“A compound? That’s not good,” I said. “It implies a big fence and guard towers.”
Josh shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out when we get there, assuming my dad lets Darwin and me come within fifty miles of this place. He’s so overprotective. In fact, the only reason he let us come along to Vegas was because we promised to stay in the house.”
“Yeah, you don’t seem to be doing that,” Romy said.
“No, and Dad’s going to be pissed when we come rolling up. I was just supposed to tell you and Jack where to meet him, but there’s no way we want to sit back and miss all the excitement!”
As predicted, Vincent was livid when we joined him and his brother in a parking lot on the edge of town. He crossed his arms over his chest and said, “No. Absolutely not,” as Josh climbed out of the SUV.
“You need Darwin and me to work the drone,” Josh pointed out. “We can do that from a half-mile away, so it’s not like we’re asking to storm the place with machetes and hand grenades.” His dad was still scowling, so Josh turned to Dante and pleaded, “Come on. We’re not kids anymore, and you know you need us and the quadcopter to do some surveillance. If this place is by itself out in the desert, there’s literally no way you can go driving up to it without putting every evil henchman on high alert.”
A tall, muscular brunet joined us, and as he took Dante’s hand he said, “You know, Josh has a point.”
Dante had been scowling as much as his brother, but his expression eased a bit and he said, “Fine. They can come, but they’re staying way, way back when this starts to go down.”
The brunet smiled at him, and Dante drew him close and nuzzled his cheek before remembering the rest of us were there. Then he said, “Romy and Jack, this is my husband Charlie. He flew in this afternoon to lend a hand.”
“I also flew in to keep an eye on you,” Charlie teased, with a sparkle in his eyes. “Someone needs to talk you down if you start going all Rambo.”
While the adoring husbands grinned at each other and started kissing, Vincent gave Darwin the address of the alleged compound, and the kid pulled it up on Google Earth. “Yeah, that’s definitely in the middle of nowhere,” Josh said, as he took a look at the satellite image on his fiancé’s phone. “If it turns out Adriano’s in there, I’m not sure what you’re going to do. It’s exactly like I said—you’ll never be able to drive down that long, private road without alerting everyone in the compound.”
I looked around and asked, “Does anyone have a bobby pin and a hundred bucks?”
Dante stopped kissing his husband’s neck and raised a brow. “Why?”
I pointed at a retro kids’ bike with a long banana seat, which was padlocked to a chain link fence. “I want to steal that and leave the owner some money for it. I don’t think I’m well enough for a long hike, but if the drone gives us a reason to believe we’re in the right place, I can easily bike up to the compound, sneak in, and find Adriano. Then all I need to do is smuggle him out.”
Romy shook his head. “There’s no way. They’ll shoot you, Jack.”
But Dante shrugged and said, “If they caught him sneaking around in that outfit, would they really shoot him? He doesn’t exactly look like a threat. Besides, Vincent and I would obviously go along.”
Romy remained unconvinced. “Then why would Jack go in at all?”
“Because I’m good at breaking into things.” Romy started to argue, but I said, “I know it’s dangerous, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
“Or, here’s a crazy idea,” Romy said. “We call the police, they send in a SWAT team and a hostage negotiator, and this all gets resolved by trained professionals.”
Everyone said, “Nah,” and went to work implementing our plan.
Dante handed me some money, and Charlie led me to the trunk of the other SUV and said, “I packed a few essentials before I flew in. Let’s see if there’s something you can use, not just to steal the bike, but if you end up trying to infiltrate the compound.”
We rifled through his go-bag, and I selected a multitool and a pocket knife. Then I picked up a small leather case with a lopsided cat on it and asked, “Is this what I think it is?”
Charlie grinned at me. “It’s a Hello Kitty lockpick kit. You’re welcome to borrow it, but please be sure to bring it back. It has a lot of sentimental value.” I didn’t ask.
He went with me to steal the bike while everyone else climbed into the pair of SUVs and started the engines. “You doing okay? I heard you got shot,” he said, as he indicated a spot of dried blood on my sleeve.
“I feel like shit, but whatever. I’ll rest once we rescue Adriano.”
He stood guard when we reached the bike, and as I picked the lock he said, “It’s wild—another Dombruso brother. It’s even wilder that he seems to be just like Dante and Vincent. One of the first things Nana told me when I started dating a Dombruso was that I just had to accept the fact that danger seemed to follow them.”
I freed the bike and closed the padlock again as I asked, “Are their younger brothers danger magnets, too?”
“No, those two have always led normal lives. Dante and Vincent made sure of it by becoming the family caretakers after their parents died. They took all the heat that came with being Dombrusos, so their little brothers could stay safe.”
I folded the money Dante had given me—almost three hundred bucks—and stuffed it through the padlock’s shackle as Charlie said, “Um, we need to run.”
“Why?”