Page 52 of Not This Place

They would’ve arrived in time…

But she hadn’t expected the knife.

“Barker’s property,’ Rachel insisted. ‘We need to go there. Search teams. We need to find the third gunman.”

“What about these guys?”

"Print and ID. It might take some time. We need to find out who they work for."

"This… this boss?”

She nodded, grim, limping away towards Ethan’s car which had finally slowed.

“I have a suspicion they won’t be in our system. This guy is careful. Really careful.”

Ethan sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Alright… So we find this guy. This third gunman.”

“Yeah. That’s the play. The only play. You drive.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Lazarus stood amidst the greenery, a jungle of illegal flora thriving beneath the earth. White suits moved through the rows, ghostly gardeners tending to their forbidden harvest. The air hung thick with the scent of earth and the pungent aroma of marijuana, the hum of ventilation fans a drone in the cavernous space.

His eyes tracked each movement, every snip of the shears, the careful inspection of leaves for signs of disease or deficiency. The operation was a well-oiled machine, but today, something was off—a niggling sense of unease that crept along his spine like the legs of a centipede.

A small figure caught his attention, a boy with hair as dark as the soil they stood on. Lazarus's son—innocent and unburdened by the weight of his father's choices. The child played idly with a sprig of cannabis, oblivious to the stakes surrounding him.

"Hey," Lazarus called out, his voice low and gravelly. His son looked up, eyes wide with the unquestioning trust only a child could hold. "Do you know why we tend the land?”

The boy hesitated, wrinkling his nose. The child scratched at the side of his face and looked confused. "I… don't."

“Think.”

The boy paused, closing his eyes to think as his father often encouraged him to.

"Because… Oh, I dunno…" he said in that meandering way available only to the minds of children.

"Because we need to, son," Lazarus said, keeping his gaze on the man in the far corner. The man who kept glancing their way and fidgeting. "People depend on us."

The boy nodded, but he looked unsure. He was still too young for this, Lazarus knew. Too young to understand the empire his father had built from the ground up.

Turning away from his child, Lazarus moved toward his desk. His hands hovered over the maps and charts spread across the surface. Acres of land marked in green, each parcel hiding a similar operation beneath the soil.

He could feel his boy watching him.

“And do you know why they want our land?” he asked, looking up at his boy.

Again, the child hesitated, wrinkling his nose.

"Because it's ours," Lazarus said, his voice carrying a hard edge. His son looked up at him, the innocence in his eyes slowly replaced by understanding. "It’s our responsibility. We take care of what's ours." He gestured to the sea of green around them. "This is ours, and we take care of it."

A loud ring cut through the din of the underground farm. The boy jumped, startled, and Lazarus suppressed a curse under his breath. He fumbled for his phone, eyes dancing over the caller ID. An unknown number. He felt a chill trace down his spine.

"Go upstairs," he instructed his son, his voice calm but firm.

"But Dad--"

"Now!" Lazarus snapped, watching as the boy dropped the sprig and scurried away towards the stairs leading above ground. His sneakers scuffed against the concrete floor as he made his way to the stairs, his small hand sliding along the cold railing as he ascended into the world above.

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