There’s no room for error in our business. Especially when it comes to my family or my woman.
It’s now been a few hours since they took her, and my blood is boiling with the need to fucking kill and maim those responsible. I can feel myself shaking with the fear something has happened to her simply for a power grab.
Desperate to get to Evangeline and too worked up to concentrate, I let Luca drive, a caravan of cars carrying our soldiers behind us. The entire time I’m praying it’s not too late for her, for me, for us. That she’s not become a casualty in this fucked up war with Scarletta.
She’s the woman I love and the only thing or person in this rotten world that doesn’t make me feel truly evil.
Slamming my hand on the dash, I rasp to Luca, “Hurry the fuck up!”
To his credit, Luca keeps his cool, looking at me with a worried expression. He’s never seen me like this. “We’ll get her. I promise. He’s not going to kill her. She’s too important.”
I press my clenched fist to my mouth with a nod, unable to speak as wetness floods my eyes. For the first time in my wicked life, I pray.
Please God, let me find her alive.
Chapter Nineteen
Evangeline
Ijoltawake;everythingaround me is hazy and unfocused, my head is throbbing, and my stomach swims with nausea. It’s then that I remember the syringe and the sedative, knowing that’s what’s making me sick. My arms and legs feel like dead weights, and there are nylon ropes cutting into my wrists, making them raw. The lumpy mattress beneath me reeks of body odor and other smells I can’t identify.
Shuddering and not wanting to vomit, I realize it’s better I don’t know the origins of the smells right now.
The room I’m sitting in is also heavy with the smell of mold, dampness, and cigarette smoke. Not helping with the nausea situation.
Looking around, I can see that the mattress I’m on is pushed into the corner of a large, empty room with a concrete floor, cinderblock walls, and no windows.
A basement. I must be in someone’s basement, likely beneath an older home based upon the smells and depressing state of the room. It’s barren except for a sink, a toilet, and a table with assorted tools lying on top. There’s an old wooden door across the room, likely leading to the upper part of the house. And there are no other exits that I can see.
Horror and hysteria surge as I immediately realize what this room is likely used for: why those tools are on that table, why there are dark rust stains on the floor, and a drain in the center.
This has to be a torture room used by the Scarletta family.
Silas, Scarletta, and the ape; the three men who drugged and kidnapped me are hunkered in the corner. They’re trying to keep their voices low, so I can barely make outwhat they’re saying. But it’s obvious I’m the topic of conversation.
“She’s worth more alive,” snaps my Uncle Silas, his tone cold, nothing like the man who used to tease my mom at Christmas dinners and held me as I cried at my parents’ funeral. “You know Dante will pay any price to get her back.”
Scarletta’s laugh is scathing and mocking. “Whether she lives or dies, the girl is my leverage, a bargaining chip. Dante Vescari will do whatever we ask of him, or I will cut her throat. She can have the same scar as her lover, only, unlike his, hers will be fatal.”
His voice is getting higher and higher as he gets more excited. “It’s gonna be simple. He’ll hand over that pharmacy and the rest of his properties on the North side, or she will die,” he says as if it’s a sound plan. “Vescari needs to understand that I’m the bigger man now, the most powerful in Chicago, not him.”
“Look, you didn’t say you would kill her, only use her so we can continue running product through the store,” Silas objects.
Wow, finallyhe gives a shit.
I’m shocked, but I also know the reality. I’m no longer family to Silas, just a pawn on their board.
“Fucking Vescari was trying to go legitimate on us, trying to kill the drug and skin trade on both his side and our side of town. The asshole was taking the moral fucking high road,” he laughs. “Which is really funny considering his nickname. But the scum needs to know that’s our bread and butter. I can’t let him get away with it!” There’s a desperate tone in Scarletta’s voice. “I won’t. She’ll die first, then him.”
I swallow, heart hammering, as Silas coughs violently with a deep, wet rattle.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, old man?” Antony, the ape, shouts impatiently, backing away from him, covering his nose and mouth as if he’ll catch something. “Cut that shit out. We don’t want what you got.”
“Damn it,” Silas wheezes, hobbling over and spitting what looks like blood into the sink. His voice is frail.
I close my eyes, remembering all the mornings I brought him his coffee, how his hands trembled around the mug. But I push it away. There’s no time for regrets.
I need Dante. Where is he?Praying he knows I’m missing, I hope he can get here before something happens and that he doesn’t walk into a trap.
