by K. C. Crowne
“You know I grew up around these parts,” Dax revealed as he drove, his hands gripping the wheel tight. “Heard all the wild stories about the Gianni Estate. Even heard he buried treasure up there, but I always reckoned it was just gossip and nonsense. The place could have been Hogwarts for all I cared. But you're really telling me the house is up here?”
“Uh huh.” Up ahead, we could start to see the road grow even narrower as we ascended the mountain, but Dax appeared unbothered by the drive. If anything, he appeared in his element, laughing as he drove.
"So this guy, Benny. You met him?"
"Met him?" I laughed. "I kicked the shit out of him."
A riotous guffaw came out of Dax's mouth. "Get outta here!"
"The guy's a creep. Loves the ladies. Except they don't like him."
"So he's kidnapping them?"
"That's the way it looks."
"What a piece of shit," he said. We were silent for a moment, then Dax squinted his eyes. "Wait? What's that up there?"
We all squinted and leaned forward in our seats. Through the snow, the lights bounced off something tall and gold.
"The gates to the estate," I announced. "Has to be. Nobody else would have something that tacky."
"And who else could BG be?"
Dax cut the engine and switched off the lights. "The gates are open," he said. "No fresh tracks, though. If anyone came through they must have done it before the snow got too heavy."
Throwing the door open, I jumped down, my feet crunching on the ground.
"Jackson wait!"
But something had caught my eyes, something blue and familiar. "That's the cab," I said to Jared. "They're here!"
We gathered around the gate, deciding what to do next.
"What's the plan?" Dax asked.
"I say we head to the house first, see what we can find."
"I'll take the front," Lucas said.
"Fine. Take Dylan. Jared and I will take the back. Dax?"
"I'll look over the parking lot and gardens. Meet you back here in ten."
We were off, each of us taking on our roles.
"This feels familiar," Jared said as we jogged toward the large, sandstone mansion. "Like being back in Afghanistan."
"Yeah, except the houses weren't so big there and it didn't snow like this."
We stood at the back of the building looking up at the window.
"It's some place, isn’t it?"
"What else would you expect from a Mafia boss?"
"You think the girls are in there?" Jared asked. "The place looks abandoned."
We moved up to the nearest window and wiped the snow from the glass. It was beginning to lighten up as the wind died down. At last, I could see properly and get my breath back. And the sound of the roaring wind was no longer assaulting my ears.
"There's nothing in there," I said, taking note of the peeling wallpaper and moldy walls. "Nobody's been here in years."
"But the cab’s here."
We glanced at one another, confused. Just then, Lucas and Dylan came running around from the front breathless.
"Nothing," Dylan said. "Place is deserted."
"Are you sure?"
"There's nothing. No furniture in most of the rooms."
We walked back to the gates where Dax was standing, staring at something in the ground.
"Did you look over the gardens?" I asked him, landing a heavy hand on his shoulder.
He ignored my question and pointed to a grate in the ground. "What do you see?"
"I see fog."
"And what do you smell?""
"I dunno. Wood."
He turned around and I saw hope in his eyes.
"That's not fog. That's smoke. There's a chimney down there."
Images flashed in my mind. I saw Denny, the scorching sun of the desert and the cracked floor that crunched beneath my feet. I could see the front of the house as we patrolled the area for insurgents but found nothing and no one. Then I remembered the hatch in the floor, the gunman climbing up from the hole in the ground and peppering the room with bullets.
It all came to me, and I suddenly realized how naive we'd been.
"They were never in the house," I said. "They're underground!"
"Search for a doorway."
“Search where? Everything's covered in at least a foot of snow.”
“Everything except that,” I said, noticing a small, circular depression in the snow.
We approached it cautiously. As we got closer, I noticed something weird drift up into the air, something warm.
“Is that steam?” asked Dylan, creeping closer.
“Sure looks like it.”
We all looked down at the only patch of snow that had melted.
Jared looked up at me, hope lighting up his face as he said, “It's a manhole cover. We're in.”
"Got the bastards," I mumbled.
"Wait? Something's burning," Jared said.
I could smell it too. The unmistakable stench of fire and acrid smoke.
"Jared, help me."
We struggled to remove the cover, and as we pulled it to the side, the smell grew stronger as plumes of gray smoke swirled up from below.
I peered into the tunnel and saw light at the bottom as smoke rose and burned my eyes. Then I heard a noise that punched me right in the gut.
Screaming.
"Tell me where Carly is!" Gabby cried.
I looked up at the guys, and we all knew what to do. I yelled,
"Get down now! Go! Go! Go!"
Before anyone could move, a gunshot sounded from deep in the woods. Then another.
“Snipers!” Dylan shouted. “Everybody down!”
Another shot sounded, the bullet whistling through the air.
“Fuck!” Jared screeched.
I looked down and saw the snow around his feet turn crimson. “Jared?”
He fell to his knees screaming, clutching his thigh.
“Everybody get down!” I yelled, reaching for my gun, but as I looked into the forest, I saw no one.
“Oh, God!” Jared cried as the blood pumped out of his leg.
