57. Lorenzo
CHAPTER 57
Lorenzo
S antino’s direction led us to an abandoned hospital in the warehouse district. I had been checking the livestream: I had seen Isabella slash that man’s face. But I could also see the same man, pissed at the blood dripping down his chin, as he strapped her to the table. There was no sound in the livestream, but it was unmistakable that Isabella was screaming.
“You know if there’s a single scratch on my wife, I’ll make you wish for death long before I give it to you, right?”
Santino shook his head. “Unless that doctor is cutting out your brat, she’s safe for now.”
I balled up my fist, ready to punch him, but I resisted. I needed him for my plan to work. “Santino is going to get me in the building,” I told Damian and Elio. “You keep watch on the livestream. Once Isabella is off the table, or if you see Coleman making any move toward her, you storm in with the others. I want every fucker in there dead. No setting fires this time until we know for sure.”
Damian nodded. “I’ll tell the men.”
“What about the ones you sent after Artem’s people?” Elio asked. He was coordinating with the team that had been sent on that particular errand.
“They’re to take them straight to our holding cells. Don’t touch them unless they get direct orders from me.”
I shoved Santino out the back of the SUV and forced him to his feet. “Take me in.”
“We’ll be shot immediately,” the man complained. “They fucking stabbed me. Artem doesn’t need me anymore now that he has her.”
I pushed him. “Quit fucking whining and walk.”
When we were close enough to the hospital, I allowed Santino to take my arm. The men on guard actually laughed when they saw us. “You don’t give up, do you, Rossi?” one joked.
“The Pakhan thought they’d leave you to bleed out for sure,” the other crowed.
Santino was turning an alarming shade of puce, but he kept his head up. “Can I take him to Artem, or what?”
The guards waved us through, still laughing at their own lame attempts at humor. They hadn’t bothered to search me for weapons, probably assuming that Santino had taken them from me. Artem surrounds himself with morons .
Or, more likely, most of his men were already dead, and these were the recruits that he could lure away from Nikolai and the Syndicate.
Once past the guards, I wrenched myself out of Santino’s grip and forced him to walk ahead of me. The lack of noise around us was unsettling. Had Isabella been gagged? Surely, her screams would be bouncing off the walls in this place.
I shoved at Santino’s back, nearly toppling him to the floor. “Faster,” I demanded. “If you’re leading me in circles?—”
He waved. “I know,” he seethed. “Slow death, yada yada.”
The silence around us was suddenly teeming with noise. It was my men breaking down the doors…which meant that Dr. Coleman had started the procedure. Santino came to the same conclusion and began to laugh, deep and from the belly. “It’s too late,” he taunted.
Santino pushed open a door and gestured, as if to say, now you go look . I shoved past him, grabbing for my gun tucked into a holster at the small of my back, and pointing it out in front of me. When I stepped into the operating room, I had a second to be relieved that I didn’t see any blood.
But then the rest of the picture came into view: Isabella stripped down to nearly nothing and strapped by both arms and legs to the table itself. Artem Volkov wasn’t here; he either fled because of the noise, or he was content enough to watch his own livestream from elsewhere. Either way, he wouldn’t make it out of the building.
Dr. Coleman was standing over her with a scalpel in his hand. His eyes came up and met mine, and for a moment, I saw the relief on his face. He truly didn’t want to hurt Isabella. I aimed and fired, and he dropped to the ground with a scream.
I ran for the table. “Isabella.” There was no response, and the only thing keeping me calm was the rise and fall of her chest. She must have fainted. “ Dolcezza ,” I called her again, rubbing her arms as I worked the buckles of her straps loose. “Come back to me.”
The sounds of my men were getting closer. I heard the door swing open, and then Elio came into view. “Is she?—?”
“Passed out.” I wanted to see her eyes open…but I couldn’t let Artem get away. “Stay with her?”
Elio nodded. “I’ll get her on her feet.”
I looked down at Dr. Coleman, who was still conscious but only just. “Where is Artem?” His eyes rolled in his head, and I knelt down. “Coleman.” I snapped my fingers in front of his face. “Where is Artem?”
Weakly, he pointed towards the door on the other side of the operating room. “There’s an office.”
I could hear gunfire echoing in the halls now. My men were hunting down Artem’s and greeting them with a hail of bullets.
I found Artem trying to flee through the window in the office. It wasn’t a large window, especially not for a man of Artem’s stature, and it took me aback for a moment, seeing such a proud man trying to weasel out of yet another death that I owed him. “Are you even a man?”
