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His phone buzzes, and he reaches into his pocket, his eyes widening once he checks the screen. “Craig.” He meets my gaze from across the room, raising the phone to his ear. “Craig? What do you have?”
I rise, my heart in my throat, while Cesco waits with the fork halfway to his mouth. He only lowers it when Dante nods firmly. “I know the area. Thank you,” Dante adds. “We won’t forget this.”
“What does he have?” I demand, aware of how Mama jumps when my sharp question echoes in the room.
“A location. The van was spotted leaving a storage facility on the edge of Queens.” He’s already on his way across the kitchen with Cesco behind him. “It belongs to a holding company registered to the Vitali family.”
I break into a run, and even over my frantic heartbeat, I hear my brother and cousin behind me. Dante calls for Nico when we cross paths near the front door, then shouts for two of our guards to join us once we’re outside, where a row of SUVs awaits. Let him figure out the logistics. It’s what he does best. All I care about is getting to her fast.
“I’ll drive!” Nico announces, and as much as I would rather be the one behind the wheel, it’s probably safer for him to do it when I’m like this. I’m consumed by rage, and the question of whether we’re already too late is on repeat.
I throw myself into the passenger seat, and Dante climbs in behind me while Cesco and the others take a second vehicle. Dante shouts the address through his open window so Cesco will know where to go before Nico pulls away, sending gravel flying as we tear down the driveway.
“There’s a chance she’s not there,” Dante reminds me, but his voice is only one of so many others screaming inside my skull. Voices blaming me, cursing me, begging me. They all sound like Emilia, her sweet, husky voice, one that called my name in ecstasy and whispered it tearfully. She has to be alive. She has to be well. We have to get through this. What do I do otherwise? What is there to live for?
But how would I live knowing I couldn’t protect her?
“We’re about twenty minutes away,” Nico informs us after plugging the address into his GPS with one hand while steering with the other. “I can make it fifteen.”
“Then do it,” I grit out, checking my pistol, pulling a second from the glove box, and making sure it’s ready.
“If she’s there, she’ll be heavily guarded,” Dante tells me as if I need to be told. I don’t have it in me to inform him I’ve already been through every possibility. I’ve played it out countless times over these agonizing hours.
The world around us flashes past in a blur thanks to Nico’s fearless driving. Every minute takes us closer, heightening the painful questions reverberating in my head like a gong. What if we’re too late? What if what they did can’t be undone? What if she’s still alive and hates me for letting this happen? That might be the worst outcome. Not only hating myself but knowing she hates me.
The area goes from residential to industrial, and soon, we’re approaching a cluster of office parks, gray, bland, and practically identical. Beyond that, the beginnings of yet another storage facility sit behind a chain-link fence. A handful of long cinderblock boxes look completed while a half-dozen are in progress. Did they dump her here somewhere?
“This is it,” Dante grunts out. “This is where the van came from.”
Nico slows down and cuts the headlights. In the passenger side mirror, I see Cesco doing the same thing. After racing here, I could scream at the infuriating crawl we’ve slowed too, even if I understand why. We could be wasting precious time.
“Up ahead,” Nico points out as we take a tour of the area, rolling slowly past one structure after another. A dark blue truck, the only vehicle we’ve seen since arriving, is parked in front of one of them. I hold up a hand, and Nico hits the brakes, putting the SUV in park a few dozen yards away from the truck. Cesco does the same, and moments later, we’re exiting the vehicles, guns drawn, staying close to the wall leading to a metal door that’s been propped open with a brick. There’s a light burning inside, but otherwise, there’s no sign of life. Please, be inside. Please, be alive. I will do anything, give anything, down to my own life so long as she survives.
I hear the shuffling footsteps a split second before the door swings open from the inside, followed by two men who burst out, firing wildly. Cesco expertly takes one of them out with no hesitation, the body hitting the ground with a bullet between the eyes. Nico takes the other, and the bastard falls against the open door, his body sliding down its length until it lands in a heap. Deafening silence follows. No more footsteps, no shouts from inside.
“Be careful!” Dante urges, but I barely hear him.
If only one truck was left behind, there can’t be many men around. They might have been the only two. I hope they aren’t since I would like to shed blood tonight too. But even that isn’t as important as finding Emilia.
“I’ll take the basement level,” Dante offers, already halfway down the concrete stairwell to the right of the entrance. “You look up here.”
Nico falls in step beside me, the two of us running down one seemingly endless hall after another and finding nothing but closed doors. The entire facility isn’t finished being constructed yet, meaning the units aren’t in use, so their doors are unlocked for us to fling them open one after another.
I hear it before Nico does, holding up a hand and freezing in silence, then I hear it again. Dante’s voice. “Luca! Down here!” he shouts from the basement.
Taking off at a sprint, I trace my steps, taking the stairs. We collide at the bottom like he is running to find me. I steady myself, grabbing him by the shoulders. “Where?” I grunt out, ready to push him aside.
He tries to stop me, remaining in place when I try to get past him. “Luca, I don’t think she?—”
No, I’m not hearing this. I refuse. “Where is she?” I scream, noting his resigned sigh and refusing to accept it.
He grimaces but takes off running, leading me around the corner where a door sits open. I barely register the blood-stained plastic sheeting covering the floor as I take in the sight of the bruised, bloody mass curled up in the middle of it.
It’s not moving. She’s not moving.
“I couldn’t get a pulse,” Dante grunts as I drop to my knees. Rage and revulsion so intense it could paralyze me, fight for control while I slowly, gently roll her onto her back.
She’s hardly recognizable, thanks to the blood that’s covered most of her face. There’s a cut along her cheekbone, a large abrasion covering most of her chin and half of her jaw. Her shorn hair is sticky, now a rusty red instead of its normal chestnut brown.
