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“She’s still at the house in the Hills.” His tattooed knuckles whitened as he held the steering wheel. “We need to talk.”
The darkly quiet severity of his voice sent a frisson of fear along my spine. “Don’t hide anything from me.”
His nostrils flared as he drew in a deep breath. “There’s only one way I can get her out, and that’s with a lot of dead bodies.”
Heat and pressure surged through me as my body flushed. “Knox,” I cautioned. “We need to think.”
“When I last saw her, Byrne had one guard in the room with her, another at the door. She was on the second floor. There’s no trellis for her to climb down, and there are dogs on the property.”
My stomach rolled. I guess I understood what this was going to cost him, but I didn’t think of what that meant. Knox was going to lose the only life he’d ever known. Friends, the only people besides me he could call family, his job, maybe his life.
“Wait, listen, maybe we should call Marco.”
“Byrne already has a buyer. He’ll move her tonight, and she’ll be gone.” He reached across the console and covered my hand with his.
“But these men are your friends.”
“Don’t. You know you’re the only thing that matters to me. I’m always going to choose you.”
This was what Marco would never understand. Knox and I both changed the night we met. Our lives became entangled in ways that no one would ever understand. I found a lost boy who wanted to die. And he found a young girl who needed someone to save. Nothing had changed, except today, he was going to save Dee.
“Rule one,” he said. “Stay in the fucking car.”
I pulled my hand out from his. “No.”
“Allegra!” He took his cigarettes from his pocket and tossed them to me.
I pulled one from the pack, lit it with an inhale, and handed it to him.
“I get it.” I exhaled the smoke and cracked the window. “You can’t get us both out, but you can’t watch your back and fight what’s in front of you. How many times have you told me to watch my six? So don’t change the rules of engagement now that I’m fighting with you. You need me.”
“Fuck. I’m going to clear my way out on my way in. Anyone at my six is going to be dead.”
“Good. I’ll be safely behind you.”
Marco
“Any word on Deidre?” I asked Orlando.
His knee bounced as he sat next to Emilio. “Tim is keeping me updated. Still no sign of her.”
Emilio leaned back in his chair. “I’m in her account. I’m running a package on the IP’s she’s connected with, but she’s a hardcore gamer. Her interactions are all over the place. I’ve narrowed the parameters to isolate the search to local contacts.”
“Anything?”
“Friends from her school, but there’s one with a VPN that has me hopscotching across the globe.” He pulled up another screen. “As for the other search, I’ve finished scouring Alex Ferraro’s system at High Protocol.” His gaze locked with mine. “She’s in his system.”
I slid my hand into my pocket. “I think we need to explain to the boss of the BDSM club that he’s no longer the person in charge.”
Ant stood and pulled on his suit coat. “Stefano, Carmine, you’re with us.”
“Emilio, keep working. Find Deidre. Orlando, get into the gaming chatrooms and see if there is chatter on her.”
I slipped on my suit coat, slid an extra magazine into my pocket and checked my gun. “Let’s go.”
On the way to High Protocol, I rode up front, and Ant drove. Carmine and Stefano were in the backseat.
“Do we leave a mark on the club, or do you want Ferraro at the estate?” Stefano asked.
