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Once we know exactly where the girls are being held, this will be one well-structured and well-executed smash and grab. I’ve taken part in similar events, but never something planned with this much precision. Hell, even though I’m not following in my father’s footsteps, I already know that I’m going to hire Keller and Stone to train all of my guys when this is over. Having a highly trained security staff for my hotel and casino can only be beneficial.
Needing a minute to myself, I’m in the kitchen pouring coffee when there is a commotion from the dining room.
“Something’s happening on the east side of the building!” Someone shouts, jumping out of his chair. I can’t recall his name. Blake quickly replaces him in the seat, his fingers flying over the keyboard as he hones the cameras in for a closer look. At first, everything is a blur of light reflecting off rows of windows, but he rapidly corrects that.
Travis and I crowd in close behind him as his camera focuses in on the building at the rooftop and slowly pans downward. There she is. A small red-haired woman creeps out of a narrow window and onto a ledge that spans the length of the building. Beside me, I hear Travis cursing under his breath as she slowly shuffles toward a ladder that leads to the rooftop. Her face is pale and drawn with fear, but it’s the face in the window that I can’t take my eyes off of. It’s Analise. Her hair is wrong, but I would know her sweet face anywhere.
“Sunshine,” I whisper at the same time Travis mumbles. “She is scared of heights.” Our quiet voices have the impact of a bomb in the stunned silence of the room, seeming to spur everyone into action. Quickly everyone who is going to infiltrate the building scrambles to grab their gear and pack into the elevator. We make it to the parking garage and the waiting SUVs in under three minutes. Suddenly the amount of men we have doesn’t seem as it’s going to be enough. We thought we would find them together, now we have to plan on the fly for a way to get to them separately.
We are en route, almost to the alley running behind our targeted building, when Blake’s voice comes through the tactical radio into our earbuds, “Trav. She made it to the roof, but they had someone waiting for her up there.”
How he stays calm enough to answer with a simple, “Roger that” is beyond me, I’d be losing my shit. When he turns toward me, I see the look in his eyes, and I know that he is, in actuality, losing it. He is just damn good at keeping it under wraps.
“Sitrep, Blake?” he barks, asking for a situation report. My heart sinks for him when Blake reports back.
“Big ass dude has her on the roof, Trav. He’s roughing her up.” His words are calm and professional, but under his cool tone, his voice is tight with unexpressed anger.
We stop in the shadowed alley, and Travis growls into his mic as he steps out onto the pavement. “I’m gonna fuck his shit up.”
His hand rests lightly on his sidearm, while the other pulls a knife free of its sheath, and we silently slip in through an unlocked service door. We could easily encounter resistance here. It’s the most plausible place for an unexpected confrontation. The door we are accessing has been the place where we have observed Dom’s guys coming out to smoke. They had girls brought over late the night before and taken out just before sunrise.
Blake also caught Vince, Analise’s dad, on camera both coming and going this morning. That knowledge alone confirms that he’s the traitor in my inner circle. Once again, I regret bringing him west. I should have just asked her out and admitted how I feel. Acted the way normal guy would have, for once in my fucking life.
“That mother fucking traitor is mine!” I grumble in response, as Travis and I enter the stairwell and start ascending the dimly lit stairs.
We climb eighteen flights of stairs more swiftly than I would have thought possible. Rage is a powerful motivator. I can’t stop thinking about what could be happening to my little sunshine right now. Is she alone in that room, or is someone in there with her? Doing God knows what. The not knowing burns in my stomach like bitter acid.
We take a short break to catch our breath and to get status reports. Speaking quietly into his mic, Travis checks in with John and Mike. They are on the opposite side of the building, our intention is to rendezvous on the next floor, before going for the girls. Blake’s video feed shows that on the nineteenth floor, there has been a lot of activity, lights, people silhouetted in the windows. Enough activity that we know is where we are going to meet resistance. One floor above that is where we saw Faye and Analise. I hope they haven’t mov
ed Ana yet, I know it’s what I would do in their position, with one hostage already attempting to escape.
