But I bet if it was Danny who was possibly being held against her will and tortured, Fallon wouldn’t waste any time getting in there to save her.
I grabbed the pad, ripping off the page and sticking it in my back pocket before going back to the bed, shoving the binoculars inside, then zipping up the duffle bag, and hauling it up on my shoulder.
A text dinged me as I was getting in the elevator.
Don’t go in alone. You don’t know the gnarly shit these guys do to women.
That was from Fallon.
I didn’t need that warning. I was well aware what monstrous men could do to women when they caught them alone.
But that didn’t change the fact that each moment passing was a moment where Valen could be getting hurt, or inching closer to losing his life.
I made my way out a side door that led onto a small smoking patio, wanting to avoid the woman at the desk, and made my way to my car, rifling through the guns.
Valen had compiled a good collection. Along with some silencers. Which I went ahead and screwed onto Fallon’s gun and one of the handguns in the bag.
I could be pretty lethal with a handgun.
On any normal mission, I wouldn’t have even thought of using anything else. Anything bigger was bulkier and hard to hide.
But going up against, potentially, seven feral guys with no backup?
Yeah, I wanted to cover my bases.
Which was why I grabbed a couple knives too.
And then I reached for it.
The gun I was shocked Valen had even been able to get his hands on. They weren’t even legal in the US last I heard.
An almost petite submachine gun.
No more than ten inches long.
It was the perfect gun for the job, even if I hoped not to have to need it.
In an ideal world, I could sneak in and get Valen out then leave Curtis and his crew up to Fallon when he arrived.
But, let’s face it, when did shit ever go that well?
I wanted to be prepared no matter what.
Rummaging around in my messy backseat floor, I found an old paper shopping bag with handles and flattened it enough to be able to slip the submachine gun inside to keep it hidden as I made my way toward the building where the cars and van were parked.
From the outside, it didn’t look like there was a basement. No windows. No BILCO-style doors. Just a somewhat squat rectangular brick building with old genuine glass windows. The panes that weren’t cracked or broken had about two decades or more worth of dirty on them, obscuring the insides so much it was nearly impossible to see inside.
Taking careful steps, I crouched down under one of the low, broken panes, listening for a moment before popping up to look inside.
There seemed to be some sort of makeshift living room with old, tattered couches. That were littered with the bodies of sleeping men.
Five.
Only five.
So there were two unaccounted for.
With these guys unconscious, they would be easy to pick off. But if two were awake and walking around, they could sneak up behind and take me out.
Damnit.
Being patient wasn’t a strong suit of mine but I ducked below the window line once again and made my way toward the next room.
A bathroom, as it would turn out.
Where a giant of a guy was bunkered down on the can, playing some game on his phone.
That left one.
Just one.
I moved toward the back of the place, finding those windows partially boarded up from the inside with cardboard, of all things.
When I walked toward the far side of the building that had a narrow alley between it and the next empty building, though, there was a gap in the cardboard that allowed me to see.
And what did I see?
Something that made all the blood rush out of my body.
Because there, dangling by the wrists from the ceiling, was a bound, shirtless, battered Valen.
My own breath caught in my chest as I watched him, waiting to see him pull a breath in.
When he did, I didn’t even pause for another minute, didn’t even try to find the final missing guy.
I thrust my hand through one of the broken windows, reaching up to find the release lever, disengaging it, then yanking the window open, only taking a second to cringe at the grinding sound it made thanks to years of disuse.
Grabbing the windowsill, I hauled my body up and over, finding myself grateful to Lo and everyone else at that gym I spent so much time in when I was growing up. Because they turned me into someone who knew the importance of being able to lift and hold my own weight if it was needed. It was a vital skill that had saved me a lot of times in the past.