The call came at 11:47.
Vince's man—Miller, steady and reliable—his voice was tight with the kind of control that meant he was reporting something bad.
"She's been grabbed. Red Hook warehouse district. Four men, Lorenzo's crew. They had a van waiting. Moved fast."
I went very still. "When?"
"Three minutes ago. She went into the warehouse on foot. They were waiting inside."
Of course they were. Lorenzo had known she'd come. Had probably been tracking her movements the same way I had, waiting for the moment she left my protection.
I'd handed her to him.
"The Tesla?" My voice was ice.
"Still parked outside the warehouse. They left it."
Because they didn't need it. They had what they wanted.
I pulled up the tracking app on my phone—the one linked to the GPS chip I'd had embedded in her wedding ring three weeks ago. Not because I didn't trust her. Because I'd known this moment would come. The moment when loving her meant watching her walk into danger and having to choose between caging her and losing her.
The signal pulsed steadily. Moving south. Fast.
"I have her location," I said. "Stay on the Tesla. If anyone comes back for it, I want to know."
I hung up and pulled up a different screen. The GPS coordinates placed her in a vehicle heading toward the Brooklyn waterfront—industrial area, probably one of Lorenzo's secondary holdings. The kind of place that didn't appear on any official records.
Vince appeared in my office doorway. He didn't knock. Didn't need to. He could read the situation from my expression.
"We moving?" he asked.
"Not yet."
His jaw tightened. "Dante—"
"They won't kill her." I kept my voice steady even though everything in me was screaming to mobilize, to burn the entire city down until I found her. "She's too valuable. Lorenzo will want to useher—either as leverage or to bring her back into his organization. He'll keep her alive."
"And if you're wrong?"
"I'm not wrong." I had to believe that. Had to believe that the woman who'd learned to command my men, who'd restructured my entire distribution network, who'd stared down Rothstein without flinching—that woman could survive whatever Lorenzo threw at her.
I pulled up an encrypted messaging app and typed out a message to a number I'd acquired two weeks ago—the direct line to one of Lorenzo's security captains. A man named Carmine who I'd once done business with, before Lorenzo and I became enemies.
The message was simple:
I know you have my wife. If she's harmed in any way, I will find every person in that building and make their deaths last days. But here's what you should actually be worried about: she's probably already figured out how to escape. She's dangerous enough that you should consider letting her go before she decides you're threats that need eliminating. This is your only warning.
I hit send.
Vince read over my shoulder. "You're telling them she's a threat?"
"I'm telling them the truth." I watched the GPS signal stop moving. She'd arrived at wherever they were holding her. "Julietta doesn't need me to save her. She needs me to trust that she can save herself."
"And if she can't?"
I pulled up a tactical map, marking the location, calculating approach vectors, identifying weak points in the perimeter. "Then I'll burn that building to the ground. But I'm giving her the chance to prove what I already know—that she's more dangerous than any of us gave her credit for."
Vincestudied me for a long moment. "You've changed."
