I wrench away from him, running for the exit, but he groans and grabs me around the waist, pulling me up against his chest. My skin crawls when he trails his fingers down my arm.
“Youarepretty. For a cop.”
I freeze, all of my muscles going stiff. “I’m not a?—”
“Sophia Bianchi. Detective.”
His words make my blood run cold.
“You think I’d let my brother kidnap a cop and I wouldn’t know about it? Please, Sophia. Give me a little credit.”
I look up at him and realize how completely he’s misled Luca. Diego. All of us. No one thought he was capable of staging a coup, but he’s clear-eyed, determined. He’s planned this. Meticulously.
And nobody saw it coming, except for the Chicago PD. And even they didn’t know the extent of Nico’s betrayal.
“What are you going to do to me?” My words come out cracked and scared.
“Why, I’m going to use you, of course. As bait for my brother.”
“Are you going to kill him?”
He seems to think about for a moment, his arms like iron around me.
“I don’t know. I guess we’ll see.”
He grins and shoves me against the wall. Startled, I hit the wall, my cheekbone slamming against the dry wall.
It nearly knocks me out, my vision going blurry around the edges. I brace myself against the wall, sliding slowly down it as Nico leaves the room, leaving me alone in the dark. I crawl along the floor, reaching up to hit the light switch.
Dim light casts my shadow on the wall. My shadow and nothing more. It’s late, god knows what time it is. Is this it? Is this the last night of my life? Will I really never make it back to my Rosie girl?
I lie on the floor for a few moments, feeling sorry for myself. My father always told me to pull myself together, to fight for what I want. And above all else, what I want is to see my little girl again, introduce her to her father.
The only way I can make that happen is to get the hell out of here.
Scott will track me. I know he can. He’s always been a bit of a tech whiz. I think he’s wasted as a beat cop. He really should have gotten my promotion. But he’d never wanted it. He’d been perfectly happy bringing in the same perps every month.
Not like me. I had to have more. Was never satisfied.
“When humans get satisfied, they die,” my father used to tell me when I’d complain about this or that. “As long as you desire something, you’re alive, Sophia.”
I keep lying there, taking in deep breaths and trying to calm myself. I’m never going to get anywhere if I don’t keep myself together. I fight the tears burning at the backs of my eyes, still thinking about my father. His warm brown eyes. The weathered skin of his hands, the callouses there. Holding his hands in mine always reminded me how hard he worked, how much he sacrificed for me.
For Rosa.
He never asked me who the father was. He just told me he was happy to have such a beautiful granddaughter.
I will see him again. I’ll see Rosa again.
There’s something stuck at the back of my mind, something important, but I can’t suss out what it is. I close my eyes, letting my mind wander.
“I’m going to show you something, Sophia,” he said to me, one night when there wasn’t much to do and it was raining outside. “But you have to promise not to use it unless you really, really have to.”
“To use what? What are you going to teach me?” I bounced on my heels, excited to learn anything from my father. I’d been about thirteen, maybe, just growing the buds of breasts.
“You can only use it if you’re in danger. Trapped. Not to steal,” he warned me, pulling a satchel from his back pocket. “I’m going to teach you with tools, but you can use anything. A hairpin. A credit card. Best if you have both.”
As I watched, eyes wide, my father taught me how to pick the deadbolt on the front door of our house. It took hours for me to get it, and hours still after that to figure out how to do it with only a hairpin.
