Page 62 of Hearts Of Darkness

Manuel pulls out a flashlight from his back pocket and hands it to me. “Keep it low,” he mutters.

“And you’re sure it’s in thisroom?” There’s doubt in myvoice again as I run my own fingers along the wood. There are no indentations, no telltale fissure. There’s absolutely nothing to suggest that a door is concealed here.

Has Manuel been given the wrong information?Sofía seems to be thinking along the same lines. She starts gibbering away at him in panicked Spanish. The gunfire is right outside the front door.

“How many men did Dante leave behind?”

“Twenty,” comes the bleak response.

Only twenty?

Someone knew our situation.

Someone’s taking advantage.

Just then my fingers encounter a smooth, metal disc set deep within the wood of the third shelf. Holding my breath, I press down and a low mechanical hum sounds from behind the bookcase.

“Watch out,” Manuel yelps, grabbing my arm and pulling me backward as a narrow door flies open in my direction. It’s metal-plated and at least ten inches thick, and he manages to grab hold of it right before it smacks me in the face.

There’s no time to lose. Unfamiliar voices are inside the house, and I can hear their heavy footsteps on the stairs. Outside, the gunfire is waning. It’s sporadic and unfocused, like the dying embers of a flame. Dante’s men are losing this battle. Our only hope of staying alive is in this bunker.

I feel a hand on my shoulder guiding me into the yawning black. My flashlight jerks and steadies to reveal three stone steps leading down to a passageway and an elevator. Behind us, Manuel swings the concealed door back into place. I feel another frisson of panic as the locking mechanism connectswith a softclunk,and the damp walls start closing in on me.

“Quickly,” he says, bounding down the steps and ushering us toward the elevator. He smacks his hand against a button set into the wall and the doors spring open. Bright strobes flicker on over our heads, and then we’re plunging down into the great unknown.

I glance at my fellow passengers on this strange, wild ride. Manuel is standing tall with his machine gun, his finger held lightly on the trigger. His battered face looks even worse in this light. Sofía is still wearing her nightdress and is shivering like a leaf left out in the storm. Her pretty face is streaked with mascara, and her eyes are glassy with unshed tears. No one says a word. I know they’re both avoiding my gaze.

“Okay guys, start talking,” I say, snapping the silence in half. My voice is weirdly steady, considering what the hell is going down right now.

Sofía stares at the floor. Manuel tries to grit his jaw and winces.

“Tell me!” I cry, as fear and exhaustion collide in a raw mess of emotion. This isn’t my war, but Dante’s chosen to put me frontline of it anyway. “I need to know what’s going on. I need to know everything.”

“Señor Dante’s brother,” mumbles Manuel earning himself a sharp look from Sofía. “We need to tell her…”

She shakes her head. “You heard what Señor Dante said. He’ll kill you this time, Manuel.” I watch her pleading with him with wide, scared eyes.

“What did Dante say?” I focus on Manuel, who’s clearly the looser-lipped of the two.

“That we were to never speak about what this place is. Notaround you.”

I digest this with more than a trickle of apprehension. “Tell me about his brother.”

“Señor Emilio—”

“Emilio? The guy in Colombia?”

Manuel shrugs.

“Okay,” I say, trying to hold onto the last semblance of my patience as the elevator slows its descent. “Why does Emilio want to destroy Dante’s compound?”

“He’s a bad man, señorita,” squeaks Sofía. “All bad.Not just a little bad like Señor Dante.”

A ghost of a smile touches my lips. “But isn’t he meant to be halfway to Colombia to meet with him…” I trail off as a terrible realization dawns.

Holy shit.

“Emilio’s double-crossing Dante, isn’t he?”

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