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I shake my head.
Shrugging, he closes the lid. “You want food, you get it from here. There are water bottles under the ice.”
I nod. “Is it just you?”
It’s clear he’s trying to decide to be honest or not.
“Look, I’m just trying to figure out how many people are going to die before this is all over,” I mutter as I run my hand over my face. “I need a distraction.”
“Your husband isn’t going to be stupid. It’s everywhere. He would do anything for you. He’s smart enough not to get you killed.”
“Now, I get it. You did the stupidest thing you could. You don’t know who you’re going up against, do you? Tell me, do you have a woman and children?” I’m hoping like hell he says no. I can tell I finally got through to him because he grabs his phone and walks out the door.
He’s pacing in front of the car. I’m reminded of my father the day I met Manuel. The man’s waving his hands frantically, speaking a language I think might be Russian, but I’m not sure. So stupid. It’s too late. Far too late. Please let their deaths be swift and painless. I can feel my husband’s rage from here.
CHAPTER23
Manuel
My father enters the room as Franco finishes telling me and the open line to the Valdez brothers everything he knows about the men who have Nicolette.
Fucking Valdez. I shake my head. I hadn’t called my father on purpose. His eyes tell me he knows that.
“Valdez, I’m here,” my father says aloud.
Both men sigh in relief over the phone. Fuck them. “We have his man. He’s in the air on the way to Chicago. His flight is commercial, unlike yours, so he’s on his last leg. We have him arriving north in Madison. They are human traffickers and after the location of a girl they sold. Turns out these two are morons who don’t do their homework at all. They snatched a girl off the coast on a beach. She’s the daughter of an extremely violent general in Moscow, who might have already torched their family’s village to get her back. Richie didn’t make the sale, but he connected them with the buyer and won’t give the information up unless he gets cash.”
Sonofabitch. “Toronto, Montreal, Newfoundland, Vancouver, Alaska. He’s looking for the girl too. He doesn’t know the buyer either. Does he, Franco?”
Franco hangs his head. “No. It’s what I meant when I said it doesn’t matter if you find him or not. You have to get Nicky out of there right fucking now. I don’t understand what we’re still doing here. You know where she is. I’ll go in first. He sounds normal, but this guy is a fucking demon. I don’t even want him breathing the same air as Nicky.”
“Exactly. We go in without knowing everything about both of them and their location and he’s going to kill her,” Diego warns from the phone. “If you had told Manuel—”
“I didn’t know. Not everything. Not until I killed Vinny, and he spilled. If I had, I would have told Dominic Sabatini the next fucking minute. It’s why Richie kept me out of it. I thought it was all over after I killed Vinny and Richie fled.” He tries to defend himself.
“No. You didn’t want Sabatini to pull your status as capo,” I correct him.
“Why doesn’t matter. Enough. Focus,” my father orders. “We don’t have enough fire power here to handle this. Diego, we need weapons.”
“Calm down, Joe. We’ll go in and bring what we need.”
I hang up on him and call Milos Levin. He answers on the first ring. “I need guns. And shit to blow a crater in this world. And I need it now.”
Good man, Milos doesn’t ask questions, except one. “Where would you like my men to deliver them? Your future dead father-in-law’s home or to the home in you have in Old Town?”
“Dead man’s house,” I reply.
“I’m happy to offer my men as well. Would ten be enough?”
“Five will do for now. Thank you.”
Valdez is calling me. I ignore it. “In that case, I’ll also include my sniper. The man never misses.”
“I appreciate it,” I tell him before ending the call.
My father’s phone is ringing. He rolls his eyes as he answers. “Focus on finding Richie. We’ll handle things from our end.”
“We found him. I have a man an hour away. They’ll bring him to Chicago.” They hang up.
