Page 24 of Secret (Chicago Underground 6)
“Goddamn it.”
“Take me there. Right now.” I paused. “Please.”
“Luke’s not going to like that,” he muttered.
We drove straight to the Barracks. I spent most of the trip hyperventilating in the backseat while Major gave Jenny a kind of guided tour through Chicago. She had been incredibly sheltered under Henri’s thumb and displayed a childlike excitement at every new landmark. I could tell Major was charmed. Well, Henri hadn’t been an idiot. We might have been pawns, but the girls in his elite were good at what we did—making men want us.
When we got to the Barracks, Major pulled behind a copse of trees. The headlights were off, and we rolled gently over the rocky landscape.
“You guys can go,” I said. “I’ll go in alone.”
“Hell, no,” Jenny said. “If there’s going to be ass-kicking, I want to be a part of it.”
“No. There will be no ass-kicking for you.”
She pouted. “As if you’re a ninja or something.”
“If you must know, I’ve had lessons in shooting a gun. Plus, I’ve been shot. It’s a special club.”
“A gun lesson.” She sounded giddy. She turned to Major. “You mean you can teach me how to use one?”
“Your enthusiasm is disturbing but irrelevant,” I told her. “We can’t do a lesson now.”
“I’m going,” she whispered. “You can’t stop me.”
“Very mature.”
“Look at it this way,” Major murmured. “I’m going, so she’s probably safer with us than alone.”
We got out of the car. Every car door closing made me wince, and I waited for men to come running out. When nothing happened, I let out a breath. We crept along the line of the trees until we reached the fence. It was still cut away where we’d entered before. An odd lapse in security, but I supposed Henri had already evacuated this place for the most part. If he was just coming here for a meeting, he wouldn’t need to establish a perimeter.
Slipping inside, we made it to the first hangar before Major put up his hand. He lifted his gun, signaling for us to stay back while the shadows enveloped him. I heard a low voice and then a brief scuffle. I blinked, my eyes wide, but I couldn’t make him out. Pushing Jenny behind me, I was about to get us the hell out of there when Major reappeared with his arm around another man. I saw the red bandanna first, then noticed the rest of him.
“Rico,” I said with relief, then realized Major was basically choking him. “What the hell?”
Rico threw Major off him and echoed my shock, but with more profanity.
“Was it you?” Major asked. “Don’t fuck with me right now; just tell me I can trust you.”
Rico grew still. “You saved my ass, literally, when I was nine years old. I told you then that I had your back, and that hasn’t changed.”
Major stared at him, measuring, and finally blew out a breath.
“Now,” Rico said. “What in the actual fuck was that?”
“Someone betrayed us,” Major said.
Both men turned to look at me.
“Yes, okay,” I said. “Be a stereotype and blame the hooker.”
Rico frowned. “It doesn’t make sense that it would be her or Luke, not with their asses on the line. And if it wasn’t you or me, then…”
“It was Jeff,” I said. “He must have put something in my water.”
Rico shook his head in frustration. “He said you’d been shot, but we couldn’t find your…” The word body hung in the air. “Luke was frantic. He almost got killed because he refused to leave without finding you first. We had to drag him out of there.”
He’d thought I was dead? “Where is he?”
