“Is the car ready?” I adjusted my cuff links, trying to use the movement to steady my mind. Because, for the first time I could remember since I was a boy, my anger warred with fear.
“In the garage, ready to go.” Dom finished redressing after strapping on his own vest and checked his side arm. “Ready when you are, boss.”
I took a breath. “Felix, contact Rossi and set up a meet.” Vittorio and Dom exchanged a look and I pounded my fist against the table. “I’m not fucking negotiating with him!” I snapped. “I’m getting myself in the same room as that cocksucker and I’m going to kill him with my bare hands.”
“While I admire the viciousness of your plan,” Vittorio said, laying a restraining hand on my shoulder, “Matteo has this. His men will set up and be ready when you set up the meet.”
Much as I hated to admit it, I knew Vittorio had a clear head where I was anything but rational at the moment. I absolutely would burn the world down to get Belle back and make no apologies for it. But that wasn’t always what was best for the family. Ultimately, my brothers would sacrifice everything for me, and that meant they’d sacrifice for Belle. We’d all like to let cooler heads take the lead, though, and save the nuclear options until every other option had been exhausted.
I took another steadying breath. “Fuck,” I swore under my breath. I’d actually broken out in a sweat. My gaze met Vittorio’s and I knew my expression conveyed the helplessness I felt. “V…”
“I’ll take care of everything, Dario,” Vittorio said softly. “You will do what I tell you too, yes?”
“You swear to me you’ll protect her at all costs, V. Swear it.”
“On my life, brother.” To my shock, Vittorio didn’t fight me. While I knew my brothers would always have my back, I knew they weren’t all sold on Belle yet. Though, Gabriel had pronounced her the most honestly guileless, selfless individual he’d ever met, the others quietly watched us and reservedjudgement. “I see what she means to you. Whether I trust her motives or not doesn’t matter. She’s your woman. That’s enough for me.”
"He'll want to be present when I arrive. This is personal for him." My gaze didn’t waver from Vittorio’s. “Rossi wants me to know that, finally, he’s found someone close to me he can hurt.”
"It's a trap," Vittorio said bluntly. “We all know it.”
"I agree.”
Me and V stared at each other for long moments. Then Vittorio gave me a slow nod. “OK. Rossi will call. When he does, we’ll set up a meet. Once we get there, Matteo will take it from there.”
“I take it he’s headed to the Rossi estate where we think they are taking Bella?”
“He is,” Fritz answered from across the room. “One of his team has a visual on Miss Belle. Matteo confirmed. They’re setting up as we speak. Matteo said he thinks he will have us visual and audio before Rossi is ready to contact you.”
I should have known my brothers would have my back. "We find her. Tonight," I said, my voice deadly calm as I finally found my center. Fitting it would be with my brothers. "And then they pay."
Chapter Fifteen
Dario
I stepped out of the SUV into the night air, heavy with salt and decay from the nearby harbor. The abandoned warehouse loomed before me, a hulking shadow against the midnight sky. Matteo and Vittorio flanked me immediately, their movements in tune with mine from years of operating as a unit. My rage had crystallized into something cold and deadly, a familiar state that had served me well over the years. Belle was inside those walls. With Vincent Rossi. The thought sent ice through my veins, but my face remained a mask of calm as we approached the rusted entrance doors.
"Two men at the north corner, another pair by the loading dock," Marcus murmured to us through our ear pieces, his voice barely audible over the distant lapping of waves against the pier.
I grunted as we pushed through the doors, the hinges groaning in protest. The interior stretched before us, vast and hollow, with shadows pooling in the corners where the sparse overhead lights couldn't reach. Water dripped somewhere in the darkness, asteady metronome counting down to violence. My Italian leather shoes clicked against the concrete as we advanced, the sound echoing off corroded metal beams overhead.
Vincent Rossi stood at the center of the space, bathed in a cone of sickly yellow light. Two men in dark suits stood behind him, their hands resting inside their jackets where I knew they carried weapons. Vincent himself was unarmed – at least visibly. He never dirtied his own hands if he could help it.
"Dario," he called out, his voice carrying across the emptiness between us. "So prompt. I've always admired your punctuality." The bastard actually smiled like we were old friends.
I didn't respond immediately, my gaze scanning the warehouse methodically. Four more of his men positioned behind stacked crates to my left. Another two by a rusted staircase to the right. All armed. My gaze paused briefly on the upper catwalks where the darkness provided perfect cover for snipers. Matteo would have already accounted for them and communicated anything he needed to with Marcus or other members of his team with the small microphones we all had in our lapel pins.
Then I saw her.
Belle sat on a metal folding chair at the edge of the light, her wrists bound behind her back, a strip of tape across her mouth. Her hair hung in tangles around her face, and even from this distance, I could see the red marks where the ropes had chafed her skin raw. She found me the second we stepped into the area, immediately, widening with a mixture of relief and terror.
Something primal roared inside me. The urge to tear Vincent apart with my bare hands, to make him suffer for each mark on her skin rode me like a compulsion, but emotion was a luxury I couldn't afford. Not until Belle was safe.
"Vincent," I finally acknowledged, stopping twenty feet from him. "I see you've developed a death wish."
He smiled, the expression never reaching his eyes. "Always so dramatic. This is merely a business meeting between equals."
"We are not equals," I replied, my voice dropping lower. "And taking what's mine isn't business. It's suicide."
