Page 40 of Courting Danger

Alex actually seems tolerable.

I’d hate to lose him so soon.

Then he disappeared, shutting the door behind him so silently I never heard the click of the latch.

The moment he was gone, Ghita scrambled for the envelope. Inside, she found a phone, a key, and a letter. Her hands trembled as she scanned the page, then she immediately turned her attention to the phone.

I picked up the letter when she was done.

I’m not sure who’s trying to frame me for Alex’s disappearance, or why, but I promise you my family had nothing to do with it. I know it must be hard to believe me since I’m one of the people who would benefit from the Mariano family’s fall, but I have enough on my own plate right now. I don’t need to adopt other family’s problems.

As soon as I realized someone was trying to frame me, I started looking for anything else suspicious. My family has a property in this city, a construction site, that’s been inactive for months. A few hours ago, the security cameras recorded movement on this property. This may or may not help, but I know I didn’t authorize anything there.

The phone enclosed in this envelope has access to the security cameras of the construction site. It only includes the last twenty-four hours of footage, and connection will automatically cut off twenty-four hours from now.

Good luck. I sincerely hope you find him.

P.S. I’ve also included the key to a safe house outside the city, just in case you need it. No one should bother you there for a few days.

An address was handwritten into the bottom margin of the page. I assumed it was the location of the aforementioned safe house.

Hopefully, we wouldn’t need to use it.

Folding up the letter and storing it, along with the key, in my pocket, I turned my attention to the phone in Ghita’s hand.

“Anything useful on that?”

Ghita didn’t look up and her fingers never stopped moving over the screen. “I haven’t found any clear evidence of Alex on the security cameras. Most of the cameras are around the perimeter, not inside the site. However, a van did pull into the site a few hours ago. They might have transported him that way.”

Breathing deeply, I instinctively moved my hand to my gun. “It’s not a lot to go on, but it’s all we’ve got right now. Let’s move quickly. That construction site is on the other side of the city.”

CHAPTER 15

Garrison

As Ghita and I stared from an alley across the street at the construction site that D’Angelo Bianchi had mentioned, I withheld the urge to sigh again. Of all the missions I’d ever been on, this had to be the most disorganized of them all. I couldn’t even call it a plan. It was more like a really ambitious hope masquerading as a plan.

We left the safety of the car and approached the construction site, sticking to the shadows as much as possible. It was late into the night, but there were plenty of spotlights around the entrance.

To avoid being seen, the two of us circled around the side of the area where a chain link fence stood hidden in the dark. Climbing it would make too much noise, especially since we had no way of knowing exactly how many people were inside. Instead, we would have to cut our way through.

Before coming here, we’d first raided the home of Ghita’s informant for supplies. The man would eventually wake up in bed, missing a pair of bolt cutters, a package of water bottles, and several bathroom cleaners, but he would find a stack of cash in their place.

From the bag now slung over her shoulder, Ghita pulled out the bolt cutters and handed them to me. I cut a hole in the chain link fence just big enough for us to slip through. Once we were inside, I then rolled the damaged part of the fence back into place to hide the hole as much as possible.

“Now where?” h I asked Ghita as I handed her back the bolt cutters.

She stored them back in the bag and consulted the phone that the Bianchi leader had given them.

“I’m not exactly sure where the van stopped, but based on the security footage, I think it was headed somewhere beyond that building.”

The building in question showed only the skeleton of architecture, with no walls or doors to speak of. Tools and equipment lay scattered around like they’d just been left one day and forgotten.

“All right, we’ll head over there and keep an eye open for the van. Look for fresh tire tracks, or anything that’s been recently disturbed.”

We tried inching toward the left side of the construction site, but as we approached it became harder and harder to remain unseen. Unlike the front of the site, which was quiet as the dead, this area had plenty of life.

I couldn’t get a good enough look to count the exact number of people, but it was too many to sneak past. I pressed Ghita behind a tractor and peered around the corner as I considered what to do.

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