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“We move in, clear them out tomorrow. Copley’s prime location. They use it for retail, you said?”
Santo nods. “Yeah. Imported Italian shit. Leather bags, shoes, scarves.”
“Anything left?”
Santo shrugs. “No idea. We’ll have to find out. Heard this from one of our suppliers.”
Romeo frowns and puts his glass to his lips, his eyes traveling across the room to where his wife Vittoria sits. She looks his way and winks. He grins at her.
Fucking sickening.
“We should’ve known this before now,” Romeo says with a shake of his head. He hates being taken by surprise by anything. “Tavi, tomorrow, let’s run a full scan of everything and anything we can find on Regazza.”
“On it.” I already questioned his Underboss before he relocated to Tuscany, then Lombardo, a town in Lombardy. I thought he told me everything he knew, goddammit. “May need to fly to Italy.”
“Smart,” Romeo says, nodding sagely as if I’ve just explained the miracle of the Great Pyramids to him.
“We should get you tipsy more often,” Orlando says. “Jesus, man, you’ve lost your edge.”
Romeo gives him a lopsided grin. “Outside, right now, Orlando, let’s see who’s lost his fucking edge.” Romeo hands his empty glass to Santo and cracks his knuckles.
“Ah, no,” Orlando says with a snort. He won’t take the bait. “I love my wife way too much to get my nose busted on our son’s day of baptism. Plus, you know I can’t hit you, man. You’re too pretty. You’d win in a landslide.”
And he knows hitting the Boss would get him killed. I pulled a gun on him once for doing exactly that, and I’m under vows to do it again.
“Don’t make me kill you, Orlando,” I mutter, shaking my head. But Romeo doesn’t wanna let it go.
Orlando sees the blow coming and ducks Romeo’s fist, then does a little dance like a boxer in a ring before he belts out a laugh. In the corner of the room, I see Mama roll her eyes heavenward. Orlando grins. “Gettin’ old, man. Lettin’ your Capos fight too many for ya, huh?”
“Fuckin’ asshole,” Romeo says with a grin of his own. He swipes another shot from a waitress and saunters over to Vittoria. Seconds later, she’s sitting on his lap and he’s whispering things in her ear that make her blush beet red.
I look away, but only for a second. I swing my gaze back to the table where the girls sit.
Elise isn’t there. I whip out my phone and look at the tracking app. Air tag’s right here in the room. Embedded tracker’s got her right here in this room as well.
But her bracelet? It’s at the fucking church.
I narrow my eyes and look around the small room, but I don’t see her in the melee of people. I walk the perimeter. I’m well versed in the art of finding someone who’s hiding. Skirt the perimeter, lock down exits. There are two exits out of this room. I signal to two nearby guards, who promptly come to my side.
“Man the exits. You see Elise, you lock her down and alert me.”
They leave swiftly and silently.
She isn’t here. How could it lie, though? That fucking tracker’s in her arm. She could lose the bracelet, she could lose her phone, but that damn tracker would mean cutting her own flesh to remove it. Still, I can’t find her no matter where I look.
I go to the exit and call Orlando.
“Yeah, man?”
“You seen Elise?”
“You lost her with three motherfuckin’ trackers on her, bro?”
I curse under my breath. “Have you seen her?” I repeat.
I can hear him talking to Angelina, Romeo, and Vittoria. “Nah, man. The girls say she was here just a few minutes ago then excused herself. Check the restrooms?”
The Castle is fucking huge, with over twelve bathrooms. Plus I already know. She didn’t go to the bathroom. She’s pulling a fast one on me.
“Thanks.”
I hang up.
I know that the bracelet at the church was her doing. She isn’t there, but the tracking app says she never left the church. I saw her with my own eyes, so she somehow got the tracker off herself. But if she’s in this room… she’s hiding.
And I don’t play games.
I once waited eight hours for a traitor to surface on the waterfront, huddled in a small sailboat in the dead of winter because I knew he was coming. I found him, alright, and damn near got frostbite, but we brought down a whole insidious cartel with his intel.
I’ll stay right fucking here until she shows herself.
This time, I can wait here, in the privacy of my home, with staff I can order to bring me whatever I need.
I place my phone down on the table, app open, signal for a waiter, and order myself a cocktail. She can’t hide for long. Like someone hiding underwater, she’ll have to resurface for air. I’ll stay in this room until the last guest leaves.
