12. Matteo
CHAPTER TWELVE
MATTEO
W hen Ari told me the shooter had brought up my family name, I dug up everything there was to know about him—from the moment he took his first breath to his last one. That included everything I could find about his sister who had mysteriously gone missing recently.
It was how I found myself in New York City, specifically one of Soho’s most luxurious residential streets, with Nikola and Gabriel. The shooter’s family owned this luxury redbrick manor among many others. We’d checked them all out, but this one raised questions.
It was rented out to a company that didn’t exist. At least not legally. And then there were the women that we witnessed being smuggled into the manor, which was an obvious glaring red flag.
The manor stood at the end of the dead-end street, away from prying eyes and the noise of the city. The lawn was immaculate, the gardens manicured, and the amber glow of lights bled through the blinds, telling us what we needed to know.
It looked like a typical home, blending in with the rest of the neighborhood, but my gut warned it was serving a different purpose.
“Should we run this by our parents?” Nikola asked.
Gabriel snorted. “Since when do you want to run shit by our parents?”
He shrugged. “Trying to be a good influence.”
“You?” I narrowed my eyes on him. “Does this have something to do with Skye or impressing Dante Leone?”
Nikola scoffed. “As if anyone could impress that man. He’s a lunatic.”
“Then you two should get along swell,” Gabriel remarked dryly.
Nikola let out an exasperated breath. “There’s only room for one lunatic in this world.”
My brows rose in surprise. “How does that work with you and your uncle Sasha, then? He’s as unhinged as they come.”
“There’s an understatement,” Gabriel scoffed.
“I tolerate him because he’s family.” Nikola grinned, seemingly proud of his reputation as a straight-up maniac.
“Aren’t we the lucky ones,” Gabriel joked, slapping him on the back. “But don’t forget, I’m your family too. Your uncle and superior.”
“Fuck. You.” Nikola hated the reminder. Needless to say, the Nikolaev-Santos family relationship was not exactly straightforward. “You’re lucky my mom likes you or I’d ship you off to Siberia.”
“Wow, this is quite high tech,” I murmured, staring at the keypad.
“Something is definitely off here,” Gabriel echoed my earlier thoughts.
“Did you bring the equipment, Nik?” I glanced at my friend, dressed in all black like Gabriel and me. “We’ll need it to break this code.”
He wasted no time connecting his application to the keypad remotely. A soft ding signaled the search was over.
“Do we have the code to get in?” I asked.
Gabriel nodded. We checked our weapons one last time and slid out of the car. We wouldn’t have to sneak around because the street was otherwise deserted.
Once at the door, Nikola entered the retrieved code into the keypad and the door clicked open. The minute we crossed the threshold, the chill in the air raised the hair on the back of my neck.
The interior of the brick manor was a stark contrast to its pristine, welcoming facade on the outside. The shutters kept the world firmly outside, and I couldn’t help but wonder what they were keeping hidden inside.
This floor was nearly empty, save for a battered couch slumped in the corner, its glory days long forgotten. The walls were bare and grime-covered, reeking of blood and urine. The air was thick, oppressive, saturated with a sinister presence—darkness clung to every surface, echoing with silent screams.
Guns in hand, we crept ahead—Nikola to the left, Gabriel to the right, and me straight ahead. The wooden boards groaned under our feet, the noise too loud in the tense silence.
I exchanged a look with Nikola and Gabriel. Gabriel pointed to the bottom of the door that was farthest from us, noticing the light coming through and the dark shadows moving back and forth.
The air felt electric, charged with the promise of violence.
Nikola moved first. He kicked the door in, the crack of splintering wood spearing through the space like a gunshot.
In the next breath, chaos erupted. Bullets tore through the air in a deafening symphony. I dove behind a column, heart pounding in my chest. Gabriel and Nikola hit the ground, taking cover behind the tattered couch that barely offered protection.
There was another shot, closer this time. I tracked the sound, instincts sharpening in the haze of adrenaline. Calculating its origin, I aimed and fired.
A sharp grunt, telling me I’d hit my mark.
“Got one,” I yelled.
“I got the second one,” Nikola shouted. “Third.”
“Don’t kill them all,” I demanded a heartbeat too late, because a body hit the floor with a loud thud.
The silence that followed was unnatural. No bullets came, but I could almost feel eyes on me.
“That’s it?” Nikola asked with disappointment.
“Thank fuck,” Gabriel muttered. “Would you prefer World War III?”
