I recognize one of them from the attack on the mansion, a scar running down his left cheek like a lightning bolt.
“Arms up,” Scarface orders.
I raise my hands slowly, my pulse thundering in my ears.
His hands are rough as he pats me down, finding the pistol immediately.
He tosses it aside with a clatter that makes me flinch.
“She’s clean,” he calls over his shoulder.
“Not quite.” Another man steps forward and runs a device over my body.
It beeps when it passes over my chest, and my blood turns to ice.
He rips open my sweater, buttons scattering across the concrete floor, and tears the wire from my skin.
The adhesive pulls painfully, but I don’t make a sound.
“Well, well. Mrs. Artyomov. So good of you to join us.” Adrian’s voice drifts from deeper in the warehouse. “Trying to be clever? I expected better from you.”
The men grab my arms and drag me forward.
My sneakers scrape against the floor as I struggle to keep my footing.
The warehouse opens into a vast space filled with rusted machinery and broken crates.
And there, in the center under a single hanging light, is Melinda.
“Oh god.” The words escape before I can stop them.
She’s tied to a metal chair, her blonde hair matted with dried blood.
Her swollen eye looks worse in person, and her lip is split and crusted over.
Bruises mottle her arms in shades of purple and yellow.
When she sees me, she makes a sound that might be my name, but it comes out garbled through her damaged mouth.
“Melinda.” I lunge forward, but the men holding me jerk me back. “Let her go. I’m here. That was the deal.”
“The deal.” Adrian steps into the light, and I get my first clear look at the man who’s been orchestrating our nightmare.
He’s tall, maybe six-even, with graying black hair with a mustache and short beard to match, and eyes so dark they look almost black.
A scar runs across his throat, pale against his olive skin.
He’s wearing an expensive suit that seems absurd in this decrepit place. “You think I make deals with the Artyomovs?”
He circles me slowly, and I force myself to stand still, to meet his gaze without flinching. Up close, I can see the cruelty in the set of his mouth, the cold calculation in his eyes.
“Your father was a fool,” Adrian says conversationally. “Did you know that? Vincent Moretti, the great enforcer, reduced to a sniveling coward begging for his life.”
My hands clench into fists. “My father was trying to protect his family.”
“Your father was trying to save his own skin.” Adrian stops in front of me, so close I can smell his cologne, something expensive and cloying. “He came to me six months ago, desperate for money. Said he had information about the Artyomov family that would be worth millions. Information about Nicole’s death.”
The name sends a chill down my spine. “What are you talking about?”
