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“Leave no man standing and burn the place to the ground,”my own words echoed in my head.
I stormed toward the door, but Vito stepped in my way.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he spat.
It would have been so easy to shoot him or break his big, meaty neck. But I had a feeling this man meant something to Raven.
“I’m going to get your niece—or whatever she is to you,” I said, eyeing Vito, then Greta. “Berlusconi’s got her, and soon, there’s going to be nothing left of Berlusconi—or anything else within a hundred yards of him.Capisce?”
Vito eyed me for one long moment. At least, it felt that way. My pounding heart had only thudded twice when he nodded and stepped aside.
I was out the doorway and down the hallway in four beats. Another ten beats down the stairs, and I flew out the hotel’s front door. I was vaguely aware of two sets of footsteps following me, but I didn’t stop until I reached the Porsche, still parked askew in front of the hotel.
When Vito threw open the passenger side door and got in, I paused for one beat. Greta followed, getting into the back seat. I tilted my head to the side.
I’m not James fucking Corden, this isn’t a car pool.
“Let’s go, Costa. Drive,” Vito Agossi barked.
“Don’t fucking tell me what to do,” I snapped back and then did exactly as he said.
There wasn’t time to argue with Vito, but I had no intention of letting the little energizer bunny wander into a war zone.
“She stays in the car,” I said, pointing a thumb at the back seat while I revved the engine and sped away from the hotel.
The temperature in the car plummeted. Greta and Vito scoffed at the same time.
“I don’t think so,” Greta said. “I’ve been watching over Raven for years, Nico. A few weeks riding on your roller coaster, and she’s…”
Her voice cracked, and my dumbass heart cracked right along with it.
Whatever happened to Raven, it was on me.
Images flashed through my mind, making my heart beat faster and cold sweat trickle down the back of my neck. It felt like I was going to come right out of my skin.
Focus, damn it.
The road in front of me. The route to Berlusconi’s place. The wonderful, horrible, inhuman things I was going to do to him when I got my hands on him.
I squealed around the corner and stepped on the gas. But my heart was beating just as hard. My breath was coming faster. I reached for something—anything—to get me through the next several minutes without coming apart.
“What do you mean you’ve been watching over her?” I asked Greta because it seemed like a rather strange way to describe a friendship.
“I mean I’ve done everything I could to keep her safe,” she shot back, then turned to Vito. “I don’t understand why you didn’t stop her from coming here,zietto.”
“You’re a plant,” I concluded.
“I’m her friend. Herbest friend,” she said. I didn’t miss the thick layer of defensiveness that coated her words. “But I also happen to watch over her.”
She seemed to shrink into herself as she spoke. Raven most certainly was not aware of the full scope of Greta’s role in her life.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Raven
It was dark inside the warehouse. Almost black, aside from the sliver of moonlight and lamplight that flickered in through a broken window somewhere above me. The temperature inside had been cool at first, but with every passing minute, the coolness had seeped inside me until my skin was covered in gooseflesh and I couldn’t stop my teeth from chattering.
I sat down on the cold, hard floor. Sergio had untied my hands only to cuff my wrist to a chain attached to a post in the middle of the dark building. He’d cuffed the unconscious guy to the same post and then he’d left. An engine had revved outside a moment later, and there’d been no sound aside from the blood still pumping heavily past my ears ever since.