I threw myself on top of him, pressing my hand against his leg. “Jared listen to me. You're gonna be okay. You'll be fine.”
“I'm bleeding out!” he cried.
And as I looked into his eyes, I saw a fear I never thought I’d see again, a terror I'd seen in Denny's eyes just moments before he died.
No. Not again.
Chapter 19
Gabby
Larry kicked the door open, the flash of a red fire extinguisher in his hand.
"Boss, get back!"
He pulled the pin out of the extinguisher and pulled out the nozzle. Pushing me out of the way, he began spraying white foam all over the floor. The flames fizzled out, the previously valuable, antique rug ruined.
"You crazy bitch," Benny spat, fanning the smoke from his face with his hand. "You tried to kill us all."
"Tell me where Carly is!"
"You'll find out soon enough," Larry jeered.
Before I could process what was happening, his fingers were in my hair, pulling me through the doorway.
Then he suddenly froze, his hands still gripping me. I tried to struggle but felt his arms clamp around me, winding themselves tight around my rib cage like a boa constrictor.
"You hear that?" Larry asked. "There's someone up there?"
"See to the girl first," Benny ordered.
Larry nodded and continued to drag me backward through the hallway. The warmth of the living room shrunk as I traveled backward along a wooden corridor. I tried to memorize everything, the paintings on the wall, the antiques in the cabinets that lined the walls. Then the realization hit me.
The treasure.
What we were all envisioning as golden bars sunk deep into the ground was in fact this bunker filled to the brim with priceless, stolen antiques.
"Get inside," Larry commanded, pulling the door handle to the nearest room.
He tossed me inside roughly and I fell to my knees.
I jumped back up. "You bastard!" He slammed the door, and I ran to the door, battering my fists against the mahogany. “Let me outta here!”
"Gabby!" I spun around and hurried toward the familiar voice.
"Carly! Thank God you're okay!" I scurried over to her and wrapped my arms around her tight. She was shaking violently and crying.
"You were gone for ages," she whimpered. "I thought I would never see you again. What happened? Did he touch you?"
"He didn't get anywhere near me."
Her face softened slightly, and a hint of a smile twitched on her lips. I dabbed my sleeve on her face to dry her eyes and looked around the room.
"Where the hell are we?" I asked.
"Think it's some kind of study," Carly answered. "But everything's locked."
Walking to the nearest cabinet, I rattled the handle, but the drawer wouldn't budge. "Weird."
"This whole place is weird."
"It's like an underground bunker."
"Filled with priceless artifacts."
"I guess the rumors about the treasure were true."
I pulled at another drawer handle but that wouldn't budge either.
In the corner, Carly sniffed and burrowed inside her coat. “How long do you think they'll keep us here?"
“Don't think about that. Just focus on getting out.”
"How are we supposed to do that?”
"There'll be a way," I said, pulling at drawer after drawer. "There has to be. Goddammit, why won't any of these open?"
Carly shifted even further into the corner so she was hidden in the shadows. "How are you always like this?"
"Like what?"
"Like super positive all the time. Like you're not afraid of anything."
You have no idea just how afraid I am.
"I guess I just don't like giving up easily," I said. "Always have to see the best in every situation."
"Yeah, well, all I see right now is the worst."
Moving over to a cupboard in the corner of the room, I ran my hands over the door. It was oak, the kind you saw in upmarket, boutique hotels. Obviously handmade, ancient, and more ornate than anything else in the room, I wondered what it held. Pulling at the handle gave me no clues.
“What do you think's in here?” I asked Carly. She shrugged, disinterested. "Must be something pretty valuable if it's locked in a cupboard, in a locked room, in a secret underground bunker."
I stared at it for a minute, unsure why it was attracting so much of my attention. I glanced at Carly.
"Hey, you still wearing hair pins?"
"Yes," Carly said, tucking her fingertips into her hair bun and pulling out a pin. "Here."
She tossed one over, and I did something I'd not done since my teenage years when I'd broken into my cousin's secret diary to find out who she had a crush on. But as I looked at the lock on the door, I knew this was going to be more of a challenge.
"You're not really going to break into that thing with a hair pin, are you?"
"I’m gonna try." Twisting it straight, I thrust it into the lock and rattled it.
"You're nuts," Carly said. "What do you think you're gonna find in there?"
"I don't know…” I said, twisting and turning the pin in the lock. “I have a weird gut feeling, all right?"
Twisting the pin again, I felt it give as though it was close to snapping, but just before it broke, I heard a click and a thud and the door was swinging open.
"Bingo."
The musty air from inside hit me with the scent of old, dusty, moldy books and mothballs.
"What's in there?" Carly asked, getting to her feet to walk closer.
"Looks like a bunch of old files and photo albums."
She joined me and stared at the boxes of papers and dog-eared photographs.
"These look like family photos," she said, picking up a bundle and flipping through them. "Here, that must be Benny's dad."
She pushed a black and white picture into my hand showing a dashingly handsome man with slicked back hair in a pristine black suit. Behind him, glittering lights from a casino twinkled as a group of glamorous young women in sequined gowns crowded around him.
