Page 38 of Damián

“Will do.” I take the card and flip it between my fingers.

“How long until I see you again this time?”

“A couple of months? Maybe more.” I pause. “…Keep an eye on my mom?”

“Always.”

I place my hands over the reception desk and lunge forward far enough to kiss her on the cheek. “Thank you, Mrs. Evelyn.”

Evelyn gushes her thanks as I tap my boring new civilian card against the scanner. The security doors slide open, I hit the call button, and step into the first elevator that arrives.

I’m scrolling through my texts when the doors part on the third floor.

I expect to see one of my brothers stepping in, but instead, there’s a food delivery guy with a “visitor” card hanging from his neck. The poor kid looks to be in his mid-twenties and is as lost as a tourist on the metro.

“Sir…” he whispers, his eyes tired and red. “Do you know where I am?”

Looks like I’ve found the lost puppy…

“Is that delivery for the top floor?” I ask.

He nods and looks completely defeated as he stares at the elevator command panel… and to be fair, it is a nightmare.

The building only has eight floors, but there are twenty-eight buttons…not counting the runes.

They have no numbers, no names, and they don’t go in order. Sometimes you need to press four different buttons just to reach a floor; sometimes you need to switch elevators halfway up, and other times you need a biometric key and to flip an invisible switch.

The entire place is an absolute labyrinth.

…At Alexios’s request, of course.

“How long have you been in here?”

He looks at his watch and groans. “Forty-three minutes…”

I want to laugh, but that would be way too mean. Instead, I pull out the money for the food, plus a hundred-dollar bill, and hand it to him.

“Here, take this and give me the food.”

“Thank you, sir,” he whispers with happy tears filling his eyes.

As soon as we reach the top floor, I press a silver button right in the middle of the panel and smile at the guy. “Stay right there. The elevator will take you straight back to the lobby.”

The guy smiles, relieved, as the doors close.

“Top of the morning!” says Law as he walks out of his office.

He’s wearing a dark blue, tailored three-piece suit that makes his freckles pop, and he is holding a sniper rifle like it’s an umbrella.

“Top of the morning, Mary Glockins,” I say, laughing, but Law just glares at me.

“You know… like Mary Poppins, but with a Glock?” I explain, refusing to let the joke die.

“I caught it the first time, mate. It just wasn’t half as funny as you thought it was.”

“Hahahahahaha!” Knox comes out of the conference room, laughing to the point of choking. “It was fucking hilarious, Law. Mary Glockins!”

Law’s blue eyes narrow as he shoots me a menacing look.“Look what you’ve done.”