"You'd better have a good excuse for calling!" a woman's sharp voice answered instead of Kon.Altun Baruk. Just fucking perfect.
"Someone kidnapped Giana in Bodrum. Tell Leo to get his tongue out of Dante's mouth and fucking call me!" Rodrigo snapped and hung up.
An hour was a lifetime in a kidnapping. Was it just a mafia family after her, or something else? If it were the latter, he would need to apologize to Altun. The sorceress owed them nothing, but if there was any chance this kidnapping was connected to the Aurora's remnants, she needed to know.
Rodrigo went into his wardrobe, pulled his holster of guns over his shoulders, and headed for the door.
He never should have let Giana go. He never should have tried to be a good person. It wasn't who he was. He was a monster, and someone had just been stupid enough to break his chains.
3
Rodrigo was on his feet before the jet shuddered to a final stop in a private hangar at Atatürk Airport. He bypassed customs, a privilege bought with a name that was its own passport.
On the tarmac, the air coiled around his throat, thick with plane fuel, brine from the distant Bosphorus, and the city's endless, simmering tension.
Dario was waiting beside a blacked-out Mercedes sedan, leaning against the passenger door. He wore black jeans and combat boots, a stark signal that he was ready for business. His face was a grim mask, his usual easy energy replaced by the razor-sharp focus of a soldier.
He straightened as Rodrigo approached. His eyes, a shade lighter than Rodrigo's, were full of an anger that he kept leashed.
"Thank you for coming so soon," Dario said, opening the rear door for him.
"You owe me an explanation," Rodrigo replied and slid onto the cool leather. The sterile, air-conditioned quiet was a soothing contrast to the roaring in his own head. Dario got in behind the wheel and drove from the hangar.
"Leo is onto it with Iz," Dario replied, his voice low and even, cutting through the silence. He drove with practiced aggression, weaving through the chaotic Istanbul traffic as if the other cars were mere obstacles in a training course. "They are tracking Giana and might have something."
"I can't believe you left eyes on her," Rodrigo said, begrudgingly grateful, and added, "Thank you."
"We did enough to her. I couldn't just let her go without knowing she was going to be okay. You promisedyouwouldn't watch her, but she extracted no promise from me."
That was Dario for you. He played the charming, easy-going Colleoni, but underneath it, he was as morally gray and vicious as the rest of them.
Rodrigo stared out the window, but he didn't see the ancient mosques piercing the skyline, the apartment buildings stacked on top of each other, or the ruins of the ancient Roman aqueduct.
He saw Giana. Afraid in the hands of some faceless enemy. Vulnerable.Alone. It was his fault.
Rodrigo's voice was rough. "What did Leo and Iz find?"
"They got a ping of a signal an hour ago. It held for a minute before going dark again," Dario replied, not taking his eyes off the road.
What had that minute cost her? Rodrigo cut the thought off, strangling it before it could take root. Emotion was a liability. Fear was a traitor. He needed ice in his veins, not fire. The fire could come later when he had someone to take it out on.
Giana was smart, tough, and resilient. She had dealt with Gabriella's tormenting passive aggression for years. She could hold out until he found her.
Rodrigo forced his mind into the familiar grid of tactical assessment. Kidnapped in Bodrum, straight off the street. Riskyand dangerously obvious. Why? Ransom? Leverage against whom?
The Sorrentinos were old money, but their influence had waned. They were ghosts. Giana was now a civilian, not a mafia princess.
Unless someone knew what she was tohim.
The thought landed like a stone in his gut. Impossible.No oneknew how he really felt about Giana. To the outside world, she had been a Colleoni pet. Not to be touched unless they wanted Gabriella to crush them the way she had crushed the Sorrentinos.
Dario turned off the main thoroughfare, plunging into a labyrinth of industrial streets near the port. They passed rows of shipping containers stacked like monstrous, rusting tombs.
The car slowed, turning into a narrow alley that ended at a monolithic wall of corrugated steel. No signs. No windows. Just a single, reinforced door that slid open silently as they approached.
Dario drove into the cavernous space. The door sealed behind them, and Rodrigo felt a little bit better.
Kon Zalam's Istanbul residence was less a warehouse and more a private armory and operations center. A kitchen was off to one side, and an immense library of books and artifacts was somehow contained and arranged amongst the racks of deadly and beautiful weapons.
