Falling Apart (GANG Series)

Chapter 41

Jacob's POV

      Line after line, I look at every surface point closely. I cannot miss a single thing. Only five hours until this whole scheme goes into action. The map is a lot bigger than I'd expected but it gives such a clear view of what will be waiting for us. I gotta give it to Carlos, he swiped a perfect and updated structure plan of Big Leonov's sadistic warehouse. In the past month we've managed to learn that Johnathan is a pervert with a gut who owns around six clubs all over the city and who happens to have no familiar contacts. I sincerely doubt that. A man with this mass of an evolving empire has a family to uphold. However, we grasped at the tiny bits of information we uncovered on his fellow colleagues in this chain. Matthew cracked away at his system for weeks and was only able to get us a shred. Either way, doesn't matter. We make do with what we have and the best part is that he doesn't even know we're coming. He's expecting Zac to come do a check-in tonight, and he will get Zac but in a casket. Maybe in an urn. A shoebox more like. I haven't really decided yet. Definitely a casket, it's fitting for a pretentious bastard like him. Plus the actual dead body is more convincing than ashes.

I mark an X over the room where I know the girls are being held. My finger drags along the drawn corridors until I reach the office, circling it in red ink. This building has seven different exits but four are on the second floor. That could work for us. Fuck. Maybe not in this weather. I mark two top exits on opposite sides of each other and mark our original exit route. I relax when I notice the labels of renovation over one corner of the building. Another opening, another opportunity. Even if it is a benefit to us, the more easier this seems the more stressed about it I become. I follow my instinct and make sure to avoid that as a way out at all costs. There are two men posted at every side of the freezing warehouse. Sure, we could leave some alive but they don't deserve that. Whoever lives will have the feds to thank for that. This establishment is a maze of hallways. I'm assuming it's because of new construction but there are some paths that lead to nothing, literally a dead-end for a wall. I write these spaces off as safe. There is no way there are people guarding a piece of drywall. Unless. . . Perhaps it isn't only drywall at all. In conclusion, not safe. But definitely skeptic. Why the hell would you renovate something and then put out of place walls, it makes no sense. Something so inconspicuous, it turns into the perfect target for someone like me. Only another criminal could understand the tactics of an even worse criminal. It's not some coincidence that victims are trapped in the center of this hellhole. I calculate that at every seven foot mark, there are grates on the hallway ceiling. Serves as an excellent way to keep watch from above and even more fortunate ways to slip in and out. Four by four. Good fit. Half a year ago, the blind style, steel garage door was the original lock for those innocent lives but now it's an advanced, heavier, sliding steel door with much more durability. While that is a problem, it is the least of all the ones I got.

Unexpectedly, the lock isn't any high-tech digital security. That would've been inconvenient. Ridiculous to think any gang related, self respecting person would protect themselves with anything sponsored by law enforcement. It's practically insulting to the FBI knowing their efforts of safety are being used to keep them out.

I don't believe it but it's one lock. One lock with so many steep and stubby and rigid mechanisms. I don't have a degree in lock picking but this should be about as easy as hitting a living target while going seventy miles per hour on my Yamaha. One of my many talents I choose not to disclose. A neat party trick if my goal is to petrify every single guest.

My eyes travel over to the thick blacked out bars where the rest of the second floor should be. This place really is a shit-hole. Storage is the only thing that final floor could serve as. When my stare searches deeper, the faint white lining printed over the blackness reveals itself. They all connect with the thin structure of the second floor. More maze or more blocked off area? There's a door right beside it so it can't be blocked off. Maybe a print malfunction.