Lastly (L.T.)

Chapter 20

After Harry had finished his outline of his plan, Niall and Liam headed back down through the trapdoor to the gang's headquarters, and Harry sat down at the table, rifling through the piles of paperwork.

Louis and I stood in silence as the door swung closed behind Niall and Liam. Harry was lost in his paperwork so I decided it was a fine time to start up with my questions again.

"Are we back in the club?" I asked Louis, taking another look around.

Louis nodded, "Yeah, this is the basement."

"Wow." Was all I could think to say, before launching into another question. "What's on the other floors of the building? The basement is this, the ground floor is the club, and the top floor is apartments, what are the other 48 floors?"

"Storage, mostly." Louis said and shrugged, but I got the feeling there was a little more to it than that.

I decided not to press the matter for the moment, but I desperately wanted to know. Louis led the way towards the elevator, which was surrounded by the little safes in the corner of the room. He pushed the up arrow and I felt my body temperature rise as I remembered what had happened last time we were in an elevator together.

As soon as the doors opened, he leaned against the far wall like he had the time before, and I leaned against the opposite side of the same wall. I didn't know what I had been expecting from him after we had kissed in the tunnels, but I was surprised by how my heart sank when he remained against the wall.

"When will we be leaving for New York?" I asked to break the silence as the elevator began to ascend.

"Probably about a week." He responded, "I'll get us passports and new ID's. The mob has eyes everywhere, we're going to need to look different as well."

I frowned, "like disguises?"

"Not disguises, just haircuts or color contacts or something. We don't have to look like different people, just a little less like ourselves so we're harder to recognize."

"Okay." I responded simply, that seemed reasonable enough.

The floor stilled with a ding, and the doors opened. Louis gave me a nod and walked out first without another word.

I spent the night in my apartment, making myself a grocery list and watching more pointless reality shows. I waited until about 2am, before I got tired of my own thoughts. I didn't believe Louis when he said the rest of the floors were all storage, and I wanted to find out what else he was hiding.

I slipped out of bed, and pulled my sneakers back on. I tucked my phone into my pocket and a handgun into the back of my leggings, letting the back of my leather jacket conceal it. I shut the door to my room quietly and padded past Louis's door to the elevator. I figured I didn't want to go too far into the building's "storage" floors in case I found something I didn't want to and needed to get out, so I settled for the second floor, the one directly above the club. I leaned against the elevator wall as it descended. The room felt strangely empty without Louis leaning against the wall with me.

The ride seemed to take forever, all the way down to the second floor until the ding finally sounded and the doors opened.

I was standing in front of a long dark hallway. The lights were white and green again and the floor was the same black marble tile as the club, the basement, and Louis's apartment. The walls were black, making the hallway seem incredibly foreboding, but I stepped out of the elevator anyways, trying to keep my sneakers as quiet as possible on the hard floors. There were no doors branching off of the hallway. It turned left as I walked along, and this time, there was a door. It was black like the walls, and it swung open quietly when I tried the handle.

My eyes widened as I took in the sight before me. The room was massive, and empty except for the little safes that lined the walls. It looked the exact same as the basement.

Were these all weapons too?

I tried to open one of the little vaults to see what it was, but it was bolted shut. I tried several more of the vaults, and then went back to the elevator, I visited several other floors just to find that they were exact copies of the second floor. There was 48 giant rooms of vaulted "weapons" in this building and I had absolutely no idea why.

I trudged back to my room, feeling slightly defeated that I had gained the answered to only a few questions, and millions more unanswered questions. I was relieved, however, that Louis had not caught me. He and I seemed to be on good footing at the moment, and although I needed answers, I didn't want my snooping to destroy it.

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It was another three days before I heard or saw Louis or any of his friends again. I had left my apartment all of once to buy some groceries, and then spent the rest of my time in my room, pacing like a tiger in a cage in between phone calls with Andrea.

I hated sitting still and waiting, and I hated it even more that I was just waiting on Louis to get his shit together for our trip to New York. I had repacked all of my things into my duffel bag the night we had gotten back from the basement.

I had tried coming up with a list of things that Louis could possibly be keeping in all of those safes, but I had essentially come up blank. I had no idea what kind of weapons could fit in an eight inch by eight inch safe, and no idea why Louis would have so many of them that he would need a fifty story building with a club as a front to store them.