"Tristan." Stepping in the way of the door so I couldn't close it in his face, he braced his other arm on the doorframe. "I know what you're doing."
"Do you." It wasn't a question.
"Luca's had men watching Gino's house. We don't know where he is."
"I'll find him."
He stared at me hard for a moment. "You really think he has her again."
There was no sense in lying to him about it. "Yes."
Enzo shook his head, his jaw clenched so hard he spoke through his teeth. "This is reckless, even for you. You can't go after Gino by yourself. Let me call Luca and have him call for reinforcements. We'll come with you, and we'll find Luna together."
I grabbed the door handle, about to slam the door with him in it if necessary. There wasn't time for Luca to organize a search party. But at the last minute, I stopped.
"What?" he asked. Through the dark lenses of his glasses, I felt him studying my face. "What is it, T?"
I couldn't bring myself to look at him as I asked, "She was real, right?"
His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "What do you mean?"
I glanced in his direction, but didn't have the balls to see the truth in his expression and looked away again. Still, I needed to know. "She was really here? You're not just playing along with some psychotic break I'm having or something?"
Taking off his glasses so I could see the sincerity in his eyes, he said, "Yes. Luna was…isreal, Tristan."
I nodded as some of the stiffness left my shoulders. "I have to go."
"Come on," he said as he put his glasses back on. "Wait. At least give me a minute to grab more weapons and let Luca know what's going on and I'll come with you."
I shook my head. "I don't want your help, Enzo. This is between me and Gino, and you don't need to get dragged into it. Now get the fuck out of the way, because I really don't want to hurt you."
After a moment, he stepped back. "If you're not back in two hours, I'm coming after you."
Without looking at him again, I shut the door and drove off.
The drive to Gino's was a blur. I didn't have a plan, and I didn't need one. All I knew was that I would tear that place apart brick by brick if I had to in order to find any clue as to Luna's whereabouts. My fingers tightened on the wheel as adrenaline coursed through my veins, and more than once I had to remind myself to watch my speed. A dead cop was a little harder to make disappear than a civilian corpse. Not impossible, but I didn't have time right now to deal with that shit.
When I arrived at Gino's property, the gate was closed. I started to drive past to my usual parking spot up the road, but slammed on the brakes and threw the car into reverse. I swung the SUV around and lined up the front end with the gate. My upper lip lifted in disgust as I stared at the home of thebastardowho had made my childhood—and now my adult life, and Luna's—a living hell.
My pulse pounded in my ears, drowning out the echoes of my childhood screams as memories circled around me like vultures, waiting for me to succumb so they could pluck out my entrails.
Something had been unleashed within me the night he'd caught me in Luna's room and forced me down into that cold basement. He'd taken my innocence. My childhood. Takeneverything. But he wasn't going to take Luna from me. This time, I wasn't hiding in my cell. This time, I wasn't locking the monster back into the box where I kept all the dark things within me.
An icy calm settled over me, and I stomped my foot down on the gas pedal and slammed through the gate, flying up the winding driveway right to the house. My tires spit up gravel as I skidded to a halt outside the front steps. Grabbing the duffel bag from the passenger seat, I left the car door open for a quick escape and strode up to the double doors. Without pausing, I kicked them open, my pistol raised and ready.
"GINO!" His name roared from deep within my chest, echoing through the halls as I waited for a response. Only silence greeted me. Slinging the duffel bag over my shoulder, I quickly cleared the rooms closest to me, finding no one. The house appeared deserted, as Enzo said.
As I made my way back toward the kitchen, I stopped in front of a closed door. Watched my hand as it reached for the knob, turned it, and pulled. It swung open with a soft creak. A set of wooden stairs led down into the darkness.
I stood frozen, the fingertips of my left hand rubbing against my palm, feeling the phantom texture of each step as I'd crawled up them to escape the horrors below. No one was down there, or I would've felt the burn of a bullet by now. Yet I couldn't stop my hand from shaking as I flicked on the light.
One foot at a time, I forced myself down the steps, if for no other reason than to prove that I could. That he hadn't broken me completely. Not yet.
When I reached the bottom, I stopped, my eyes on the cement floor. It was as far as I could make myself go. I smelled leather and the tangy, metallic scent of the chains that hung from the ceiling. The acrid sting of bleach burned my nostrils and made my eyes water. My stomach rolled and my heart rate spiked as my muscles tensed in preparation to fight. Or perhaps, run. At that moment, I couldn't have said which.
My eyes felt impossibly heavy as I lifted my gaze from the floor. The leather couch looked exactly as I remembered, the chains still hung from the ceiling, and the cement floor was stained with the remnants of blood from the men I'd killed.
The bodies, of course, were no longer there. Milo had come to collect them, and he was damn good at his job. It would be impossible to collect any DNA evidence from the scene.
