They’re trying to keep things light, but they’re both watching me like I’m a volcano about to blow.
Matti crosses his arms. Like me, he has dark circles under his eyes. “Any updates from your hacker?”
As if he summoned her, my phone vibrates, and my heart jumps into my throat as I snatch it up: a text from my hacker. Matti and Vin stand behind me, reading over my shoulder.
No digital trail. Whoever
grabbed her knew what
they were doing. Cameras
looped, phones off-grid.
The words blur. Vin exhales hard as we all realize the same thing at once.
Yeah, ‘they’ knew what ‘they’ were doing, because it was us. We looped the cameras. We blurred the signal so that all our devices were off-grid. We did all that to protect our men when I went in there to get her. And whoever took her, made use of our shield and used it for their own purposes.
FUCK.
My chest caves in as I grip the phone so tightly my knuckles ache. I want to throw it across the room, smash it into the wall until it’s in pieces, but I don’t. I text back, my hands shaking.
Keep digging. I don’t care
how, but find her.
Vin pulls a chair out and sits across from me, eyes sharp buttired. “We’ve hit every Demonio safe house in New York. Every warehouse. We’ve leaned on half the city and nothing.”
But Aurelio has locked down his private island estate, and we can’t find him or Antonio; either of them will know exactly where she is.
The fact that we can’t find Antonio keeps torturing me. Fucking Antonio was right there in the church when she was taken, and I let him slip through my fingers when I went to the bridal suite looking for her.
“It’s not your fault, Tommy,” Matti says softly, but I don’t respond.
Because itismy fault. Every few minutes, I replay the last time I saw her, looking for what I missed. Every night I see her face in the dark, hear her voice calling for me.
My knee bounces under the table as I spin my ring faster. I rub a hand down my face, the stubble scraping my palm. I haven’t slept more than an hour at a time in days. My head is pounding. My body feels like it’s shutting down, but my mind won’t stop.
Matti pushes off the doorframe and comes closer. His voice is steady but gentler than usual. “We’re with you, little brother. Don’t tear yourself apart before we find her.”
I drag in a shaky breath and stare at the untouched breakfast plate.
“We’re pretty sure Aurelio has her, right?” I say it again out loud for the thousandth time, and Vin drops his hand into his hands, nodding.
“He won’t even let me on the island, and I fucking live there,” growls Vin. “I’m the only one of you fuckers who chooses to live on the estate full time, for the family, and he still won’t let me in.”
“Everything you do is for the family,” Matti points out, “but everything he does, he does for himself. That’s why you’re going to make a much better boss when we win this fucking war.”
It’s like a cartoon lightbulb explodes over my head. I know what to do.
“There is no fucking war.” I say it quietly but firmly. “We make nice. We don’t even talk about Giovanna. We let him know that we need to see him for work. We get him to let us on the estate—”
“And then we fucking take him out,” murmurs Vin, weighing the option.
“No. No movement at all on the war against Aurelio until Giovanna is safe.”
When no one responds, I look up from my ring and level them each with a glare. “I mean it. No fucking movement at all until I get what I want.”
Matti nods grimly, and Vin hauls in a breath. Neither of them argues. They both know the truth: if we move against Aurelio, he’ll retaliate by killing Giovanna.
