“How did it come to this, Bryce?” I ask, feeling defeated. “How did my family fall apart? If I do this, all that will be left is me. I’m the last of the Russo line. Lorenzo is gone.” Bryce’s eyes widen, and I explain what happened yesterday, supposing that hearing of Lorenzo’s death is what set Mario off. “With no Gio, there is no chance of the Russo name continuing. What will happen to the family? I don’t want kids, so there is no chance of me popping out a blood Russo.”
“Aww, Tori.” He pulls me into his arms and hugs me tightly. “Don’t worry about that now. Concentrate on things you can actually fix. Worry about the rest later. Maybe it won’t come down to Gio’s disappearance. Maybe he has a perfectly reasonable explanation for his actions.”
I pull away and straighten my jacket, pulling myself together. “Hmm, it’s going to have to be a fucking Hail Mary of an excuse.”
I leave, brimming with anger and fear and heartbreak, but when I get to my car, the fluttering little note slipped under the wipers makes me pause. I pull it out and read it. Again, there is an address on it but no explanation. It’s the same writing as the last one, and that led to the warehouse with the trafficking victims. Does this one lead to a missing victim? And who the fuck is leaving them?
I pocket the note and burn rubber out of the parking lot. I’m so mad and distracted that I make a split-second decision, and instead of risking an ambush like yesterday, I turn into the unused forest road that our secret tunnel leads to, using it to return to our place. I can’t drive at breakneck speed like I wantto, so I’m just driving into the cave entrance when my phone rings. My car picks it up.
“Hey, Mickey, I’m just about to drive into the tunnel, so I might lose you,” I say, happy to hear from my uncle.
“The escape tunnel? Good. As soon as you reach the underground bunker, call me. Make sure Sage, Ben, and Suzy are there. I have the results of those background checks, and you’re all going to want to hear what we found.” I hear the urgency in his voice, but before I can respond, I lose cell signal as the floor lowers.
Damn it. What could possibly be so urgent? My heart starts to beat even faster, my anger replaced by anxiety. I tap my finger on the wheel, desperate to get going, and when the elevator comes to a stop, I gun my car. It’s not advisable to drive fast through these tunnels, since they are not all that wide, but I ignore that in my desire to call Mickey back. The normal twenty minute drive is over in just ten. My adrenaline is racing, my hands are shaking, and I’ve chewed through the skin on my lip when I peel to a stop in the bunker. I’m just hopping out of the car when Sage, Suzy, and Ben emerge from the grow rooms.
“You’re here?” I hurry over to them. “I heard from Mickey.”
“Yeah, that’s why we’re all here. He called me and told me to bring Suzy down here so he can talk to all of us.”
Sage holds out his phone. “I missed a call from him. My music was loud, so I didn’t hear it,” he explains.
I gesture to a small seating area we have down here for the workers’ breaks. “I’ll call him back and put him on speaker.”
My phone beeps with an alert at the front gate. Before I can check the security screens, the alert disappears, like someone has already activated the gate.
“Is Gio here?” I ask Ben and Suzy, and Suzy nods.
“Yeah, he returned this morning with Casey. I said hello, but they rushed through the house like their pants were on fire.Casey looked like she was crying, and then when I followed them to see if they were alright, she was throwing up in one of the downstairs bathrooms. Gio told me to leave them alone. He said she just ate something that didn’t agree with her, and he would look after her.”
“Oh maybe he called the doctor to look at her then,” I reply and forget about him for the moment and call my uncle back.
“Tori, thank God. Are the others with you?” Mickey sounds frantic.
“Yeah, I have you on speaker. Sage, Suzy, and Ben are here too.”
“What about Gio?” he asks. “I tried to call him, but he rejected my call.”
“He’s looking after his sick girlfriend.”
Mickey growls. “Casey King, right?”
“Yes,” I reply, and we proceed to listen to everything Mickey has found about Casey and the other four. By the time we hang up, I’m completely speechless and livid, and from the look on the others’ faces, so are they.
“Well, fuck,” Sage says, scrubbing his hand through his hair, his eyes shiny with sadness.
“I just can’t believe it,” Suzy sobs, and Ben gathers his wife in his arms and comforts her.
I stand up and pace back and forth for a moment before picking up one of the plastic chairs and hurling it through the space.
“Fuck!” The sound of it crashing against a wall and splintering into pieces echoes around the mostly empty warehouse. I’m glad no one else is scheduled to work today as I systematically lose my shit, throwing anything I can get my hands on before pulling out my gun and unloading the whole magazine into the concrete wall of the bunker, shards of thematerial blasting out with every impact. It’s far enough away not to hurt anyone, so nobody says a word as I unleash my fury.
My ears are ringing, but my mind is clearer as I drop the magazine and grab another one from my corset and slam it home. I run over the events of the previous few days before looking up in horror.
“Pull up the gate footage,” I tell Sage, gesturing at my phone as I hurry over to them. Suzy and Ben are practically catatonic with their shock, and Sage’s hand trembles as he picks up my phone and shows the footage of the front gate. “Damn it.”
“I think it’s safe to assume that they are going to hold Casey over Gio,” Ben says flatly, and I nod as I try to come up with a plan. “And they’ve probably shared the fact that you two are together. You didn’t flaunt it in front of Gio, but he isn’t stupid.”
I freeze, and my anger turns to panic. “They are going to use you against me,” I announce, and Sage nods.
