Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty Eight
Giovanni
Monitors glow in the dim of Luca’s study, each a frozen slice of road. I scrub back, play, pause, advance two frames at a time. The sedan slips through a yellow at Ferry, ducks under the overpass, disappears for six seconds behind a truck. Reappears.
I tag the timestamp, drop a pin. Another camera picks it up two blocks later, heading east. Every breadcrumb runs in the same direction—Russo country. I didn’t need the screens to tell me that, but it’s all part of the process.
I needed something to do that wasn’t snapping at everyone while waiting for Vito to come back with information from Cristiano Russo, so Luca put me in front of a monitor to follow the route of the car.
Normally, I excel at things like this. The patience it takes is something I typically have in spades. But things like that don’t count when all you want to do is punch and kick your way to the answers.
Click. Pause. Grain stutters. The sedan takes a right, then vanishes into a gap where the city couldn’t be bothered to hang a camera.
I swear under my breath and start triangulating side streets, checking feeder angles, pulling up any lens with a line on the next intersection.
Nothing. He threaded the blind spot as if he’d practiced it.
The study door eases open. I don’t turn. I’m ready to bite whoever thinks now is the time.
“Save the bark for someone who won’t wake,” Elena says softly.
I look over. She’s got Alessandra cradled against her shoulder, the baby’s cheek pressed into the curve of her neck, one small hand fisted in Elena’s sweater. Elena’s hair is tied back, eyes steady in that way that would ease a witness on the stand.
“You can snap at me,” she says, mouth tilted. “But you’ll have to apologize to her.”
A wry smile pulls at my face before I can stop it. It dies just as fast. I turn back to the map of streets and empty pixels.
Elena comes closer, slow like she’s approaching a skittish dog, and lowers into the chair beside me. Alessandra sighs once, a tiny weight shifting against her collarbone.
“You’re not going to think your way through the part that isn’t here,” she says, nodding at the black square of the blind spot.
“I can damn well try.”
“I know.” She studies the frozen frame, then me. “You’re scaring everyone.”
“I’m busy,” I say.
“You’re scared,” she answers, not unkind. “So are we.”
I rub a knuckle along my jaw. “She walked out with him. Calm. No force. That’s what the tape shows.”
“And you know that isn’t the whole story.” Elena tips her chin at the monitors. “Aren’t you always telling people to wait until they get the whole story?”
I huff. “I hate hearing my own advice.”
“You give good advice.” She shifts the baby higher, pats her back. “And you keep not taking it.”
I rake back through the timestamps again. “It’s there. A turn we didn’t catch. A garage. A cut-through.”
“Vito will squeeze him,” she says. “You know that.”
“I know.” My voice roughens. “I want it to be now.”
She’s quiet for a beat. “I know it may not mean much, but I have faith that she didn’t walk out of there with friends.” Her eyes meet mine.
“I’m not sure that’s better,” I say. “Among friends, among enemies. At least one of them won’t put her in danger.”
“I just mean that I don’t think she betrayed you, Giovanni,” she says gently. “She’s smart. She’s proud. I don’t see her getting involved in something like that.”
“She got involved with me, didn’t she?”
“It’s different. You know it is,” Elena says. “You’ll find her and ask all the questions you want. Until then…” She nudges the mug by my elbow. I don’t remember anyone setting it there. “Drink. Eat. Sleep. Do something that isn’t this. It’s not going to help.”
I wrap my fingers around it and take a swallow because refusing her feels stupid.
“It will if I can find where they took her.”
“You’ll bring her back,” she says, calm as weather on a soft summer morning. “And when you do, try not to be an animal about it.”
I cut her a look.
“She’ll have been through something,” Elena says. She rises, smoothing a palm over the baby’s back. “Save the animal for the men who deserve it.”
The phone rattles against the desk. I snatch it up, already ready to bark—and stop when I see the name.
Francesca.
“Shit.” I glance at Elena. She reads it in my face and squeezes my forearm once, then drifts a step away to give me room.
I haven’t told her. I’d hoped Bianca checked in with her mom the second she walked through her own door. If Francesca’s calling me, she didn’t.
I thumb accept and make my voice smooth. “Francesca.”
“Giovanni.” Her voice carries the worry of a mother. “Is Bianca with you?”
“Not at the moment,” I say, easy as steam off coffee. “I gave her the day to rest up after the trip.”
“She usually calls me as soon as she lands.” There’s a shaky exhale on the other end. “Her phone is going straight to voicemail. She’s not answering my texts.”
“We got in late. She was exhausted.” I slide my gaze to the blank square on the screen. “It’s possible she turned it off to catch up on sleep. The jet lag hit her pretty hard.”
“Oh.” A small breath. “That makes sense. I just—her phone isn’t ringing. I worried.”
“Understandable, but I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about,” I lie without blinking. “I’ll get eyes on her soon.” I soften my voice. “You know how she gets.”
A pause. “Yes. She does run herself down.” There’s another beat of silence. “You’re sure everything is fine?”
“Everything is fine,” I say. “I’ll have someone drop by with pastries—pure bribery to get her out of bed. If she calls you first, tell her I’m expecting her.”
“That’s kind of you.” Some of the tightness leaves her voice. “Tell her I love her.”
“I will.” Guilt pricks; I keep my tone even. “I’ll text you as soon as I see her.”
“All right.” Softer now. “Thank you, Giovanni.”
We disconnect. I stare at my reflection in the black bezel for a count of three, then set the phone down face down.
Elena doesn’t speak. She doesn’t have to. I can feel the question in the air.
“I’ll make it true,” I say, eyes back on the grid of streets. “No matter what. I’ll make it true.”
Elena squeezes my arm once more. “I’m sending food up,” she says, already turning for the door. “I expect you to eat it.” The door clicks behind her, and the study settles back into silence.
I’ll eat once I know Bianca’s safe.
I turn back to the computer and drag the map wider, pull traffic feeds farther out, and start again from the blind spot’s edge. Frame-jog, cross-reference, pull a municipal lens I haven’t tried yet. Nothing, nothing.
Then… a smear of taillights at the fringe of a camera that points two blocks away. I isolate the red, boost contrast, match the plate shroud’s shadow.
There you are.
I pivot to a warehouse district camera with a lazy refresh rate and catch the sedan’s reflection bending across a roll-up door.
That gives me the angle; the angle gives me the street.
From there it’s a breadcrumb trail: service road, underpass, a side street that looks like it dead-ends but doesn’t.
Food arrives—knock, tray, gone. I don’t look up. I ride the feed two more blocks on a different lens, slow the playback to watch for a turn and a brake.
The sedan disappears from view but doesn’t show up again.
I go back to the cross streets where it disappeared and follow it on a map to a neighborhood.
My gut goes cold. A neighborhood I know very well.