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Bastian
It would be better to do this if my head wasn’t back in Italy. On the woman there. What I know is happening there while I am here. I accused my brother of forgetting the endgame, but where the fuck is my head? I’m fucking jealous.
I close my eyes and tell myself to focus.
We should do this under cover of night, but Lucien Russo’s penthouse is impenetrable, especially since we took Vittoria.
I wonder if he has secured it so completely only for fear of us or his other enemies. I know for a fact he’s made many. He and his father both.
I have a photo of the little girl. Emma Russo. She’s a tiny thing with a shock of curly blond hair like her sister’s and big brown eyes. I sit in the SUV with Jarno as we watch her walk out of the small private school, which I guess is more of a daycare at her age. Her nanny, Hyacinth Brown, waits outside. Theirs is the only black sedan with tinted windows and a driver who looks like a fucking wrestler. The wrestler is currently dragging on the last of his cigarette as the little girl slips her hand into her nanny’s, showing her a picture she must have drawn.
Through the binoculars, I zoom in on the girl’s face. There’s a strangeness about her. They’re all fucked up, though, the Russos. Dark. I guess it’s a family trait. Or Karma for what their family has done. Although that’s not quite fair.
My mind wanders to Vittoria, and I force it back to the task at hand. I cannot afford distraction.
The kids around Emma are running, playing, and hugging parents. This one, though, walks with her nanny directly to the waiting sedan from which a second soldier emerges out of the passenger seat and opens the back door for them.
The nanny gives him a wary nod as she hustles the little girl into the back of the car. Jarno sends a text to the second car to let them know the sedan is on the move. They will meet us a few blocks from our destination.
“Let’s get our men into the office,” I tell Jarno as I start the SUV. Our men are already at the site of the girl’s appointment, where we’ll be waiting inside for her and the nanny to be dropped off.
Jarno nods and gets on the phone to coordinate.
Leaving two cars between us, we follow the sedan through the city and out, crossing state lines into Hoboken, New Jersey, because I guess there aren’t enough shrinks in New York City. The streets are different here. They hold memories. I grew up not too far from this neighborhood.
It would have been easier to do this in the city. Fewer memories there. Not to mention, it would be a hell of a lot easier to get lost once we had the girl. But I’ve never shied away from a challenge. And everything is arranged. The shrink runs his practice from his home. His receptionist called in sick today, and one of our people is in her place, provided by a temp agency, of course. The nanny and the little girl will be the only two apart from the shrink in the office. If the doctor’s smart, he’ll stay alive. If not, well, I just need to get the girl. The nanny is extra. I don’t give a fuck about the doctor.
Jarno and I take a different direction to our destination as one of our other vehicles, an older model Ford, takes our place tailing the sedan. We arrive in time to watch one of the men walk the nanny and the little girl inside as the driver once again lights up a cigarette, walking into the woods across the street to take a piss while they wait.
I circle the SUV around to the street behind this one, and we park the vehicle at the end of a long, narrow throughway between two streets. Lucky break.
“They’re in,” Jarno says as I open my door and tuck my pistol into my shoulder holster. I don’t want to use it. Russo or not, she is a kid. I don’t want to scare her more than she’ll already be scared, but I’m also not taking any chances.
I take a look at Jarno and think about how we must stand out here in the middle of a hot day while most people are inside with the air-conditioning blasting or splashing around in their backyard pools.
Once we reach the fence of the doctor’s house, his home office, the gate is opened by one of our men. Without a word, I stride up to the back door. I can see the bald spot on the doctor’s head from the window. He’s seated at his desk, and the little girl is on the couch beside her nanny. She catches my movement beyond the doctor’s shoulder. I expect her to give me away, which could turn this kidnapping bloody, but I’m surprised when she simply stares, watching me.
An ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts sits on the small table outside the office. Beside it is a mug with remnants of coffee. You’d think a doctor would know how bad cigarettes are for you. I turn the doorknob and push the door open, and all three heads turn to face me. The little girl’s mouth is still in that O, but the nanny’s eyes grow huge as they settle on my face and the scar that runs across it. She’s too stunned to act or make a sound. The doctor begins to stand, to open his mouth and ask the meaning of this.
Jarno cocks his gun at the back of the man’s head.
“Sit down and shut up,” he says casually.
The doctor sinks back into his seat as I put my finger to my lips and approach the girl and her nanny, who looks to be in her mid-fifties. She shrinks backward. But as I get closer, she opens her mouth.
“Not a sound, and no one gets hurt,” I tell her.
She glances at Jarno, at his gun, then beyond me, out the door where another man waits. She hugs the little girl close.
I crouch down and meet the girl’s eyes, taking her in as hers wander along the scar on my face. I see the still-angry-looking gash across her cheek from the accident that killed her mother. That almost killed her.
“You want to see your sister?” I ask quietly.
The girl’s expression changes as she meets my eyes, cautious but curious. I raise an eyebrow, and she slowly nods.
I stand and hold out a hand.
“Vittoria is waiting for you.”
