The room goes silent. Viktor’s men reach for their weapons, but Viktor himself doesn’t flinch or back down. He stares at me with the cold assessment of a predator evaluating another predator.
“Lower the gun, Marchetti,” he says quietly. “You point a weapon at me, you better be prepared to use it. And if you pull that trigger, you lose every resource I’ve committed to finding your wife.”
“She’s not dead.” I force the words through clenched teeth, the gun still pressed against his forehead. “She’snot. She’s not dead yet. I would know. I wouldfeelit if she was gone.”
“Then prove me wrong by finding heralive.” Viktor’s voice is steel. “But do it smart. Your rampage is drawing too much heat. You want to save her? Then use your head instead of just your rage.”
For a long moment, we stand there with my gun against his head, his men ready to turn this room into a bloodbath, and the idiot man whimpering in the chair between us.
Then I lower the gun.
Not because Viktor’s right or because I give a fuck about strategy or any of it.
But because killing him means losing access to his network. And I need every resource I can get.
“Then help me find her,” I say, my voice raw. “No more lectures about strategy. No more warnings about heat. Just help me find where Romano took her.”
Viktor straightens his jacket, brushing pieces of imaginary lint off it. “I’ve got three more locations. Properties connected toRomano through shell companies. We hit them together, with proper backup, or you’re on your own.”
I want to refuse. I want to go alone, to tear through those locations with the same brutal efficiency I’ve been using. But Viktor’s right about one thing. I’ve been awake for forty-eight hours. My brain is fuzzy and my vision blurs at the edges.
I’m running on fumes, and if I don’t find Gigi soon, I’ll collapse before I can save her.
“Alright,” I agree through gritted teeth. “But if any of your men slow me down…”
“They won’t.” Viktor gestures to his men. “Gather everyone. We move in fifteen minutes.”
But even as I nod, even as we start planning the assault on these new locations, my mind is racing.
Three more properties. Three more chances to find her. Three more opportunities for Romano to kill her before I arrive.
The clock is ticking.
And somewhere in this city, Gigi is dying.
The next locations are just as empty as the others. Professional cleaning crews have been through each one, erasing evidence, and covering tracks. Romano’s too smart to leave obvious trails.
But as we’re leaving the third property—another sanitized safe house in the industrial district—something clicks.
I stop dead in the middle of the street, my exhausted brain finally connecting dots it should have seen days ago.
“Fuck,” I breathe, my heart stopping. “Fuck!”
“What?” Viktor demands, but I’m already pulling up a mental map of the city, tracing the path of every location I’ve hit in the last forty-eight hours.
The bar on the South Side where I found that first enforcer. The warehouse in the manufacturing district. The apartment building near the docks. Every single location Romano’s men gave up under torture, every address that led to another dead end—they’re not random at all.
They’re forming a pattern. A spiral. All circling the same area.
The waterfront district. The docks.
“He’s been leading me in circles,” I say, fury and realization crashing through me in equal measure. “Every location I’ve hit, every person I’ve killed, they were all giving me exactly what Romano wanted me to hear. Not lies.Realaddresses.Realproperties. But empty ones. Cleaned ones. And they’re all moving closer to the same area.”
Viktor’s eyes narrow. It’s clear he doesn’t follow me. “You’re saying hewantedyou to find those places?” He sounds unconvinced.
“He’s been watching me tear apart the city for two days.” I want to put my fist through something. How did I not see this? “He’s been letting it happen. Every interrogation, every burned warehouse, every body I’ve left in my wake. Letting me exhaust myself and make enemies. Leading me in a spiral that keeps tightening around the docks.”
The breadcrumbs weren’t mistakes or sloppy operational security. They were bait. A trail designed to wear me down while guiding me exactly where Romano wants me to end up.
