As she passed by a table, she paused and opened one of the cardboard boxes on the floor. It was full of little baggies . . . and each had the stamp of the iron cross on it.
How far up did Luke go in the hierarchy? she wondered.
Probably pretty far. She needed to get him to talk on their way back to the city.
Continuing on, she went to the locked-up kilos and couldn’t even estimate the street value. Well, she could—and it was in the millions and millions. How much product was on hand in the whole operation? And how did they get it in here? There had to be things like loading docks and other storage facilities to handle the pre-and post-processed drugs. With what she was seeing here? They could take in and put out kilos and kilos and kilos of cocaine and heroin in this place—and they clearly had the contacts with the importers to keep a steady stream of it coming.
It boggled the mind—
The sound of a door handle catching snapped her head around—and just as the way in opened, she dropped down to the floor.
All the way across the room, a man in a black uniform entered and hit a light switch that made everything even brighter.
Heart pounding, Rio looked through the legs of the tables and around the cardboard boxes as his boots started walking . . . to where the hatch of the dumbwaiter was still shoved up.
Proof that someone had gotten into the room.
And was still inside.
In the end, Lucan couldn’t stay put. After he came all over himself, and then buzzkilled that vibe with the hello-my-name-is-Wolfie-and-not-’cuz-I’m-related-to-Beethoven, he had to go see Rio.
He told himself it was to make sure she was safe. Also told himself that if anyone was following him after the showdown with the Executioner, they’d have gotten bored by now of waiting for him to do something.
And he might have further mentioned to his inner critic that the Rio-related wanderlust was not tied in any way to the kiss that had started the handshake deal with his dumb handle. Not at all. In the slightest.
Whatsoever.
But yeah, there was a lot of internal monologuing going on as he shifted out of his cubicle and walked off for the stairs. He knew the guard down at the other end wouldn’t question the departure—just like there had been no problems with his late arrival after check-in. They were used to him coming and going on his own, courtesy of his work with the Executioner.
Pulling open the fire door, he was quick-footed as he descended to the lowest level—
Lucan stopped. Sniffed the air.
Incense . . . and Kane?
Nadya, the nurse, must have come up here, he thought as he started again with the jogging.
Bottoming out at the base of the stairs, he glanced back at where he’d come from, peering through the latticework of the balustrade’s supports. When he didn’t see or hear anything, he strode off toward the clinic. The hall seemed like it went on forever, and as soon as he came up to the storage room’s door, he opened it wide and looked down the row to Rio’s bed—
It was empty, with the sheets, such as they were, messy . . . as if she’d gotten up in a hurry. As his heart slammed into his ribs, he leaned back and looked out into the hallway.
Of course. The bathroom.
Telling himself to get a grip, he went across to the closed door. The scent of the soap she’d used lingered in the air, but it was faded—and he was relieved he couldn’t catch any sniff of her. They’d managed to camouflage her successfully.
With an excitement that was totally inappropriate, he put his ear right to the panel. It was cold against his face.
And got colder when he could hear nothing on the far side.
He knocked. “Rio?” he said softly.
There was no response.
Glancing up and down the corridor, the prison camp seemed really fucking dangerous all of a sudden.
Like the last however many decades had been a party?
“Rio?” More with knocking. “Rio. Answer me or I’m coming in.”
He shoved at the door with his shoulder—and got a big ol’ fat nothing as it opened wide. She wasn’t in there.
Lucan raced back to the clinic and walked directly down to the bed she’d been in. Bending low, he looked under the mattress. The gun was gone.
“Sonofabitch—”
“Lucan?”
His head whipped to the drapery hanging around Kane’s bed. “You okay?”
Not that there was anything he could do to help the guy if he wasn’t—for so many reasons. But mostly because he had to find Rio.
“Lucan . . .”
If it had been anyone else, he would have fucked them off. Except just as the Executioner had discovered, and Lucan knew all too well, the aristocrat was someone he couldn’t help but take into account. Even if it was just going to be briefly. Like it had to be at the moment.
Going over to the draping, he yanked it back—and turned his face away for a second. Every time he saw the male, it was a fresh horror.
“Hey,” he said, “I’m dealing with something, but later I can—”
“She is with Apex,” came the frail interruption. “Your female.”
“What.”
Lying on the floor of the workroom, Rio tracked the guard or whatever the hell he was as he progressed down to the dumbwaiter. Clearly, he knew something was out of place, but then again, she couldn’t have left a bigger clue if she’d gone neon with a Las Vegas arrow flashing at the damn thing.
Glancing behind herself, she measured the drug bundles in their cage—and discovered that the load was on a platform with wheels.
That just so happened to have the same amount of clearance as a car.
With as little movement as possible, she flattened herself onto her stomach and pulled herself forward using her bare palms and her knees. As she closed in on the undercarriage, she tilted her head to the side, and prayed—prayed—that she didn’t jostle the cage or—
“It’s some kind of—I don’t know what the fuck it is. It’s like a box in the wall. No, it wasn’t like that before. No shit, I’m not going up there—”
The words stopped short, but she couldn’t tell whether it was because the man had noticed her or just been interrupted by whoever he’d called.