“As a matter of fact?—”
“Watch my back,” I told Gabriel and Nikola, cutting off their bickering. “I’m moving in.”
Those dead guards were protecting something or someone, and I was determined to find out what or who it was. Walking deeper into the house, I found stairs that led into the basement.
I glanced over my shoulder and signaled I was going in.
“Why is it always the fucking basement?” Gabriel whispered as he and Nikola flanked me.
“Don’t worry,” Nikola whispered. “I can hold your hand if you’re scared.”
I shot them a warning look just as Gabriel flipped him off, and we started moving down the stairs. It wasn’t until we took the last step that we found five pairs of terrified eyes looking up at us.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Gabriel muttered. “Are those?—”
Women. No, girls . Filthy, battered girls. They couldn’t be older than thirteen, and if they were, they were seriously malnourished.
Huddled in the corner, they stared at us, petrified.
For a moment, we all stood frozen, staring at each other. I’d heard horror stories about human trafficking, but I’d never seen it firsthand. It was at this very moment that I finally understood why my father and his friends fought like hell against it.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” I said in a gentle voice, tucking the gun in the back of my pants. Nikola lowered his but didn’t put it away.
“Come out of there,” Gabriel coaxed. “We’ll take you home.”
They didn’t move, eyeing us warily, so I tried again. “We’re looking for someone related to an attack on my sister and friend.” One of the girls pointed to the left and all our eyes followed to a door. I stiffened. “Is someone there?”
“He left through that door.”
My brows scrunched. “Who?”
“The man.”
“I’ll go check,” Gabriel offered and took off, Nikola at his back.
“My friends will find him,” I said, keeping my voice even. The truth was I wanted to run after them too, but was hesitant to leave the poor girls without protection.
“How long have you been here?” Silence. “Can you at least let me know where your families are? We need to get you back to them.”
“You—you won’t sell us?” one of the girls stuttered.
“Of course not. That’s illegal.” My family did plenty of illegal stuff, but not this. Never this. Not that I’d ever tell that to these girls. “We’ll ensure you get back to your families.”
“You won’t make us into belles for organs?”
Fuck, this couldn’t be good.
“Huh?”
“One of the men kept bringing up the Belles and Mobsters Agreement,” she explained.
“What?” Gabriel and Nikola returned right on time.
I met his and Nikola’s gaze. “Nothing.”
“One vehicle is gone,” Nikola piped. “I’ll check the tags later and see if we can pin down the owner.”
“Now what did I hear about those agreements?” Gabriel inquired. The auctions had ended—or at least they should have—with the death of Benito King, decades ago.
The girls were still huddled together, and they now studied Nikola and Gabriel warily.
“Apparently they were going to be sold for their… organs,” I explained, giving them a silent warning not to say anything about it.
“That’s…” Gabriel searched for the right words when Nikola added, “Fucked up.”
I kneeled down while maintaining my distance. “Can you tell us anything about the man who took off?” The girls shook their heads. “What does he look like?”
“He wore a mask,” the same girl answered.
“Anything to set him apart?”
She shrugged. “We’ve only been here twice.”
“How long have you all been captive?” Gabriel asked. “Should we take you to the hospital to be checked out?”
The girls all muttered out their responses, most of them saying either one or two weeks.
Nikola’s expression darkened. “If someone got my baby sister, my dad would?—”
“Your families must be searching for you,” Gabriel cut him off, knowing our friend too well. He was about to go into some gruesome description of the torture his family would bestow on anyone who dared hurt the Nikolaevs. It wasn’t for anyone’s ears, much less these young girls.
“Let’s get you out of here.” My blood was boiling but I did my best to keep my voice calm. “Your families must be worried sick.”
“We should get them to the hospital,” Gabriel stated.
I agreed, but we couldn’t exactly show up with the girls without being questioned ourselves.
“My mom could check them out,” Nikola added, probably following my line of thinking. “She’s a doctor.”
“Yes, but she’s all the way in New Orleans.”
“We can get them to another hospital.” Nico Morrelli had set up shelters and hospitals for human trafficking victims on his territory. I was certain they wouldn’t be turned away there. “You’ll be safe there. It’s for the best if you all get checked out by professionals. Okay?”
They didn’t look sure, so I tabled that for now.
“Did you pick up any names of the men who’ve been keeping you here?” I asked, still kneeling on the filthy ground and staying eye level with the young girls.
“No. The guards rarely talked in front of us,” one offered.
“Even the one who snuck out?” I inquired.