"Wow, no wonder he idolizes his old man," she said. "He looks like a movie star."
"He looks like everything Benny Junior isn't," I said scathingly. I delved into a nearby box and flicked my fingers over a bundle of tattered papers.
"Hmmm. Looks like a bunch of birth certificates. There's Benny, Mario, someone called Vincenzo and..."
I stopped and narrowed my eyes as my gaze fell on the tiny scrawl of a blue fountain pen.
"What?"
"It's a death certificate."
"For who?"
"For Benny's mother, Lucinda. Says she committed suicide in nineteen-eighty-one. Hung herself with her dressing gown cord."
"Oh, that's terrible. Benny would have been a kid then."
"That's a hard thing for a kid to go through.”
Something smooth along the back of the certificate caught the edge of my fingertip, and I turned it over.
"Hey, I think this is a photograph of her."
I plucked it free from the page and held it up to the light.
"Wow, she was stunning. Hard to think she gave birth to a monster like Benny."
"Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Carly asked as she took the picture from my hand. "She looks just like you."
I looked at the woman again. "No she doesn't."
"Come on. Look!"
She pushed the picture toward my face, and I had no choice but to confront the image. The shoulder-length brown hair, the olive complexion, the dark eyes, thick brows and thin lips.
"Shit…she's my double."
We stood still, the two of us staring at the photo between us.
"This feels like some kind of sick joke," I said with a grimace.
The longer I looked at the picture, the more I realized just how much I resembled her.
"He's got some real mommy issues," Carly pondered. "No wonder he's infatuated with you."
An explosion of goosebumps raced up my spine. If I wasn't scared enough already, I was petrified now. Throwing the picture back in the box, I slammed the cupboard door closed and cursed my curiosity.
"What are you gonna do?" Carly asked.
"What can I do? I'm gonna forget I ever saw the thing."
I backed away from the cupboard and took a seat on the floor, facing away from it.
"This is fucked up," Carly announced, sitting by my side. "What are we supposed to do?"
My hands were shaking, and I thrust them in my pockets to hide them from Carly. I knew how afraid she was; she didn't need to know how scared I was.
"We'll get out of here, I promise."
"But how?"
"I dunno. I'm an expert with a hair pin apparently."
"Yeah, somehow I doubt you're gonna get us out of this underground hellhole with a hair pin."
She laughed and I joined in because if I didn't, I would have burst into tears.
"Jackson and Jared will know we're missing eventually," she said.
"They probably know already," I thought out loud. "Those guys know everything."
Carly turned to me with an inquisitive look in her eye. "I noticed a weird vibe between you and Jackson earlier. Everything okay?"
My chest tightened, and inside my pockets, my hands started to grow clammy. "Everything's fine."
"Really?"
"No. I mean yes. Kinda. What I mean is..." I let out a sigh. There was no point keeping it from her; she'd find out eventually. "This morning, when I went for breakfast…"
"And you came back two hours later without it?"
"Uh huh. Well, I was with Jackson."
"Oh?"
"And we hooked up."
"Oh! And?"
"And I don’t know. It's just a big mess."
"So are you getting back together?"
&nb
sp; I thought long and hard for a second. I thought about all the things I had said to him today that I wished I could take back. What we shared wasn't just meaningless fun, it was the most intense, loving moment of my life. It meant everything to me. Inwardly, I cringed at how cold and callous I had been to him when he’d shown me nothing but warmth and affection. He didn't deserve to be treated the way I treated him.
"I love him," I blurted without thinking.
"You do?" she asked, astonished by confession.
"More than ever,” I whispered. “I always have."
For a second I thought Carly would tear up, but she smiled and reached for my arm.
"I always knew you were perfect together. Once we're out of here, you can start afresh. Make up for lost time."
I looked around the room and wanted to believe that could happen, but I couldn't help but feel hopeless.
My earlier positivity must have been infectious. Carley said almost cheerfully, "He and Jared could be on his way to rescue us now."
"Maybe so," I said, holding onto the thought. "Let's hope so."
Chapter 20
Jackson
“Everybody stay calm,” Dylan said.
It was easy for him to say. His brother hadn’t just been shot, nor were his girl and sister some underground hell.
“There's a sniper in the trees,” Lucas said, raising his gun into the darkness. “Shit, I can't see a thing, but... Ah there he is, the little fucker.”
He fired off a round, and it whistled and echoed into the forest. A second later, there came an anguished cry and the sound of a body landing with a crunch in the snow.
“Got the bastard,” Lucas said as he took off running toward the tree line.
“Wait! There could be more!” Dax called out as he ran after him, leaving me and Dylan crouched at Jared's side.
“Shit, there's so much blood,” Dylan said as he pressed his hand onto the bullet wound.
Blood seeped out from under his hand and pumped out into the white snow.
“Jackson, I'm dizzy. I can't see straight. I'm gonna—”
“Shhh. Lie back. We got this.”
Ripping off my belt, I wound it tight around his thigh and pulled as hard I could as a blood-curdling scream escaped Jared's mouth.
“I'm sorry, buddy. You know I gotta do this.”