Page 66 of Sicilian Savior

Powerful strides took me out the front door, and I slid my leg over my bike. The engine roared when I fired it up, just like the rage roaring inside of me. I buried the needle when I hit a hundred and fifty miles an hour, and I cursed that this stupid Harley couldn’t go faster. I should have bought a crotch rocket. It would have gotten me to them sooner. They had a five-hour head start that I’d need to try to make up. Every second counted.

I tore down the roads and out of state, following Wes’s pinpoints marking all the places he caught Victor on camera. They were heading east, and if they kept following the same route, he was taking her back to New York City. Finding them once they hit New York would be hard, like finding a needle in a haystack, but I had Wes on my side. I knew he’d do anything to help me locate them.

The hours ticked by, and I gained on them as I pushed Axel to the breaking point. Victor’s trajectory seemed to veer off from New York the closer he got, then Wes caught him at a gas station just to the north. It seemed he wasn’t heading to the city after all.

My phone rang, and I pushed the button, letting the call come into my earpiece.

“I figured it out!” Wes said. “I know where he’s going!”

My jaw tightened. I’m coming for you, Victor.

“Where?”

“East Haven, Connecticut. His grandparents lived there before they passed, and it’s a big Italian hot spot. When his dad died, he inherited the family home. It’s been vacant for years, but I did some searching on the identity he’s using and found a lot of activity around East Haven. Then I found out he owns the house there. Two weeks ago, the electric was turned back on, meaning someone’s been living there. That’s it, Knox. That’s got to be where he’s taking them.”

“Send me the address.”

“Already done. I sent it to Piper and Marcus too. You’re gonna beat them there by a long shot, though.”

Rage and anticipation tightened my grip on the handlebar as I pushed Axel to the edge. “I don’t need ‘em. Not this time.”

“I’ll search the cameras in the area to make sure he doesn’t have a bunch of back-up, but from the looks of it, Victor is living alone. An outcast now.”

“He’s not gonna be any kind of living soon.”

I hung up the phone and gunned it as I raced toward the new mark on my map.

Hold on, Lucia. I’m coming for you.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Lucia

––––––––

I held Luca close to me, grateful he’d finally fallen asleep. He’d cried for the first few hours in the car, begging to go back home to Knox. That had only enraged Victor more, and I’d tried my best to quiet my son down.

When I’d heard the front door open this afternoon, I’d smiled and started toward it, ready for the deep, passionate kisses Knox always greeted me with when he came home. Instead, I’d seen Victor darkening my doorway. The glass I’d been holding in my hand shattered onto the wood floor when I’d dropped it and gasped.

The man staring back at me wasn’t the well-dressed, perfectly put together man I’d met and married. The man who’d stood before me had looked tattered and frazzled. His perfectly slicked back hair was now longer and messy. The smooth skin of his face was covered in a course stubble like he’d missed shaving for several days or longer. And the eyes burning through me were even more dangerous looking than the man I’d feared for years. Victor appeared ready to come undone at any second.

Luca had come running around the corner to see what had happened, and he’d arrived too soon for me to call out the code word Knox and I had taught him that would send him to the woods to hide. He hadn’t understood the reason we’d kept practicing the little hide-and-seek game, but he understood when we yelled “fort” that he should disappear and hide somewhere and stay there until we called for him.

But it was too late for that when he’d skidded to a stop, his shocked gaze settling on his father. Even though terror had coursed through every bone in my body, I’d held myself together and had remained calm for Luca’s sake. Part of me had still wanted to scream at him to run, and the other part of me had known that Victor would never let him get away. It was an impossible decision as I’d watched Luca staring up at a sneering Victor.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Victor had whispered at Luca’s arrival. Then he’d mouthed to me, “I’ll kill him.”

And I knew he would.

Victor was a psychopath. I’d learned that the hard way a long time ago. He lacked any kind of remorse or compassion, even for his own flesh and blood. Punishing me would be worth taking his own son’s life.

Instead of screaming to run and hide and attack Victor to bide his time, I’d remembered Knox’s words as he’d prepared me in case this day ever came. “Wait for your perfect moment to escape, but if you’re out of options and death feels imminent, fight. If you still have hope for survival, then bide your time, placate him, and wait for me. I’ll come for you.”

I hadn’t felt backed into a corner. At least not yet, so instead of launching myself at him with the self-defense skills Knox had taught me, I’d smiled. “Look who’s here to see us, Luca. Your father.”

I’d never told Luca about anything his father had done, only saying he was off traveling, and that was why he wasn’t around anymore. Luca hadn’t cared, and from the way his eyes had widened when he’d seen Victor standing in our doorway, I’d known why.

He was terrified of the man. And rightfully so.