Preacher was on him, snapping Bobby’s neck, not waiting for him to bleed out. With the ease of long practice, he dragged the dead guard into the darkest part of the hallway. Billows kept the hallway dimly lit so there would be no chance of an employee seeing where the door was seamlessly woven into the woodwork. Even knowing it was there, the members of Torpedo Ink would have had a difficult time finding it. Fortunately, Lana had counted the steps Azelie had taken from the guard desk to where the opening of the door was.
Maestro measured out the steps while Preacher dragged Bobby out of sight and retrieved Maestro’s knife. Maestro placed his hand on the ornate wooden panel, feeling the instant connection. The lock was inches from his palm. He had Azelie’s fingerprints on his fingers using silicone, and he mimicked the way she palmed the tiny chip. His handwas much larger than hers. It took a moment to get the chip centered before he placed his fingers carefully on the pad woven into the wood. In all the years they had run missions and encountered heavy security, he’d never seen such a clever device.
“Keys, I’m in,” he announced. “Building’s as secure as it’s going to be.”
“Right behind you,” Keys assured him. He entered quickly, saluted Preacher, who had pulled on the silicone mask of Bobby’s face and a ball cap and sank into the chair Bobby had vacated. He was their first line of defense so no one could come up behind Maestro and Keys as they descended into the lower floors.
Maestro waited for Keys, allowing him to go first. The stairway was narrow, lit only by LED lights. Before stepping onto each stair, Keys patiently crouched low and ran his palms just above the next stair down. Both were aware of time passing, but they didn’t attempt to hurry the process. They knew how many stairs they had to descend to reach the floor where the offices and potential prison for the women were. Knowing there were bombs in the floor, both realized bombs could be placed beneath the stairs as well. It was entirely possible Billows activated the bombs when he wasn’t there, but if he knew Azelie was coming, he’d have made certain there was no chance of them going off.
“Player said he’ll have a main switch in the office he uses,” Key said. “And he’ll most likely always carry a manual switch on his person. When he’s taken, we’ll have to strip him to ensure he can’t blow us all up.”
Maestro wasn’t worried about Billows’ chances of killing them, not when Savage and Destroyer would be there to take care of the interrogation. No matter what self-preservation instincts Billows had, the two men were guaranteed to get around them. They’d been trained in every aspect of interrogation from the time they were young boys. Both had exceeded the expectations of every instructor.
Keys found four bombs beneath the floorboards in themaze of seemingly dead-end hallways, but none of the four were live. They’d simply been placed there.
“While you find an entrance to the other rooms, I’ll check Billows’ office for a switch for the bombs and also to see if he has the same kind of chip to unlock the door in the wall.”
That was the one thing Maestro was most worried about. If Billows had rested on his laurels and programmed the lock to be the same as the one for the door leading down to the underground floor, it was possible Azelie had access to every lock without realizing it. Billows had her so intimidated she hadn’t tried to explore the environment. That was smart on her part. Billows had been lulled into a false sense of security by Azelie’s compliance.
Maestro followed the same path Azelie had taken when she had tried to locate the woman screaming. She’d told him how the hallways narrowed and would dead-end straight into a wall. The floor was dimly lit with LED lights along the ceiling in places, but they hung down in a rope, causing shadows to move ominously. It was disorienting and gave off the illusion that the walls crept in, closing in on him as his hand whispered along the wood. It would be a terrifying experience for a young woman alone.
Torpedo Ink had a member, Player, who was a master of illusion. He could create entrances and exits or throw up false walls they could hide behind. The toll was tremendous on him for using that talent, but he’d developed it into a real weapon that had saved their lives on many occasions. Maestro wasn’t thrown by illusions. He was good at telling the difference between reality and tricks.
The swaying ropes of light had been set up deliberately to give the illusion of the walls closing in on anyone walking around. It was a good trick and required a professional to manage it. Billows most likely had done it knowing Azelie worked in an office below the clubs. He didn’t want her exploring. The illusion hadn’t stopped Azelie when she believedanother woman was hurt and needed help. Billows didn’t know Azelie nearly as well as he thought he did.
The wood panel whispered to him as he made his way steadily toward the wall solidly in front of him. He felt Azelie’s presence, although the incident had taken place months earlier. Her fear and determination were impressed into the grains in the wood. That made Maestro love her all the more. She’d been unwavering in her resolve to find the unknown woman even though she was terrified. Azelie was courageous, even if a little foolhardy.
