairs before I’d reached the bottom and vaulted after the figure quickly disappearing into the shadows of the tunnel.

Emergency lights — the kind that came on in a power outage — shone from the concrete walls of the tunnel, but they were dim and spread far apart.

It didn’t matter. I was used to hunting in the shadows, and I ran full speed, Todd’s footsteps mingling with mine and Jude’s as we gained on him.

It took less than a minute to get close enough to take him down.

I reached for his shoulders and missed, snagging his sweatshirt instead.

It was enough. He went down, face first, onto the concrete floor.

Somewhere behind us, I was aware of more footsteps in the tunnel but I knew Jude had my back.

I leapt onto Todd and lifted his head, then smashed his face into the concrete floor before turning him over. Blood poured from his forehead and nose, his eyes wide with fear.

But something wasn’t right.

I pulled the hood off Todd’s head as Bram and Remy pulled up next to Jude “Fuck!”

“What?” Remy asked behind me.

“It’s not him. It’s not Todd.”

70

ETHAN

“What if shedoesn’t take out the dog before they get back?” Anton asked from the driver’s side of the Escalade.

“She will.”

We’d been sitting outside the brick building at the end of Main Street for almost three hours, waiting for the Haver bitch to take out her dog. It was smarter than trying to take her in the house, where there would be any alarm, places to hide.

But the strategy also required discipline, and Anton wasn’t long on discipline.

That was what most people didn’t realize: anything was possible — literally anything — if you were disciplined enough to work for it, and sometimes, to wait for it.

I knew because I’d been nothing but a foster kid, and look at me now. Some people would say I’d been lucky, but I knew better: I’d been smart.

I hadn’t had money or connections or even parents. But I’d had skills. I’d had talent. And I’d used those skills and talents to build something for myself, had used them to make connections with people like Dimitri Kaprolov, who’d watched me argue themerits of repealing a woman’s right to vote at a high school debate championship.