Page 108 of The Beast Who Begged Me

I’m listening so hard for any sound beyond the door that I almost miss the hand moving into my hair.

Then my head is tipped forward, and I go cold. His fingers part my hair at the nape, working along the hairline until they stop over the tender place.

“What’s this?” he asks.

I jerk my hand toward my neck, aiming for the tracker, but the man beside me catches it. My other wrist is seized as well, and both arms are wrenched behind my back.

The third man goes to the metal table and looks over the tools. He smiles at me. “Naughty boy,” he says.

And then he picks up a scalpel and advances on me.

CHAPTER 34

DAMIANO

The alley is dark except for a security light above the Obelisk’s rear entrance, the one Caligula and I escaped through. Rain shines on the pavement beneath it. Caligula’s been inside for five minutes when one of the signals on the receiver disappears.

We’re parked in a car opposite the alley: me and Fontana in the front, Benedetti and Gallo in the back.

Benedetti leans forward now between the seats. “What happened?”

“The one in his clothes,” I say, staring at the display. “They found it.”

Fontana looks over. “And the other?”

“Still there.” I hold the receiver where he can see it, the implant’s signal steady beside the dead decoy channel. It’s exactly what we planned for, and I still have to fight the urge to get out of the car and storm in.

Somewhere inside, they’ve got Caligula stripped while King enjoys himself.

But the real beacon keeps transmitting. I watch it while the minutes pass, waiting for the alert that will let me go and get him. By two hours and seventeen minutes, there’s still been nothing.

We agreed on three hours at most. Forty-three minutes until the deadline, unless something gives me reason to go in sooner.

But in all this time the place has given us nothing.

No trucks. No deliverymen. No extra security coming on shift.

Nada.

In the back, Ricky Benedetti has gone through three bottles of water and a pack of gum, and he’s had to get out to take a leak twice. He’s not a guy who’s used to this kind of work, though, so I haven’t come down hard on him.

Gallo sits beside him, our wannabe associate, hunched in a jacket with his hands tucked in the pockets. He’s smart enough not to complain, but I feel the nerves coming off him in waves now and then. He killed his own Capo to get into this car, and now he’s trapped in it with the Morelli Underboss, a tailor’s grandson who would feed him to the Russians if it got Sammy back, and me.

My phone buzzes every half hour, sometimes sooner. Vitali, Vicente, and Dellacroce have the service road; the Clemenzas and the Rossis have the garage and the ramp out; and the Alessis have the corner where the private cars turn off the avenue. Their reports all come back with the same useless intel.

Nobody in, nobody out.

Even if they weren’t planning an auction tonight, the Obelisk is always open. Caterers, cleaners, staff should be coming and going. And where the hell are the members?

“I don’t like it,” I say aloud. I’ve said it twice in the last ten minutes.

Fontana stares out the window at the entrance. “They might be bringing people in by another entrance, somewhere we don’t know about. This place has had years to practice looking respectable.”

He has a point. Every time I was there, I tried to stay in the main areas. Too easy to get lost.

“When we go in,” Benedetti says behind me, “I’m coming with you.”

“No. You’ll wait with the cars.” I don’t turn around. “You can help when we bring Sammy out.”