Page 43 of Courting Danger

There was nothing else in the area except for a set of stairs leading down to a basement. I led the way down the stairs, gun at the ready in case we’d missed any enemies with our water bottle assault.

The room at the bottom of the stairs turned out to be a large storage area. It would probably become part of the building’s foundation once construction was finished, but for now it was being used to hold spare supplies and bits of broken equipment.

It was also empty.

“No.” Ghita pushed past me into the room, frantically looking around. “He has to be here.”

I stashed my gun back in its holster. “Maybe he was here earlier. They could have moved him since then.”

“But we’re running out of time. Is there any clue where they might have taken him?”

She started searching through spare equipment, dumping bags on the ground and knocking over a stack of metal poles. Her shoe slid in a patch of wet cement, and she shouted in disgust. “What? Ugh. Why is the ground wet?”

“It’s not wet.” Kneeling near Ghita’s feet, I touched his fingers to the cement. “It’s freshly poured.”

A thought occurred to me. Small at first, like a whisper in the back of my mind, it quickly took hold. An empty horror opened in the pit of my stomach and my hands trembled.

“Ghita, do you remember what D’Angelo Bianchi said? That Alex would end up six feet under, one way or another?”

I saw the moment she realized what I meant. Her eyes widened until the whites were visible all the way around the iris.

“No, they couldn’t...” But she didn’t even bother to finish that statement.

Yes, their enemies very well could.

I grabbed a pole from the pile Ghita had knocked over and stabbed the end down into the wet concrete. The pit was deeper than it seemed. The pole was taller than me, and half of it disappeared under the surface of the concrete before it hit the bottom.

Moving the pole around, I knocked against something hard. By tapping the pole like a blind man’s cane, I felt out the shape of the object. It was some sort of square container, easily big enough to hold a person.

“Get more poles,” I ordered Ghita as I wedged the one in my hand under the container.

The concrete pit was significantly bigger than the container, providing enough room to slide the poles underneath. The container tipped and rolled as I used the poles to leverage one end off the bottom. Then, I repeated the process with the other side.

Inch by inch, we managed to raise the container higher until finally one end was completely uncovered. Heavy chains wrapped around the container, sealing it closed. As much as I hated the sight of them, I was also grateful. The chains were much easier to grip than the container would have been on its own. My back and knee screamed as I hauled the heavy metal container free from the pit, but I barely noticed. I was too busy desperately looking for any sign of life inside.

Together Ghita and I freed the chains with the bolt cutters and threw open the lid.

Alex lay inside, with his eyes tightly closed and his arms pinned down against his sides.

At first, the man didn’t move. Despair gripped my heart when it seemed we’d come too late.

Then Alex’s eyes shot open, and he sucked in big gulps of air. His chest heaved as he frantically looked around before his eyes met mine and our gazes locked together.

In a flurry of graceless limbs, Alex shot out of the container and threw himself at me.

The man’s arms and legs wrapped around my torso, pinning me in place before Alex slammed our mouths together.

It was the most graceless kiss I had ever known, and also the most welcome.

CHAPTER 16

Alex

We kissed until my already strained lungs screamed for air. I reluctantly pulled away just enough to take a few gasping breaths. As soon as I could breathe properly again, I intended to dive back in and continue the kiss, but I was distracted by the sound of Ghita clearing her throat.

She stood just a few feet away, silently raising an eyebrow at Alex’s position in Garrison’s arms.

Unashamed, I stared right back at her, making no move to get down or stand on my own feet. “What?”

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