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Just like that, I had my best friend back.
But could I trust him?
Chapter Eight
Angelo
Buried in a heavily wooded area, the church sat on a few thousand acres of land with no neighbors on either side. Sonny pulled up a long driveway, the gravel crunching beneath the tires of my car. He returned to his usual self after a few sandwiches and a hot shower. But he still seemed a bit off, as if being trapped in a basement for almost a week had done some irreparable damage.
Seeing him like that, made me wonder if Gia would be the same—or worse than Sonny. For Gia’s sake, I’d hoped not. She was a fighter. My girl never turned down a challenge and could handle anything thrown at her. But everyone had a breaking point. I had no idea how far Gia’s captors would hurt her before damaging her for good.
Sonny parked in front of the church, looking around at our surroundings. He bit the inside of his cheek, nervous about something.
“What’s bugging you?” I asked him. He wore his tells so well that I knew all of them.
“You know how you get the feeling when something doesn’t feel right?”
I laughed. “Yeah. Pretty much every day.”
“Do you have a flashlight in your trunk? If this is the place, we won’t be able to see shit downstairs.”
“I should have one from when we had to dig that trench in the middle of the night a few months back.”
We got out of the car and retrieved the flashlight from the trunk, approaching the abandoned church with caution. There wasn’t a light for miles, yet we saw one flickering behind the stained glass windows on the top floor.
I pushed my hand out in front of Sonny and pointed at the window. He stopped next to me, surveying the old building. We stared at each other, a beat passing between us before we both pulled out our guns. Keeping them low, we crept toward the side entrance to the church.
It wasn’t that long ago I was attending the funeral of Bianca Carlini. Gia was a mess, as she should have been, and I was so afraid of losing her. With Sonny and my men watching her at all times, I thought we were invincible, and no one could touch us. Being at the church dredged up old memories I’d wanted to forget. We’d spent three weeks apart after the funeral. With her missing, I couldn’t handle another day, let alone weeks.
Sonny opened the door without making a sound, holding it for me. He inched his way into the dark space with his gun raised and tilted his head to the side to instruct me to follow behind him. I closed the door, careful not to make a sound. But our soles were too loud for the quiet space. We did our best to keep our movements slow and deliberate, the stupid dress shoes so close to giving us away.
Once we reached a carpeted hallway, we had an easier time navigating the deserted space. Sonny opened the doors on the right side of the hall, and I stuck to the left. From the outside, I saw a bright light flickering through the window. Not until we hit the end of the long hall did we find the source of the light. The door to the church was ajar, propped open with a stack of old newspapers.
“Cover me,” Sonny whispered so low I had to strain to hear him.
I did as he asked and covered his rear, angling my body so I could see down the dark corridor and partially into the church. Sonny came to an abrupt stop, his sudden reaction causing me to elbow him in the arm. I almost dropped the flashlight.
His arm dropped to his side, and he shook out the pain. “You’ve got a pointy ass elbow,” he said under his breath. “Keep that thing away from me.”
Even at a time when he should have been on high alert, Sonny found time to make a wisecrack. That was part of his nature. He never took anything too serious, never worried about the small stuff. Sometimes, I envied his ability to be so cool under pressure. Sonny would joke around and make the toughest situation seem possible.
“Why the fuck are you stopping?”
He pointed his gun at the situation in front of us. “Not what I was expecting to find.”
A group of teenage boys and girls were huddled around a circle of tea light candles. They were chanting something in unison, their voices blending together. All of them were dressed in black, with black makeup on their faces, boys included. Dark eyeliner coated their lids, their ears and faces were full of piercings, bodies covered in intricate tattoos. Gothi
c didn’t even begin to describe this motley crew.
I tapped Sonny on the shoulder, ordering him to leave with me before anyone noticed us. There was no point in drawing unwanted attention. We took our time exiting the church, lucky enough to keep ourselves off anyone’s radar. The kids were not a threat to our business. But I didn’t want them seeing our faces if we could help it. We had enough people placing a bull’s eye on our foreheads.
“That was interesting,” Sonny said, laughing. “Maybe this wasn’t the place. I was expecting to find someone chained to a radiator, not a bunch of delinquent kids worshiping Satan.” He removed the key fob from his pocket and opened the door for us. “What the hell were they doing back there?”
I got in the car and waited for Sonny to join me before continuing, “Your guess is as a good as mine. That was a waste of time.”
“Should we have checked the basement?”
I shook my head. “No. I bet those kids have been using it for a while by the looks of all the furniture and shit they had in there.”
