Page 78 of The Kingpin’s Bride

Santino’s voice dropped. “We better not come back empty-handed.”

I nodded once.

The staging point appeared ahead of us: two black SUVs, engines off, men moving in the dark like shadows that knew exactly where they were going. Santino pulled in and killed the lights. The sudden quiet felt louder than the engine had.

I stepped out of the car. The air was cold and thin. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked once and went silent. The northern property sat half a mile further up the private road, lights low, the kind of place that looked ordinary until you noticed the reinforced gate and the single camera that had been looped by our tech.

Santino came around the front of the car and stopped beside me. He checked his weapon, then glanced at the watch on my wrist.

I felt the weight of everything I was carrying: the ring, the unicorn jacket, the open place under my ribs, the knowledge that Morena was sitting in an alley somewhere behind us, choosing the collar over safety. “Yes.”

He clapped me once on the shoulder. “Then let’s go get the little girl. And the bastard who took her.”

We started walking toward the teams. The first gray edge of dawn was just beginning to touch the sky.

Chapter Twenty-One

Morena

The burner phone stayed silent. The four hours the doctor had given me were long gone. Matteo’s men were somewhere behind me. Dario was somewhere ahead. And Camilla was missing. I needed better information than rumors and dead safe houses.

That was how I ended up standing across the street from a black SUV I recognized.

Vincenzo.

Once upon a time, he was Aurora’s bodyguard. One of the ones who used to shadow her before she became Santino’s wife. I had seen him a handful of times at After Dark in the old days, always silent, always watching, the kind of man who never needed to raise his voice. He was in the life. Still connected. And dangerous enough that approaching him could end with me in the back of a car headed straight to Matteo.

I did it anyway. I waited until he stepped out to take a call. Then I crossed the street and stopped three feet away, hands visible.

He turned. His eyes landed on me and went flat.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said. “Matteo has watches all over the city looking for you.”

“I know that.”

He glanced up and down the street once, then back at me. “Talk fast.”

“Dario Rizzo has my sister,” I said. “I need a current location. Anything. I’ll take scraps.”

Vincenzo studied me for a long moment. The same cold assessment he used to give people who got too close to Aurora.

“You’re now Matteo Ventura’s wife,” he said.

“I was sold to him. There’s a difference.”

Something flickered in his expression. Not sympathy. Recognition, maybe. He had worked for women who understood the difference. “Why come to me?”

“Because you’re not fully anyone’s,” I admitted. “And because you used to watch the club. You know the old routes. You know the kind of men Dario runs with.”

He was quiet for another few seconds. Then he made a decision. “Get in the car. Two minutes. If anyone sees you talking to me I’m not covering for you.”

I got in.

The interior smelled like leather and gun oil. Vincenzo did not start the engine. He just sat there with one hand on the wheel and the other near his phone.

“She’s alive,” he said finally. “The little girl. Camilla. That much is confirmed.”

My throat closed. “Where?”