"No." I kept my eyes on the screen, on that steady pulse that meant she was still alive, still fighting. "She changed me."
I sent coordinates to Marcos with instructions: position teams within five blocks, await my signal, prepare for rapid extraction if needed.
Then I sat back and watched that GPS signal, waiting for the moment when she'd prove to everyone—to Lorenzo, to his men, to herself—that the woman they'd taken wasn't a captive.
She was a threat they should have never touched.
At 1:15 p.m., the signal flatlined.
I stared at the notification on my screen, waiting for it to reconnect. The device hadn't been destroyed—I would have gotten that alert. The GPS just... stopped transmitting. Like it had been detected and disabled.
My hand moved to the phone before the thought had fully formed.
"Where is she?" I said, not bothering with preamble.
"Lost her near the waterfront, ten minutes ago," Vince's voice came through tight. frustrated. He hated losing targets. "She took the Tesla into a warehouse district. Signal cut—"
"Which warehouses?"
"Red Hook industrial zone. We're narrowing it—"
I was already moving, grabbing my jacket, heading for the garage.
"Sir, wait for backup—"
I didn't wait.
The city blurred past in a symphony of horn honks and slamming brakes as I pushed the Range Rover to dangerous speeds. My hands were steady on the wheel, but something inside me was fracturing, sending up alarms that had nothing to do with tactical awareness.
She'd gone dark in Lorenzo's territory.
She'd removed her tracker deliberately. Which meant either she knew I was following—and she was smarter than I'd given her credit for—or she'd planned this all along and wanted me not to interfere.
Both possibilities made my blood run cold.
My phone lit up with an incoming call. Unknown number. I took it on speaker.
"Don Taviani." The voice was professional, cultured. Lorenzo Altieri. "I believe I have something of yours."
"Where is she?"
"My daughter is exactly where she should be—with family. Imagine my surprise when she simply walked into one of my facilities this afternoon. No escort. No protection. Just her, asking very interesting questions about a woman named Elena Marchetti."
"If you hurt her—"
"You'll what?" The amusement in his voice made my vision go red. "You'll come for me? Please do. I'll be waiting with open arms. Literally open. I've already drafted the ransom demand. Two of your casinos, plus controlling interest in your trafficking operation. In exchange, you get your wife back. Eventually. After we've had time to... discuss certain matters."
The line went dead.
I hit the accelerator harder.
The warehouse district was a maze of corrugated metal and broken windows, the kind of place where bodies disappeared and no one asked questions. My men were already arriving—I could see the vehicles pulling in from three different directions. Marcos had called in half the organization. We had numbers. We had firepower.
But we didn't have her.
I pulled up to the main entrance of the largest warehouse and kicked the door open. My gun was in my hand before the hinges finished groaning.
Empty. Cavernous. The smell of salt water and rust and old concrete.