The girls nodded in unison. “I think he was the boss.”
I really hoped the street surveillance would give us some clue into who that asshole was.
“Where are you from?” Gabriel asked. “Your families?”
Alaska. Missouri. Alabama. California.
“I’m from New York,” the last one mumbled. “My brother… he goes to Yale.” I studied the young girl and a bad feeling flickered through my chest. “He’s in trouble with some bad people and?—”
“Fuck, why does she look like?—”
Nikola didn’t even finish his sentence before I let out a muffled curse, hanging my head.
The resemblance was undeniable. Same hair color. Same eye color. Same face, but more feminine.
“She looks like the shooter,” I grumbled, and his sister. The photo of the shooter's sister was much older, but resemblance was definitely there.
“Almost as if they were related,” Nikola echoed my own thoughts.
“Sh-shooter?” Her gaze darted between the three of us, her eyes wide.
Fuck.
“I’m sorry,” I started slowly. “You look a lot like someone who killed a few people and attacked my sister at Yale.”
Her expression paled. “My brother goes to Yale.” Two heartbeats of silence. “Is he… Is he dead?”
“Give us just a moment,” I said, yanking Gabriel and Nikola to the back of the room.
“We should call Morrelli,” Gabriel hissed.
“Fuck that,” Nikola protested. “Nico will just take over and push us out of the game.”
“This isn’t a game.” My friend’s view of things could sometimes be skewed, but that’s why he had me. “He has shelters set up all over his territory. And we have nowhere to take these girls.”
“Let’s get their home addresses and?—”
“And the shooter’s sister?” Gabriel challenged.
“She might have someone else who can take her in,” Nikola protested.
Gabriel shook his head, and I could sense his patience running thin. “Not everyone has a big-ass family like yours, Nikolaev.”
“We could reach out to áine King,” I cut in. “She has an organization that specializes in these kinds of rescues.”
“Good thinking, bro,” Nikola offered, then narrowed his eyes at our friend. “At least someone has brains.”
“Everyone but you,” Gabriel drawled.
“Fuck you, Colombiano. You’re so lucky you’re loosely related to my mother or I’d—” He dragged a thumb from one ear to the other across his neck.
“You could fucking try, Ruso . And I’m not loosely related. I’m her half brother. Your fucking uncle.”
“I object to calling you that.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “If you two are fucking done?—”
“We’re done,” Gabriel cut in when it seemed like Nikola was going to continue. “So we have a plan for these girls, but how do we figure out who was behind it in the first place? It seems unlikely that someone would be brave enough to go against your father and do this on his territory.”
“And yet… check out the evidence,” Nikola said.
“It kind of seems like these girls were taken as leverage, and if we take them back to their families, they could find themselves in the same situation,” I stated pensively, the puzzles in my head jamming together but refusing to make sense. “I wish I knew why they are targeting my family. All the members who did that shit are dead and gone.”
“And you’re sure that the shooter mentioned your family by name?” Gabriel questioned.
I nodded. “Ari said he specifically said Vitale.”
“Maybe your mom would know?” Nikola pondered. “She was a belle herself.”
“Under no circumstance will we be asking her about this shit,” I warned. Even though I was very young, I could still remember my mother’s night terrors that had plagued her for months after she and my aunt Ella disappeared for days. Her heart-wrenching screams woke up every soul in the house. It wasn’t until I was much older that I learned they were kidnapped by her uncle Alphonso Romano’s son and his accomplice, Benito King, to be sold through the Belles and Mobsters Agreement.
“Let’s just give the girls a choice,” Gabriel stated. “If they feel safe with their families, we’ll send them home.”
“And if they don’t?” Nikola grumbled. “I’m not taking them in like strays.”
“We’ll give them a choice.” I shot him a look that I hoped he interpreted correctly—he was being insensitive, and the girls didn’t need his attitude tonight. Not after everything they’d been through. “If their families are part of the reason they found themselves in this mess, we’ll find them a safe place with áine’s organization.”
I looked back at the girls. They stared at us with a tiny flicker of hope, and it fucking hurt my chest to even think what they must have endured. I knew áine King would handle them with care, that it was the right call for them.
“Okay, let’s go upstairs,” I offered, waving the girls over. “We have a safe place to take you and a team that will ensure you’re taken care of. Either your families can come for you, or this organization will take you back to them.”
