Page 31 of Kidnapped By the Boss

“Fine by me,” Vince said.

Devrick frowned. “Just please don’t get yourself killed.”

Mario walked back around the corner and then we heard a series of loud bangs. I furrowed my brow and said, “Is his plan to just tear through the—”

A loud crash echoed down the hallways and we ran around to see that Mario had, in fact, just torn through the wall. They were made of cheap drywall, so it made it fairly easy for him to get through. The room he’d broken us into didn’t have Antonio in it, but based on where it was, it probably shared a wall with the one he’d holed up in. Mario looked at me and nodded towards the door and I caught his drift.

I gave him a nod, mouthed, “Count to five,” and then walked back out with Vincent right behind me.

Taking a slow five seconds to walk around, Vincent and I braced ourselves on either side of the door that Antonio had run into and waited. When we heard Mario starting to bang against the wall again, Vincent and I each lifted our guns and Vincent threw the door open. We got into the room just to see Mario come slamming through the wall like the Kool-Aid man, but Antonio was nowhere to be seen.

“Shit.” Devrick pointed and there was a door, still ajar, in the back corner. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see anything about a door leading out on the blueprints.”

“Probably kept it off intentionally,” Vincent replied. “He’s long gone now.”

“We didn’t get even one of them for all this effort?” Mario said. “That sucks.”

“We got their base, which is mine now,” Vincent said. “I’ll make this place Annie’s new project. I’ve been wanting to do business in The Marketplace for a while.”

Devrick nodded. “Thatisa silver lining.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Vincent said. “We need to regroup and figure out what to do next. I saw the look on that snake’s face though. He knew as soon as we loaded in that he’d bit off more than he could chew with us.”

I didn’t entirely disagree. Antonio did look effectively spooked by the Costello army’s arrival, but I still had a bad feeling that I couldn’t quite shake off. Antonio seemed like such a meticulous guy.

Was he reallythissloppy?

Turning around to start walking out, we all froze when we heard a muffled banging. Each of us was looking in different directions, trying to figure out where it was coming from, when we then heard, “Hello? Help me! Is someone out there?!” I turned and looked back towards the door that Antonio had escaped out of and started to step carefully towards it. “Hello! Help!”

The banging was increasing and the voice started to sound more panicked. The room we were in was something like an office, and when I peeked around the corner into the adjoining room, I saw that it was a closet of sorts, with another door through which Antonio must have gone. Stacked on one of the shelves in here though, was a giant trunk that was shaking ever so slightly. It was padlocked and had a collection of leather straps wrapped around it.

“Vince. Mario!” I called. They both walked in and I pointed at the chest. Together, they muscled it off the wall, “Careful!” and set it on the ground.

“Yes! Yes! Help me! Please! Help me get out of here!” the voice continued.

Mario whipped a pocketknife out and sliced open the leather straps—with some effort—then he kicked his big boot down a couple of times against the padlock, eventually managing to break it off. I bent down and slowly opened the trunk and all four of us gasped to see that there was a woman hogtied and stuffed inside. Her mouth was somewhat bound, but it looked as if she’d managed to chew through the fabric enough to call out for help, and there was terror deep behind her green eyes. Her blonde hair was sweat-matted to her face and she was tiny—likely why it was so easy for her to be shoved in this trunk.

“Oh my god,” I said.

“Who the hell is this?” Mario asked.

Suddenly, Antonio’s words rang through my head.

“I’ve already… packaged that up.”

“Antonio was going to get rid of her to make room for me,” I explained in shock. “This is The Wreckers’ Queen.”