My brothers looked guilty, but Arko looked at me and stilled, as if he’d seen something my brothers didn’t.
“So what were you saying about Anton?” Arko asked, breaking his gaze away from me to turn back to my brothers impatiently.
“Right.” Caspian shook his head to clear it. “We couldn’t get into our property. There are armed men inside; they’ve taken the place for themselves. We knew that wouldn’t fly and wanted to attack and regain ground, but one of our men managed to get a look in and turns out, Anton’s being held hostage in there.”
A chill went through me just as Arko went rigid. “Do you know who they are?” he asked.
“Not a clue,” Caspian said. “But it looks like whoever it is was trying to pit our families against one another. Why else would they have taken your brother to our abandoned distillery?”
“It’s a trap designed to set us up!” Arko said, jumping off the couch. “I need to go get him back.”
“It’s not that easy,” I said sadly, looking up at Arko and gently tugging at his hand to get him to sit back down. “That place is a fortress.”
“There are at least six armed men inside,” Dante explained as he pulled out a laptop and put up some grainy images, passing it to Arko. “They’ve got Anton in what used to be the main storage area. Our scout managed to get a glimpse through a window before they had to pull back.”
“Is he hurt?” Arko’s voice was tight, but we could all hear the fear in it.
“He’s conscious, tied to a chair, and has some bruises on his face,” Dante said gently. “But he’s okay.”
Arko handed the laptop back to Dante, and I noticed how tightly his fists clenched on his lap afterward. Without thinking, I reached over and placed a hand over his. He looked up at me, with eyes blasted with fear.
“I think we’ll need back-up,” Caspian said kindly. “Let’s call your brothers and hatch up a plan.”
“Y…you’re going to help?” asked Arko, his brows softening at the realization. I, too, was stunned by this turn of events.
“You helped us get back Beatrice,” said Dante, smiling as he looked between Arko and me. “We believe this is a no-brainer.”
Arko pulled away his hand and reached for his phone, tucked in his pocket. “I’m going to call Andrey,” he said. “They’ll be on standby for when we move.”
By the time Arko returned, Caspian and the others had managed to pull out some maps of the distillery and the surrounding areas on their computer.
“Tell me what we’re looking at,” Arko said desperately, as we made space for him around the coffee table we were crowded around.
“They’ve got all the doors wired with what looks like explosives,” said Giovanni. “We can’t just walk in through any of the doors, even with guns blazing.”
I stared at the blueprint, remembering back when I’d visited that distillery with Caspian years ago. I’d memorized the layout because I’d stolen the plans for the renovations, but the numbers hadn’t made sense. I’d spent weeks going through every inch of the place on the blueprint to find the discrepancy.
When I couldn’t, I’d bribed one of the guards to take me for a visit when the place was empty.
“There’s another way in,” I said quietly.
“We’ll know it if there was,” Caspian dismissed me, but then, I heard Arko speak.
“Beatrice,” he said quietly, “you said you know these properties, and I don’t want to take a chance assuming we know something we don’t. Tell us what you think.”
All my brothers looked dazed as Arko gave me the floor. For a moment, I lost my own voice, not believing what I was hearing.
“Go on,” he said, encouragingly. My entire life, I’d been overlooked when it came to contributing to family affairs outside the house. My career wasn’t even on the table. I knew my brothers were trying to shelter me, but it had become so deeply ingrained that I felt nervous having the floor.
“Umm.” I cleared my throat. “Remember the back of the distillery on the north side?”
“Yeah?” Dante leans forward, too, curious to see where I was going.
“Doesn’t it have that rusted drainage trench? I remember it’s narrow, but it opens up into the utility corridor, and maybe you could access through that.”
“But we sealed that off, didn’t we?” Caspian asks, frowning.
“Yes, but four months ago, the maintenance company reached out, remember? They said the weld broke, and we could fix it if we liked. I think you guys forgot…” I trailed off, my eyes landing on Arko, who looked so fucking proud that I thought I’d melt into the floor.
