Page 99 of Lust and Honor

Carlo catches a glimpse over my shoulder, curses under his breath, then turns to Lorenzo, voice sharp as a blade. “Take a team. Bring me Rosa and his son. I don’t care if you have to dig them out from under a fucking rock, find them.”

My throat’s dry as sandpaper when I rasp, “What the hell do they have to do with any of this?”

Carlo doesn’t flinch. “Leonardo doesn’t have the kind of money or pull it’d take to buy off Alex, drag Gerard and April into his revenge game, and smuggle them out of the States. There’s a bigger player behind this, a real heavy hitter. Someone who hates your guts. I’m telling you, Maxim, this whole setup reeks of those motherfuckers. They’ve got a personal vendetta against you, and they hit you where you’d never see it coming.”

I freeze, mind blank, while Carlo’s already on his phone, barking orders at the regional police chief, reporting the plate number of the car Ava was shoved into. The house erupts into motion, men shouting, phones ringing, orders flying, everyone’s moving but me.

I just sit there, gutted, choking on the weight of what I’ve done.

Carlo warned me. Over and over, he fucking warned me about Leonardo. And I ignored him, shoved my head so far up my own ass I didn’t see it coming. Now the only woman who means a damn thing to me is in the hands of a bastard who wants to tear me apart piece by piece.

I can see it too clearly, every filthy thing he’ll do to her, not to break her, but to break me. The image alone feels like it’s going to split my chest open.

***

Night drags past midnight, and still, nothing. No trace of Rosa. No trace of his son. No sign of the car that took Ava. Aurora’s safe, sleeping at Carlo’s place. And I’m here, sitting like a useless piece of shit, fighting the urge to put a bullet in my own skull before the rage does it for me.

Maybe after I get her back. Because God knows, even if it takes a lifetime, I won’t stop until I do.

Brando’s been on and off the phone all damn night. He finally ends a call and drops into the chair across from us, face grim. “We need to pull a crew and head to Naples.”

I push halfway out of my seat. “You hear something?”

He nods once. “Remember those underground fights I mentioned? The ones that psycho Roberto’s tied up in?”

“The sick fights?” I ask.

“Yeah.” He sighs, jaw tight. “Word is, they’re going all out to stay hidden this time. Only a handful of elite members get invites. Roberto’s one of them. If we find him, we find Ava.”

Carlo leans forward, his voice sharp. “You got the location?”

“Not yet. My contact’s still digging. The second I get a lead, we move in. This might be our only shot.”

I rise to my feet, muscles coiled, locking eyes with Carlo. I’m ready to tear through Naples barehanded if I have to.

Carlo stands too, steady as stone, voice unshakable. “Then we go in with everything we’ve got. Let’s go get your woman back.”

Twenty

Ava

I drift back to consciousness with a throbbing pulse hammering in my head. The first thing I see is a young girl’s face hovering over me. She’s holding my head up, and the second my eyes flick open, she flinches back, startled.

“Sorry,” she whispers. “I just wanted to put something under your head. You’ve been lying like that for a long time.”

I blink a few more times, trying to focus, scanning my surroundings. The first thought that hits me is a prison camp, like the ones I’ve seen in movies. A large open yard fenced in by tall iron bars. Women scattered across the enclosure, trapped on the cold, hard ground.

I try to sit up, but every muscle screams in protest. My body feels beaten, bruised, and sore. The girl, barely a teenager, sees me struggling and hurries back to help. Now that I really look at her, she’s still wearing a school uniform, a white blouse, a plaid skirt, and her long black hair is braided neatly down her back. I lean against the rough wall for support.

“Where are we?” I ask, my voice hoarse.

She sinks down beside me, her chin trembling. “I don’t know. They grabbed me right outside my school two days ago, and I woke up here.”

She leans closer, her voice dropping to a shaky whisper. “None of the women talk to me. One of them hit me when I tried.”

I follow her gaze and lock onto a young woman with fierce, pitch-black eyes glaring straight at us. I turn back to the girl.

“What’s your name?”