“I wanted to do it. Do you know why?”
Emma shook her head and reached for Cain’s hand.
“Because I want to come in here for years and dance with you pressed against me. Because I want everyone who enters this place to know who my heart belongs to.”
“I belong to you as well, and I will for the rest of my life.”
“Thank you.” Cain lifted the delicate hand off the bar and kissed the back of it. “Tonight we finish what we started. The Bracato family will pay for every sin they’ve ever committed against us.”
“Do you need anything from me?”
“An alibi later on tonight,” Cain joked.
“Honey, I’ll be happy to. You never have to ask.”
“Merrick and some of the others will take you home. Go in through the garage like we’ve been doing, and no matter what, don’t leave the house. I’ll be there by ten at the latest, and I won’t be calling. We can’t afford any lucky intercepts now if I’m supposed to be in the house with you.”
Cain joined Emma on the other side of the bar and walked her to the waiting vehicle with heavily tinted windows.
“You do what’s right, Cain, but whatever you do, come back to me.”
“You have my word, love.”
They kissed, and Cain walked to the other side of the bar again.
There, she pulled back one of the industrial rugs to reveal a trapdoor. She’d wanted to purchase the building for so long primarily because of the door and where it led. Now more than ever, she thanked God her grandfather had told so many stories.
After Cain lowered the door behind her, Merrick replaced the rug before she joined Emma. In the rare chance someone investigated the club, the only thing they would find would be the two used glasses on the bar.
Below the building, Cain flipped on her flashlight and stooped to make it through the narrow tunnel, walking along the edge to avoid the inch of water on the center of the floor. A string of old lights was bolted to the wall on the other side, but they hadn’t worked in a long time and she didn’t intend to fix them. She didn’t want to tip off anyone who didn’t need to know of the tunnel’s location.
After thirty minutes, she reached a rusty white iron door and pulled a set of keys from her pocket. Despite the door’s age, the new security lock turned easily, and when she opened the door the dampness of the river hit her immediately, since she was now close to the port. An old beat-up Buick was parked where Katlin had said it would be, and Cain found the key. Her watchers would never notice the car with all the head-banger stickers on the back window.
At that moment the surveillance teams had another problem. Two of their major targets had totally vanished. Gino had left his house an hour earlier and disappeared into the crowd at a local mall. Whoever had helped him escape knew how to spot the feds’ vans, and now the agents were at a loss.
“Houston, we have a problem,” the one in charge of Gino said as he watched two of his men on the sidewalk in front of Gino’s house search for signs of life.
“You locate your targets yet?” the dispatcher asked. He held his phone, poised to dial Agent Hicks’s number.
“Negative. We’re going to circle one more time, then come back here and wait for him.” The two men outside shook their heads slightly. “Does Shelby have her target in sight?”
“They’re in for the night after an early dinner and a stop at the new place before heading back to Jarvis’s,” Shelby reported. She and Claire were sitting in one van, while Lionel and Joe hung back farther down the street. “Do you need me to cut our backup loose?”
“Hold for now, and let me get Agent Hicks on the phone,” the agent at Gino’s said. “Something about this feels hinky to me, and I want to cover everyone’s ass.”
“I’m telling you, all’s quiet here,” Shelby said, “so let us know if you need more backup to canvass where they were last seen. Looks like we’re going to have a slow night.”
Chapter Forty-Two
The old recreational building smelled heavily of mildew and rot. Gino deserved nothing better for what Cain had in mind because of how dishonorably he’d lived his life. Plus, the site was set for demolition in six months to make room for a new federal building. Then they would find the man the FBI was out hunting for. Cain loved irony.
The stench came from the water left in the old pool, now green and slimy from neglect. It had been years since the sound of children playing had echoed off these walls, and the putrid remains of the once-chlorinated water now magnified the sound of Cain’s footsteps.
Katlin stood at the edge of the deep end and nodded in Cain’s direction. Outside, the night quiet was broken every so often by the sound of distant traffic. The area had once been home to some of the city’s most ruthless gangs. Now the old tenement buildings, as well as all the buildings that had once made up the community, were a ghost town awaiting the wrecking ball.
“Beautiful night, isn’t it?” Cain walked to the front of the building as though she were walking beside a pool at an expensive spa.
“Cain, you fucking asshole.” Gino tried to break free of his bindings and the weight tied to his ankles. He stood in the middle of the pool, the water lapping the middle of his chest. Under the water his hands were tied behind his back, and his feet were also bound by the most common rope Katlin could find. When she and Lou had put him in, they’d looped another long piece that she held in her hand. “Once my father hears about this…Hell, I don’t need him. I’ll take you out myself.”
The relaxed Cain peered out over the shallow end of the pool and cocked her head to one side, as if enjoying
