Page 21 of Brox Boar

“In our basement,” I say.

Sol shifts his weight. “Let’s burn the bitch!”

“We go downstairs,” I cut in. My voice drops. “Now.”

We move.

The pretense from last night falls away. No more talk of thirty seconds, no more bargains about keeping Morales breathing a little longer for data.

We head for the door together. Brox draws his gun from the holster under his suit jacket and crosses the room in long strides, his muscle vibrating under his shirt. I grab mine from where I left it last night on the coffee table, and slide it into my waistband.

Sol holds the elevator open. His eyes flick to my face, then to Brox’s. He stays silent.

We step in. The doors close. The descent feels too slow.

Brox stands beside me, fists clenched at his sides. His jaw is so tight the veins in his neck stand out. His blue eyes look somehow much darker, flatter.

“What do you think?” I ask.

“I think we made a mistake,” he answers.

“Morales lied.”

“She did.”

The image of Lana running through the alley flashes in my head. Hair flying, shoulders hunched, pushing through that door. We watched that video over and over. We believed it.

“Then who did we see leave?”

“Someone else.” He says.

The elevator doors slide open on the ground level. We step into the quiet hallway that connects to the private stairs down. Staff move in the distance, carrying crates, wiping tables, clearing away the traces of last night’s guests. They sense our mood and flatten themselves against walls as we pass.

We don’t slow.

We cut through the shadowed corridor behind the main staircase and take the door to the lower level.

The stairs down to the basement seem narrower today. My hand slides down the rail, more to stop myself from breaking into a run than to steady me.

I swear through my teeth.

We reach the bottom, push through the next door, and step into the service corridor that leads below, to the kennel, where the pets are. The air carries the faint ghosts of last night’s scenes: perfume, sweat, leather, smoke.

The temperature drops a degree down here. The lights are harsher. We move down the corridor past the kennel, where our pets sleep and rest, their doors closed. We reach the metal door that opens into Morales’ domain.

It’s already unlocked.

Sol nudges it with his knuckles, and it swings inward.

Her office sits on the other side, neat and sterile.

The chair behind the desk is empty. Papers sit in ordered stacks. Pens aligned. A white coat hangs on the hook, spotless.

“Where the fuck is she?” Brox growls.

The office swims around me for a second, then snaps into stark focus.

We lost twenty-four hours.