My father would be so disappointed in me. We failed. And it’s all my fault.
Without Leon to lead them, the Club will probably fall apart. And who knows if any of them even escaped from the party? Maybe they’re all in handcuffs right now, being lugged off to jail, never to investigate anything else or save anyone else ever again.
Tears burn in my eyes and I angrily rub them away before finally stretching out my legs and carefully pushing the air vent open. Once the grate clatters to the ground, I extend one foot to cautiously get my balance on the filing cabinet beneath me. Then I slowly, carefully lower myself down through the square hole and clamber down the cabinet. I stand there in the empty room, looking around.
Then I tense up at the sound of footsteps.
Coming toward the door.
Oh, I’m an idiot! Of course the cops would still have someone stationed here just in case! And here I am, just standing here like a deer in the headlights, waiting to be cuffed and dragged away. But it hits me now that I don’t really care. It’s all over. There’s no hope, anyway. Besides, I deserve to be arrested for the trouble I’ve caused.
So I just cross my arms over my chest and wait.
The door pushes slowly open, the rusting hinges whining. A tall, impossibly burly frame peeks around the door and walks into the room: Genn. I heave a sigh of relief.
“Oh, it’s you,” I murmur, exhaling deeply. Quickly, I add, “You escaped?”
Genn nods, scratching at the back of his head. “Yeah. I bolted when I heard the cops coming, hid in the musicians’ van. None of them thought to check there, I guess. They just see motorcycles and think ‘bad guy.’ They didn’t suspect any of us would be hiding in a van with an airbrush mural of a mermaid drinking vodka painted on the side of it.”
“Hide in plain sight,” comments a voice from behind him. I jump at the sound, but then Lukas shoves into the room, looking nearly apoplectic with rage. With his fists clenched at his sides and his teeth bared like a growling wolf, he swears, “Fucking rats. Just fucking stormed in here like they owned the place, but they’re still too stupid to even get all of us.”
“Who are you talking to? Someone in there?” pipes up another familiar voice. Vasily walks into the room, too, his eyebrows shooting up at the sight of me. “Cherry!” he gasps.
“How’d you manage not to get arrested? I saw that motherfucker Doyle and his stooges come into this room and grab Leon,” Lukas asks, putting his hands on his hips.
I turn and point to the air vent. “Leon stashed me up in there. He — he took the time to hide me instead of just running away through the window like he should have,” I explain, hanging my head guiltily. I expect Lukas to fly at me angrily and start cursing me. And I almost want him to.
Instead, Genn just says, “That sounds about right.”
“Don’t feel bad,” Vasily says, shrugging. “He would never have let them take you. Just be glad he managed to find a way to save you without having to kill a cop or something.”
“Yeah, you never had a choice in the matter,” Lukas adds. “He would have literally shanked Agent Dickhead in the chest with a shard of glass or some shit, just to keep his old lady safe.”
“So at least he’s not going down for murdering a cop,” Vasily says, genuinely relieved.
“What do we do now?” I ask, biting my lip, afraid of the answer. I want them to tell me there’s a backup plan, that they’re prepared for this kind of armageddon. I want them to give me the details to some over-the-top rescue mission they’ve been holding onto just for this kind of catastrophic turn of events.
But instead, they all just exchange world-weary looks.
“Good fucking question,” Lukas comments bluntly.
“Well, the cops took him away, but surely we’ve got some guy on the inside who can help us out? A cop on the take who can break him out or at least relay us information?” I suggest, almost pleadingly. But Vasily shakes his head, giving me a pained expression.
“They’re not taking him to the local precinct, Cherry,” he tells me sadly. “Those weren’t our usual everyday schmuck cops. Those were the feds and county sheriffs. They’re taking him to the county jail.”
“And we… we don’t have anybody there?” I press weakly.
Lukas scoffs. “Hell no. Those guys are a little above our pay grade. It’s hard enough to infiltrate the force here in Bayonne. But out there, things are tighter.”
“The county guys aren’t on our side,” Vasily agrees. “They’re in the pockets of the feds, and they’re like the FBI’s trained pitbulls when it comes to this stuff.”