Page 80 of The Voicemail

“No.” His voice shakes, but he keeps going. “Not for now. You don’t kill me. That’s the deal.”

Luca’s voice is low. “Alex.”

I don’t look at him. Every second I spend here is another second Elena spends tied to a chair in Bianchi’s restaurant.

“Fine,” I say, keeping the lie believable.

Nico exhales like he’s won. He hasn’t.

“What do you know?” I ask.

He licks blood from his split lip. “I had her watched.”

“What?”

“Not for Bianchi at first,” he says quickly. “For me. You were distracted. I wanted to know what made her so important.”

I put the gun against his forehead.

He closes his eyes.

“She had a delivery from a pharmacy two weeks ago. I had my guys keep an eye on her trash. We found a pregnancy test a couple days later. It was positive.”

My hand tightens around the gun. I see her pale face in my mind. Her exhaustion. The way she kept one arm near her stomach without seeming to realize it. The way she looked at me after I told her what I was, like every door in the room had locked at once.

For a second, I can’t breathe.

Luca says my name, but it sounds like he’s screaming it underwater. I look down and realize my gun is still pressed to Nico’s forehead, my finger resting too close to the trigger. Nico is crying now, silently, eyes wide with the knowledge that he may have miscalculated after all.

I lower the gun. Not because he deserves mercy. Because Elena needs me more than I need revenge.

“She’s pregnant,” Luca says quietly.

I turn away from Nico. My hand shakes once, and then I close it into a fist.

“Get him out of my sight,” I say.

The men grab Nico and haul him up. He sags between them, half sobbing with relief.

I look over my shoulder. “And Nico?”

He freezes.

“You’re only alive because she is. If Elena or my child dies because of what you did, I will break my word and let God sort out the technicalities.”

They drag him away. No one speaks.

I look at the screen where Vespero glows red on the map. Elena is there, or close enough that my whole body has already decided it. Bruised, tied, pregnant, surrounded by men who have no idea how much worse they’ve just made their lives.

“Luca,” I say. “Cut the power on the block. Lock every exit. Roof, garage, kitchen door, alley, front. No police within three streets until I call them myself. No one fires unless they have a clean shot, and no one gets brave near Elena.”

“What’ll you do about Bianchi?”

“He’ll be dead the second I lay eyes on him.”

25

ELENA