That seemed to satisfy the girls, and one by one, they made their way over to us. We took them upstairs and sat them on the only couch in the living room as I dialed áine. And then we waited. Thankfully, it took no time at all for áine’s team to show up and usher the girls out of there and into safety.
“Well, I guess our work here is done,” Gabriel drawled, the three of us standing in the deserted house with even more questions.
“It feels like we didn’t accomplish jack shit,” Nikola muttered. “I’ll dig up the surveillance and see if the license plate?—”
He never got to finish the sentence because the front door flew open.
I didn’t hesitate to spur into action. In five strides, I was at the front door along with Nikola. Grabbing the man by his collar, I yanked him inside and Nikola shut the door behind him.
“One high note, and you’re dead,” I warned, shoving him into the wall as I pressed a gun against his skull.
His eyes bulged, darting around the room. “Where are the girls?”
“Long gone.”
“You better worry about yourself, dumbass,” Gabriel remarked dryly.
“Man, I fucking love visitors,” Nikola declared. “This one we can question.”
He stared at the full sleeves of tattoos decorating both of Nikola’s arms, his eyes settling on the one with his last name inked inside the raven. Recognition must have set in because the motherfucker paled.
“A Ni-Ni-Nikolaev?” he stuttered.
“Look at that. You’re a celebrity,” I noted. It only took one crazy motherfucker in the family to have the whole world buzzing with your name.
Unfortunately, the Nikolaevs now had two crazies—Sasha and his nephew.
Dragging my attention back to the man, I pressed my forearm into his neck. “Now, you’re going to tell us everything you know, or I’ll let the crazy Russian play with you.”
“And trust me,” Gabriel drawled. “His games are sick.”
“I don’t know anything,” he cried. “I swear. I’m just here for my shift. I was only told to make sure the door to the basement stayed locked.”
“I’m so tempted to fucking tear you limb by limb,” I growled.
“Let me slice him into tiny pieces,” Nikola offered. “He’ll be alive longer and feel the pain better.”
“First you’re going to give us answers,” I gritted. Then, to give him false hope, I added, “Your answers will determine your punishment. Who do you work for? What were you going to do with the girls?”
His eyes darted behind me and he pointed at the dead guard. “I’m just a guard. I work for that guy. That’s all I know.”
I shoved him against the wall again, making it shake with the impact. “What was the plan? What were you going to do with them?”
“I don’t know,” he cried. “I don’t know. Nobody told us anything. Our only job was to keep the girls locked up until it was time.”
“Time for what?”
“Until someone else came to take them. I don’t know who or when.”
Fuck, this was proving to be futile.
“You do know what’s happening here, right?” Gabriel demanded.
“Sure do.”
“What? What the fuck is happening?” Nikola demanded.
“We’re dealing with someone who’s pulling the strings from the shadows while having everyone else do their dirty work.” Gabriel pinned the guard with a glare. “And if you have no useful information for us, we’d best be on our way.”
I reached down to retrieve the knife tucked at my ankle.
“No, no… Wait… I didn’t do anything. I just came in and watched them.”
“You didn’t do anything to help these girls.” I drawled. “You didn’t spare them, so tell me… Why should we spare you?”
His silence was my answer.
“Who’s the masked man?” I demanded.
More silence.
“Well, fucker, do you have any final words?” Nikola growled, and the coward started to cry. Not small tears either, but crocodile ones. “Anyone told you before that you’re ugly when you cry?” Nikola taunted with a tilt of his head.
“I’m sorry,” he whimpered. “I’m so sorry.”
Gabriel smirked. “I’m sure you are sorry right now, but only because you got caught.”
“What do you know about the Yale shooter?” He shot me a blank stare. “What do you know about the Vitale family?”
“All I know is that we had to capture the girls,” he cried. “At Yale.”
“Why?” I gritted. “And what girls?”
He couldn’t have possibly been targeting Arianna and Francesca. Could he?
“There were two girls they were targeting at Yale, and killing anyone else was just a distraction.”
“The targets for what?”
“I… don’t… know,” he hiccupped. “They don’t tell me much.”
“This guy is useless,” Gabriel muttered.
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I?—”
Nikola smacked him in the head. “Enough.”
“Did you learn your lesson?” I asked.
He nodded so frantically, I suspected a case of whiplash.
“Good, then I won’t give you to Nikola.”
“Thank you. Thank you. You won’t regret it.”
“Instead I’ll give you a taste of your own medicine,” I continued coolly. His eyes widened and I smiled savagely. “You didn’t really think we’d let this go unpunished, did you?”