He stiffened immediately. “Uh – last time I saw her, she was with Gìovanni.”
My jaw tightened. “That was ten minutes ago.”
He swallowed. “That’s all I know, Boss.”
I released him and pivoted toward the bar, my eyes scanning faces as I moved. The bartender – a guy who suddenly looked very interested in polishing a glass – froze when I leaned in.
“Blonde. Red dress. Where did she go?”
“She – uh – went to the back,” he finally said. “With some of the other bosses.”
I headed straight past the kitchen, past swinging doors and stainless steel counters, deeper into the guts of the building where the lights dimmed and the air turned stale.
The backroom door sat at the far end of a narrow corridor. Two. No – four men stood in front of it. Cosa Nostra low-ranks. Young. Overconfident. Armed with the kind of authority that came from borrowed power.
They shifted when they saw me.
I stopped inches from them.
“Is my wife in there?” I asked.
One of them scoffed. “Don’t worry about it.”
I stepped forward anyway, hand reaching for the door.
A hand slammed into my shoulder to pull me back. “Only Cosa Nostra.”
I laughed – once, sharp and humorless. “Are you fucking dumb?”
I tried to move past them without making a scene, but they blocked me again, hands out, posturing.
Something in me snapped.
I shoved the first one hard enough that he hit the wall, then drove my forearm into another’s throat, sending him stumbling back, choking. Someone grabbed my jacket – I twisted, elbowing him in the ribs.
“Get the fuck out of my way,” I snarled, rage vibrating through every word.
I barreled through them, swearing in Spanish.
I burst into the next room and stopped short.
Concrete walls. Exposed pipes running along the ceiling. A single metal door at the far end, industrial and heavy, the kind meant to keep things in – or out. A basement door.
Locked.
I slammed my fist against the metal, the impact ringing through my bones.
“Francesca!” My voice echoed back at me, swallowed by steel.
No answer. No sound. Nothing.
Something dark and feral crawled up my spine.
I pulled out my gun.
The first shot exploded through the room, deafening, sparks flying as the bullet hit the handle. The sound was violent – too loud, reckless. I barely registered the echo ripping through the building, only hoping the music and chaos upstairs swallowed it whole.
I fired again. And again.
