My blood goes cold when I see an alert from Amalia, sent an hour ago, from her panic button.
I already know Juls received the same notification, but she is in Colombia, where Akim and Andrea needed help with some groups of children who had been brought there.
If she hasn’t called me yet, it means she hasn’t seen it either, so my hand is on the phone immediately and I call her directly.
It takes her several long seconds to answer, and my chest tightens with a sharp pull because I know what news I’m about to give her.
“Sí, amor.”
“Juls, Amalia has been taken.”
A silence of a few seconds follows, during which I send a message for the private plane to be ready for takeoff. I’ve already lost an hour. Why didn’t I check my phone more often?
“I’m leaving now. Maksim...”
“None of them will still be breathing when it’s over, Julia.Te lo juro.”
I look at her coordinates one more time on the phone, and I already know it’s going to take us several hours to reach her, even by plane. I go to where I keep the grenades and take a few.My hand moves to two blades that are waiting to meet the skin of the men who took her.
All I can hope is that she stays calm. That she doesn’t give them anything to use against her. That she doesn’t try to be brave and do something reckless.
I feel my chest tighten, and I know it’s for Julia, who right now is probably losing her mind trying to find a flight to reach her sister.
Three months ago we allowed them to be taken by Aleksandr, and that’s a mistake neither of us has forgiven ourselves for. But now?—
What happened? Could these be associates of Ivan’s who made the connection between us and her? How did they find her?
Before I board the plane, my last thought is how much blood will be spilled if I don’t find Amalia unharmed.
The private plane sent by Alessio touches down near Newport, and when I step off, I see an SUV waiting. There are four of us here, with four more waiting at the location. When the head of the Italian mafia says you’re finished, you’re finished. And what Silvio did was go behind his back, believing Alessio would never find out, or that he wouldn’t care about the consequences.
“Priority number one is Amalia. After that, you can do whatever you want with Silvio.”
While I was on the plane, the idiot sent me a photo of Amalia tied to a chair. Every cell in my body is screaming at me to move faster. Every atom I have is calculating the shortest path to her.
How was he able to find her when I spent months and came up with nothing?
When the GPS shows three hundred yards to the address, we get out of the SUV. A gun is handed to me, one more on top of the one I already have, and we move on foot.
I can see the cabin where he’s keeping her, and I can also see the ten men he has positioned outside. He knew there was a risk I wouldn’t come alone. At least his brain managed that much.
In the next moment, the shooting starts. Alessio’s soldiers spread out, working to keep Silvio’s men occupied.
I see a door a few yards away, and without thinking about what’s waiting on the other side, I push it open. A man lunges at me from the left, and my ribs take the impact. I think one of them has cracked from how hard it is to breathe, but I hearhervoice, and I know she’s only a few yards away. So without thinking, I raise the gun and shoot the man in the abdomen.
His mouth fills with blood immediately, and before he gets any on me, I push him off.
Gun still raised, I clear each room along the hallway, one by one, until I reach a living room.
In the middle of it is the woman who emptied my mind for the very first time.
“Silas.” My name on her lips makes me forget, for one second, the pain I’m in.
“Let her go, and I’ll mention to Alessio that, at the last moment, your neurons decided to start working,” I tell Silvio, who is positioned behind Amalia.
In the next second he reaches behind his waistband and draws his own weapon, leveling it at her.
A knot lodges in my throat because all I can see is the scene in which Dean died, except with Amalia in his place. I feel his warm blood between my fingers, watch his gaze lose focus, feel his skin going cold.
