"Gabriel—"
I don't finish it. One of them steers me toward the car, hand on my shoulder, not rough but completely unyielding. I look back over my shoulder and Gabriel is at the top of the stairs in the open doorframe, head cocked and his brow furrowed so deep I can see it from twenty feet away.
My purse is still over my shoulder. The drive is in it. I don't know whether that makes this better or worse.
The car door closes. The windows are tinted. I watch through the glass as the jet holds on the tarmac — engine running, stairs still deployed — and Gabriel is a shape in the doorway, starting to sprint down the stairs.
26 - Gabriel
The car turns the corner and disappears into New York traffic, taking Sera with it.
I grip the rail hard enough to leave marks while her taillights vanish, and all I can think about is the pattern. How I always stand still while the people I'm supposed to protect disappear beyond my reach.
Around me, the Rosetti machine activates. Milo already has his laptop open, fingers flying across keys. He's on his phone seconds later, voice low and urgent, mobilizing assets I can't see but know exist. Gunner stands by the Audi he drove us here in, watching the street where they disappeared, those pale eyes tracking every vehicle that passes. Everyone moves with purpose except me.
I'm still gripping the rail.
My father, dying by degrees while I played priest in Homestead. Elena, gasping for breath that wouldn't come while I froze, too late to save her. My sister, drowning in champagne and parties while I told myself she was better off without me.
And now Sera, her face in that rear window, looking back at me with an expression I couldn't read before the car turned and she was gone.
"We'll handle it." Milo's beside me now, his voice carrying that Rosetti certainty. "This is our city. We have assets in every borough. Give us an hour and we'll have her location, another hour and she's back."
I watch the empty street. My chest tightens with something worse than panic. The muscle memory of standing still while everything that matters slips away.
"No." The word comes out flat. Not argued, not explained. Just stated. "This one is mine."
Milo studies me. I can feel him reading the situation, understanding what this is without needing details. Some things a man has to do himself. A Rosetti understands that better than most.
"All right," he says simply. "But we provide support. Non-negotiable."
I finally let go of the rail. My palm throbs where the metal left its impression.
Twenty minutes later, Milo's laptop screen lights up with data in the Audi's backseat beside me while Gunner navigates Manhattan traffic. Data streams, camera feeds, connections I don't fully understand but recognize as mastery.
"Traffic cameras show them heading north on FDR," he says, fingers never stopping. "Black town car, diplomatic plates. That's interesting."
"Why interesting?"
"Because the Markovics don't have diplomatic protection in New York. They're borrowing someone else's cover." He pulls up another screen. "Three hotels in the Upper East Side use that service for their VIP guests. All three have Markovic-adjacent bookings in the last forty-eight hours."
He makes a call, speaking rapid Italian to someone on the other end. Then another call in English, to a contact at a private security firm. Each conversation is brief, professional, extracting exactly what he needs without revealing why.
"Got her." He turns the laptop toward me. Security footage from a hotel lobby, timestamp from twelve minutes ago. Cristian Markovic walking through the frame with Sera beside him. She'snot restrained, but his hand on her elbow says everything about the dynamics. "The Carlisle. Presidential suite."
"What does he want?"
Milo switches screens, showing me intercepted communications. "The vault contents, complete transfer. And her testimony to Markovic leadership that all the material Julian gathered is neutralized. He needs the leverage gone and a living witness to confirm it."
"So he needs her alive."
"For now. Until he has what he wants." Milo's expression is carefully neutral. "The drive requires her thumbprint. She's necessary until the vault's open."
The drive. The thing she risked everything to retrieve, now in Cristian's hands but useless without her.
"I go alone," I say.
Milo and Gunner exchange a look.
