I’m not the kind of man who gets emotional. But right now, alongside the rage and the guilt and the terror for my woman and child, another feeling swells deep inside me.
Pride.
For everything the five of us have built.
“What do you need from us?” Riccardo asks.
“Exits,” I say. “Every path Pavlov could use to move them. I want them surrounded without knowing they’re surrounded.”
Giovanni’s voice comes through next. “And when the time comes?”
“Then we close the net.” My voice hardens. “But listen. No heroics. No gunfire unless I give the word. If Pavlov hears chaos, Izzy dies first.”
I’m asking a lot of them. To sideline themselves for the greater good. Dons don’t follow—they lead. Each one of these men is as alpha as I am and stubborn enough to want to call the shots.
But they’re also smart, capable soldiers. They know what it means to fight. To sacrifice for the good of the pack.
Those skills are what I’m banking on.
No one speaks for a moment. Then Luca says quietly, “Understood.”
Riccardo follows. “You’ll have my men watching the water.”
“Brooklyn routes are covered,” Matteo says.
Giovanni exhales slowly. “Staten Island access points are mine.”
For the first time since the call started, I feel something solid under my feet again. Not hope. Something harder than that.
Unity.
21
IZZY
The rope cuts into my wrists every time I move.
It’s tight, rough, the kind of cheap industrial cord that burns skin if you pull against it wrong. My hands are tied behind the metal chair, my shoulders already aching from the angle.
But the men who tied me didn’t search me very well.
Or maybe they didn’t think a waitress with a concussion could be much of a threat.
Slowly, carefully, I twist my fingers toward the back pocket of my jeans.
The tip of the house key presses against my knuckle.
Across the warehouse, Pavlov stands near a table like he owns the place—which, I guess, for the moment he does. His men are spread out around the room. Two near the door. One near Noah.
My son is still sitting on the floor in the other room, visible through the half-open doorway. One of the guards let him keep his backpack like that makes this whole thing humane.
His eyes keep darting toward me.
Every time he looks like he might cry again, my heart fractures a little more.
I slide the key between the rope and my wrist. The metal edge presses into the fibers. If I can keep this up long enough, it could work.
But I need Pavlov distracted.
