“How sure?”
“Ninety-nine point nine percent.”
“Okay. But I’m still going to walk next to you—you’re taller, so they’ll get caught in your hair first.”
Addison chuckled until she remembered the woman was there to try to buy her brother. Why did she have to be so normal?
They walked on in silence until they reached a brick wall.
“Huh,” Graham said. “I wonder if this went up to the castle at some point.”
Addison frowned. He already knew the answer—it was why they were there in the first place. She glanced at Devon, and he tilted his head at the woman next to him. Ah. Graham was asking for their benefit.
“Why on earth would they need a tunnel to go up to the castle?” the blonde asked.
“Smugglers, probably,” Graham said. “This would have been the perfect place to smuggle contraband during the Cold War. And there really were pirates that roamed the Black Sea a few hundred years ago.”
“Well, this is anticlimactic,” the brunette said. “Let’s go back to the castle. I want a real climax.” She snapped her fingers, and the other man fell in behind her.
The blonde sighed. “Well, thanks for letting us tag along. Come on, Hector.”
The entrance wasn’t visible from the end of the tunnel since it had curved into the cliff face. They waited until the women’s voices were nothing more than a whisper.
“Shine your flashlights on the wall so I can get a couple of pictures,” Graham said. “Devon, what was your distance?”
Addison’s eyes widened. Were they supposed to have measured the distance?
“Two hundred meters. Maybe two-fifty. My steps were shorter, so it was hard to judge.”
“I got the same,” Graham said. “Addison, how tall are you?”
“Five-six. And a quarter.”
“Stand in front of the wall with your arms stretched out.”
She did as he asked, holding her arms as straight as possible until he nodded at her that he had what he needed.
“I can’t get a location on my phone,” Devon said.
“We’ll get a reading at the entrance. I’ll get one from inside the castle as well. That’ll give us an approximate distance from the cells.” Graham scratched at the mortar around one of the bricks. “It’s crumbling.”
He pulled a multi-tool from his belt and flipped it open. Scratching at the mortar around a brick, he scraped enough away that he was able to push the brick through to the other side. He shined his light into the small opening.
“It looks like it goes another twenty or thirty meters, then there’s another wall. It’s arched, from what I can tell.”
“That’s probably the portion we saw in the dungeon,” Addison said.
“Can we push this one down now?” Connie asked. “Save time later?”
“Better not,” Devon said. “Other groups may come in here to check it out. If we knock down the wall now, it would get back to Tsarevna.”
“What about the brick Graham knocked out?” Addison asked.
“I don’t think anyone will make a big deal over one brick, but it does make things easier for us. One less explosion.”
“Let’s head back out,” Graham said. “That other group might get suspicious if we stay in here too long.”
Addison’s feet felt rooted to the spot. She didn’t want to leave. Braedon was only yards away—they were so close.
