In a corner of the vast floor, a ring of high-powered workstations glowed, casting an ethereal blue light on the faces of Rodrigo's brother and the woman beside him.
Leo looked up, his expression a mixture of relief and anxiety. He was the youngest, the one who had found a life outside their world with Dante Hill, but blood was blood.
Now that their mother was dead and their brotherly bond had been forged anew, when Rodrigo needed him, Leo would answer his call for help.
"Buonasera, fratello," Leo said, getting up to kiss his cheeks and hug him. He was the affectionate one after their father had died, and the only person that Rodrigo and Dario really accepted it from.
"Leone, please tell me you have something," Rodrigo replied, trying to keep his worry from his voice.
Beside them, Izabella Silversmith didn't even look up. Her focus was absolute, her fingers a blur across a keyboard. Her dark curls were pulled back in a messy ponytail, her sharp, intelligent features illuminated by lines of code scrolling across the main monitor. The Edgeworths were excellent mercenaries, and both Iz and Leo were their digital weapons.
"She's smart, your girl," Iz said finally. It was high praise coming from the legendary Silver Lady herself. "Burner phones were a dead end. She cycled through three of them in the past seventy-two hours. Wiped and dumped, but people always have attachments to certain objects. Anchors. And this was hers."
She made a few quick clicks, and a new window expanded on the massive screen that dominated the wall. It was a spec sheet for a laptop. Custom-built, encrypted.
Rodrigo recognized it instantly. He had commissioned it for Giana himself through a third party two years ago.
It was another of the secrets they shared. He had given her the laptop and a way into the Colleoni system. It had been meant to be the key to her freedom from Gabriella.
Rodrigo thought Giana would have gotten rid of it after he had freed her. The thought that she had kept it and still used it made something soften and hurt inside his chest.
"Her laptop seems to be her life's work," Iz continued. "Her research, her notes, her entire academic career, photos ofpaintings she's completed. She wouldn't ditch it unless she had no other choice, and they let her keep it."
"A mistake," Dario murmured from behind him.
"A fatal one," Iz agreed with a grin. "She must have powered it on after she was taken, somehow. Just for a moment. Long enough for it to connect to a public Wi-Fi network. The signal bounced through three different proxies, but I cracked it."
A map of Turkey filled the screen. A pulsating red dot appeared on the coast, far north of Bodrum.
"Izmir," Leo said, pointing. "A district called Karsiyaka. The ping is gone now, but we have the origin point."
Rodrigo's eyes locked on the dot. Izmir was a sprawling port city. Easy to disappear. Easy to ship cargo or people out. The knot in his chest tightened.
"Is that all you have?" he asked, his voice dangerously soft.
"No," Iz replied and typed another command. The map was replaced by a grid of sixteen grainy, black-and-white video feeds. "I got the Wi-Fi network's location and piggybacked into the local municipal CCTV feeds from the surrounding area. I've been scrubbing through the last hour of footage."
"There," Leo said and pointed. A black van, a standard commercial model, appeared on one of the screens, pulling to a stop in a narrow, cobblestoned alley.
Rodrigo's breath caught. The world narrowed to that single, monochrome square. The van's side door slid open. A man got out, broad-shouldered and ordinary. He reached back inside.
They pulled Giana out roughly. Her hands were bound in front of her, a dark hood pulled over her head, but it was her.
Rodrigo knew the line of her shoulders, the proud way she held her spine even when being forced forward. He knew the cascade of dark hair that fell over her shoulder as one of the men shoved her toward a nondescript doorway.
She stumbled, a deliberate move, her shoulder checking the man beside her, throwing him off balance for a split second. The man grabbed her arm and threw her over his shoulder.
Rodrigo's hands clenched into fists at his sides, his nails digging into his palms. A low growl built in his chest, a primal sound of pure rage. Dario's hand rested on his shoulder, a silent warning.
"Respira," Dario whispered.
How could he breathe when they were laying their filthy hands on her? Rodrigo forced his lungs to work, and the red cleared from his vision.
He watched the man carry Giana away, memorizing his height, build, and gait. He would find him and take those hands.
Another man followed them out of the van. He paused, turning slightly toward a different camera. For a second, his face was almost clear. Slavic features. A jagged scar bisected his left eyebrow. He looked familiar, but Rodrigo couldn't place him. The van pulled away, and the alley was empty again.
The world rushed back in. The hum of the servers. The smell of coffee brewing in the warehouse kitchen. The frantic beating of his own heart. He was fighting not to have a panic attack.
