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“You lost her again, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” Dante said sheepishly, “She’s a feisty one.”
“Did she just make a run for it or what?”
“No. She was pretty clever about it.”
“You need me to find her again?”
“Yes. I’ll really owe you one.”
“Yeah you will. I’ll call you back as soon as I find out anything.”
Dante hung up and considered what to do next. Whatever else Aurora was, she wasn’t an idiot, and so the chances she would just be wandering the streets of Milan hoping not to run into him were slim. Thinking for a few minutes, he decided his best bet was to head for the airport and try to waylay her there while Enrico worked his connections with the Carabinieri and the taxi companies and whatever else he controlled in the city to figure out where his bride had gone. He was halfway to the airport when his phone rang again.
Assuming it was Enrico, he picked up without even looking at the number, and when he heard the voice on the other end his heart nearly stopped.
It was Gennaro Moretti.
Dante had heard some rumblings that the backstabbing piece of shit had somehow survived the shootout at the Giordano wedding reception the night Enzo died, and even that he’d set up a small outfit back in Italy that he had plans to grow into a larger organization one day, but Dante had dismissed those rumors out of hand. He’d put at least three bullets in the traitorous bastard himself.
For a moment, his mind simply refused to accept what he was hearing, but the voice was unmistakable. There was no doubt that it was Gennaro, back from the apparently-not-actually-dead. Fuck.
“I’ve got your little bride here, Dante. If you want to be here when I slit her throat, meet me at the address I’m going to text you in a moment. I’ve got men watching. If I see anybody with you, she’ll be dead before you get out of the car.” The phone clicked as he hung up.
Shit!
As promised, a text from the same number appeared a moment later with an address located in what a quick glance at his maps app showed to be an industrial area on the outskirts of the city.
Tapping on the glass of the cab he’d just jumped into, Dante showed the driver the address.
“I need to get here as fast as possible. I’ll pay triple your normal rate.”
As soon as the driver saw the address, his face paled. With a quick glance at Dante in the rearview mirror, he said, “I don’t go to that area of town, boss.”
Reaching into his wallet, Dante pulled out enough euros to convince the driver that he did in fact go to that area of town, and then he picked up his phone and dialed Enrico, praying all the while that Aurora wouldn’t do anything stupid and get herself killed before he got there.
Aurora could not fucking believe that she had been kidnapped twice in a matter of days. The worst part, though, was that this time she was pretty sure she was actually in danger. She had spent the first few minutes of the ride to what she’d thought was the airport blissfully unaware that they were heading in the exact opposite direction, and by the time she’d figured it out, they had apparently gotten far enough away from the crowded streets around the famous cathedral that the cab driver now felt at liberty to turn around, point a gun at her, and demand her cell phone.
Unsure if he was bluffing and not wanting to find out, Aurora had complied. Only after he’d pocketed her iPhone and turned back around had she been brave enough to try the door handle, which of course had been locked. Apparently noticing her attempt at escape, the driver had said in heavily accented English, “I wouldn’t do that, little girl. If you make Don Moretti track you down, he’ll be very angry.”
Don Moretti?
“Do you know who I am?” she asked, trying to sound at least slightly intimidating and failing spectacularly. “Don Moretti is my uncle. And he’s dead. But my husband is a very powerful man, and he’ll be looking for me.”
“Yes, yes. Don Moretti knows all about that.”
What the fuck was he talking about?
She got her answer moments later when the car pulled into the parking garage of what had to be the dumpiest abandoned industrial building in Milan, if not in all of Italy. Waiting there for her was none other than her apparently not-as-dead-as-everybody-thought Uncle Gennaro.
“Hello, little sunflower. I’m sorry it had to come to this. But your husband and I need to have a discussion.”
Little sunflower? The last time he’d called her that she’d been eight years old… which come to think of it was the last time she remembered interacting with him in any meaningful way.
Aurora considered playing dumb and pretending she didn’t know who he was talking about, but that seemed pointless since they already clearly knew about Dante. Pedantically informing the asshole standing before her that she wasn’t technically married yet also seemed like a bad idea, so she simply said nothing.
“Don’t worry, he knows what will happen if he doesn’t show up. He’ll be here.”
