Lindsay’s text said two separate intercepts. Said the location was registered under a Vitale shell company. Said the man inside had gray hair and a brown coat, brought in two days ago.
This is insane.
Then I think of my father. His hands on the steering wheel when he used to take the long way home. The way he used to hum without realizing it. The way he always told me to stay calm, even when my heart was racing.
Some fights have to be won.
Hey. I’m going in. I text Lindsay.
The reply comes almost instantly. Please be careful.
I slip my phone into my pocket and move toward the loading dock.
The door is slightly open.
I stop.
A prickle runs up my spine. The kind that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with instinct.
Salvatore is thorough. Obsessively so. His men dress in black every single day. The mansion is spotless. Ordered. Controlled. Nothing out of place. Nothing unfinished. The kingdom runs on precision. There is no gray. No in-between.
A door left ajar doesn’t belong in his world.
My pulse stutters.
This is wrong.
But my father doesn’t have time for hesitation.
I tell myself Salvatore would never hurt me. His men would never touch me. I cling to that belief like a charm pressed between my palms.
I step inside.
Concrete corridors stretch ahead of me. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead, sharp and relentless. The air smells like metal and damp and something darker underneath. Something that makes my throat tighten.
Down the stairs.
The voices echo down the corridor—Russian, not Italian. One man shouts. Another laughs.
These aren’t Salvatore’s men.
My stomach drops. Every instinct screams at me to run, but my feet won’t move. I’m frozen, trying to decide—
BANG.
The gunshot tears through the air. My body hits the floor before my mind registers the sound. Concrete slams into my knees, pain shooting up my legs, but I don’t feel it. I can’t feel anything except the ringing in my ears and the word looping in my head:
Papa. Papa. Papa.
I crawl forward on instinct, breath tearing out of me in broken gasps.
The door flies open, and two men step into the light, their guns raised toward me.
A wolf tattoo on the inner arm. Volcov.
Blood drips to the floor, and a body slumps forward, falling out of the chair that sits under the lights.
“Papa.”