Having my wife in his grasp is sure to make Dominic feel like he has power over me. He’s wrong. I may not know yet why he felt all this was necessary, I wasn’t planning to fight him for control of the family, but taking my woman, my wife, and thinking he could use her against me was a major miscalculation on his part. I never wanted to be a mobster’s kid, but when push comes to shove, I have absolutely no qualms about showing that I know just how to be one.
There is only one way this can end. Dominic Cerelli has to die.
Mike and John are a little late checking in. They ran into some resistance in the stairwell, but no one was injured. They have a couple of Dominic’s guys hogtied a couple of floors down, waiting until we call in Agent Weaver and her people. As the four of us quickly make plans to subdue anyone we find on this floor, I’m a little surprised that we have made it this far without alerting anyone to our presence.
“Easy Trav,” Blake's voice in my ear refocuses me, and I see the man beside me let out a long breath before he acknowledges his friend. I do the same, reining in my thoughts as I listen to them swiftly review where to go and what Blake thinks we may be dealing with. I’ve already told them everything I know about Dom and his guys. It’s unfortunately not a lot. I’ve tried to keep my distance from him and his dirty business my entire life.
It’s deserted when we step onto the tattered carpet in the hall on the nineteenth floor. The stale smell of cigarette smoke and burned food hangs in the still air. The low murmur of a television comes from somewhere nearby. I wasn’t expecting it to be so quiet.
We aren’t alone though. The feeling of someone watching us makes the back of my neck prickle in anticipation. I can see that Travis feels it too. His whole body is tense, ready to spring into action, and I’m sure I look the same. Tension coils tighter inside me, ready to strike out and destroy anyone who comes between me and what’s mine.
Cautiously we advance, shoulder to shoulder, as the sounds of fighting and raised voices erupt from down the hall around the corner. Mike and John clearly have met more resistance than we have. Lucky bastards! As suddenly as they started, the sounds cease, but we weren’t the only ones that heard it. Grinning like I’m half-crazed, I bump Travis with my elbow.
A door opens about halfway down the hall, and two men I recognize from New York step out and look around, confusion evident on their faces. Their eyes land on Travis and I, dressed identically in black fatigues, weapons in hand, and they quickly back inside the recently vacated apartment. The panicked sound of their voices drift indistinctly to my ears, and I can’t help my dark chuckle.
“You ready?” Travis growls, lifting his gun to a ready position and stepping toward the still partly open door.
I’m only a half a second behind him as he kicks the door. It swings open, crashing into the drywall behind it. I don’t spare Travis a glance as I grab the closest man by the back of his shirt and drag him around to face me. His name is Matteo. I know him from the old neighborhood in New York.
“Where is my wife?” I snarl in his face. He laughs and takes a swing at me, his heavy fist crashing into my ribs. Matteo is a brawler, always has been. A few years older than me, he made a fair amount of money bare-knuckle boxing in addition to whatever he was involved in for my father and Dominic. As he swings again, I’m glad that I have done my fair share of this kind of fighting myself.
Stepping in close, we trade blows, testing each other’s abilities. His major flaw is that he’s a boxer, and he’s trying to fight by the rules of the ring. I’m not. I close in, throwing rapid punches, forcing him to take a step back. When his guard falters for an instant, I’m ready, throwing one last strike before catching him in the face with my elbow on the follow-through. He stumbles back, fists dropping to his side, stunned by the violence of the blow. I jump on him, taking him to the floor as my fists rain down on him.
“Where.” Punch. “The.” Punch. “Fuck.” Punch. “Is” punch. “My.” Punch. “Wife?” I ask him again. Travis laughs beside me as he drags the other man deeper into the room and secures him with zip ties.
“Remind me never to piss you off.” He says, half-smiling for the first time since I met him.