He located the lock in the carvings along the wall. Keys came up behind him just as he was trying Azelie’s chip and prints. He did so smoothly, as if just by believing, the chip would work—and it did. Billows hadn’t gone to the trouble of removing Azelie’s prints and key from the lock. He’d just used the same one.
“He has all this elaborate security, and yet he reused the same door lock,” Keys muttered. “Sometimes people make no sense to me, Maestro. None at all.”
“It goes with Billows’ personality. He believes he’s too intelligent for anyone to catch him. Ego tends to be the downfall of men like him. His device is so secret he doesn’t need more than one.”
The door opened silently. Maestro peered into the darkened corridor. This hall was much wider than the one they had followed to get to the door. Reluctantly, he stepped back to allow Keys to precede him.
We’re in, he reported to Steele. They had the small radio earpieces in their ears, but because they had been unable to get audio when they were following Azelie’s progress into the underground rooms, they thought it would be better to try to communicate using telepathy. Some were better at it than others, and distance could screw things up. The radios were for backup if telepathy didn’t work.
Steele responded,It’s quiet out here so far, but clock is ticking.
Maestro knew they were taking a little longer than anticipated, searching for bombs beneath the floor and in the walls. They couldn’t afford to take any chances, especially if women were being held captive.
The corridor had several doors leading to rooms. One was slightly open. No light shone through and there was no sound. Maestro stepped to one side and pushed the door open another two inches with one finger. The scent of blood hit him. He was very familiar with the smell. The fact that there were no lights and there was the scent of blood didn’t have him jumping to the conclusion that the room was empty. That kind of thinking only got a person dead. They could have accidentally tripped a silent alarm they knew nothing about.
He slid into the room without disturbing the door further. It wasn’t as easy as he would have liked. His chest slid across the door frame, a whisper of sound, but that was enough to get one killed. He had too much muscle for tight places. He naturally put on muscle. That sounded good, but in his profession, it wasn’t always a good thing.
“It’s Andrew McGrady,” he told Keys. “He died hard. They didn’t just execute him. Billows was pissed as hell over the attention he brought to Azelie. He doesn’t want the cops anywhere near her.”
Seeing McGrady’s dead body worried him for Azelie’s safety. Billows easily could decide the job she did wasn’t worth the risk to him. She knew more about his finances than anyone else. She had to know the names of his colleagues. Torpedo Ink had already discussed the best way to go about debriefing her, trying to learn other names that would lead to the heads of the trafficking ring.
Steele, is Rock watching over Azelie?Rock—Fatei Molchalin—hadn’t gone to the same school as the founding members of Torpedo Ink. He’d attended the school Gavriil had gone to. He had come to Torpedo Ink as a prospect, willing to put in the time and effort so the members would know he could be counted on. That he was loyal and always hadtheir backs. Once made a full-fledged member, he had continued to prove to them he believed in their causes. They had voted to take him along on team two, Steele’s team. For now, they used him mainly as a guard. He hadn’t trained with them, and when the members of the team worked, they were a smooth-oiled machine. Having anyone new could throw them off their game.
She’s still in her apartment. No one has come near the building other than the normal tenants, Steele replied.Rock won’t let you down.
Maestro knew he wouldn’t, it was just that he would have preferred his woman to be in Caspar, at the clubhouse or at Czar’s home, where she could be under guard, eyes on her directly, not just her apartment building. He’d prefer her to be anywhere but in San Francisco. Billows didn’t know him or the members of Torpedo Ink. He had no idea they were hunting him. He did know Azelie. Billows had associates and men loyal to him. If he suspected he was in jeopardy, he would get rid of any threats to him.
Maestro continued down the hall, trailing his palm just above each door as they passed it. The rooms were empty until he came to the fifth door. He signaled to Keys, who was going down the hall checking the doors on the opposite side. Keys took his place in front of the door, lifting both palms toward the entrance. He had a gift for seeing through walls. Maybe not actually seeing, but he had developed senses, whether he saw heat imaging or just felt the presence of others. However that gift worked, he could tell how many enemies were in another room and their exact location. He hadn’t failed since he’d become a teen.
Two women. Both are hurt. One’s in the far right corner, on the floor. Man standing over her. His partner is shoving the other woman away from the first one. Second woman just went down in the middle of the floor. Her assailant is kicking her.