He dropped from the window, going for his gun, but I shoved the desk into him, knocking the air out of his lungs. I tackled him to the ground, punching him hard enough that I knew I cracked his jaw as I split the skin on my knuckles open on his teeth.
I put my foot on his thigh and grabbed his ankle, yanking his leg upward until I heard his knee pop. Artem tried to scream, but he still couldn’t catch his breath, so he wheezed and writhed instead. “Kill…me…”
That made me laugh. “I have something for you,” I said, ignoring his breathless plea and pulling out my phone. “I have been saving this for months.”
I opened a video that I had in a private gallery and pressed play, holding the phone over his face so that he would be able to see. I didn’t need to see it to know what was happening: Efram Volkov, begging for his life, pleading to see his brother, as I shoved a gun barrel nearly down his throat. Artem’s eyes flared with pain and rage, but when he tried to move, to grab for the phone, I stepped on his leg again. The pain was so bad that he gagged.
I heard the sound of choking from the video: I had jammed the barrel of the gun nearly into his throat, breaking teeth and stretching his jaw. Then, there was the gunshot when I pulled the trigger.
Artem’s eyes were wet. I could practically see him plotting his revenge. Well, we can’t have that now . “You’re going to live, Volkov,” I told him. “Every day, I’m going to bring in one of your loved ones and give you the live show of me ending their life. When I’ve run out of people, then I’ll let you die.”
As if on cue, Damian came through the door. He took one look at Artem and whistled. “Fuck, boss.”
“How’s it going out there?”
Damian couldn’t stop staring at Artem. “We found Alfie. He was supposed to plant explosives after Artem got the baby. He’ll have a nasty concussion later, but we didn’t kill him.”
Good , I thought. I would need to hand him over to the FBI somehow. “Take them both back to the estate for me?”
Damian nodded. “Of course.”
Isabella
I was shivering, despite it not being anywhere near cold in here. “It’s shock, piccolina ,” Elio told me, rubbing my arms. “You’ll be okay.”
“What about—?” I glanced over the side of the table at Dr. Coleman. He’d gone awfully still. “I should check on him.”
Elio shook his head. “He’s dead.”
I wanted to argue that he couldn’t know that without checking properly…but identifying a dead body was probably one of those skills that Elio had developed keenly over the years. “Where’s Lorenzo?”
“Dealing with Artem. He’ll be back soon.”
I needed to see him now. Even if he was furious with me, I wanted my eyes on him. I wanted to be in his arms. “Can you go check for him?” Before Elio could refuse, I continued, “No one else is in here but a dead man, right? You’ll be right back.”
Elio let out a sigh. “Fine.” He held up a finger. “Don’t you move from this spot.”
I gave him a weak smile. “I won’t.”
As soon as Elio stepped out, however, I climbed off the table and bent down, snatching the 10-blade from where Dr. Coleman had dropped it.
“You’re a terrible liar, Izzie.”
I knew Santino was here. He stepped out from behind one of the machines that had been draped in green hospital tarps. “I inherited it from the best.”
“You could have just pointed me out to that behemoth friend of yours. He’d break my neck in a second. Instead, you’re letting me walk out of here.” He cocked his head to the side. “Why?”
“Artem’s dead,” I said. “Or, he’ll wish he were very soon. I know what Lorenzo wants to do to you, and as much as I cannot stand you, I don’t want that for you either.”
Santino’s smile was arrogant, nauseating to look at. “So, why did you pick up that scalpel?”
I held it up. “I’m giving you one chance, but if you come anywhere near me, I’ll slice you up.”
Santino stared at me and then at the door. “I won’t contact you again,” he promised.
“Fall off the face of the planet,” I told him.
He nodded and limped toward the door. I almost let him get away, enough to let him think that he was going to get away with this again , before I closed the distance behind us with an agility that I can only describe as adrenaline-induced and sank the scalpel into the back of his neck.
Santino let out a sound like a dying walrus and wheeled around, trying to grab at me. I sliced at him without aim, cutting into his arms and hands. Into his face. He dropped to the ground, trying to cover up, but I sank down over him and sank the scalpel into his gut. Over and over, making tears that welled with blood.
A hand grabbed around mine, stilling my movements. I jerked, and Elio deftly disarmed me. “I got this, piccolina ,” he promised. Reaching down, he slashed across Santino’s throat, slicing through his Adam’s apple and opening his carotid. Santino let out a raspy bubble, and arterial blood sprayed out, drenching us. He let out another wet breathing sound, and then I watched the light leech from his eyes.
My father was dead. Finally.
“I killed him,” Elio said, helping me to stand, turning me away from the body. “Do you understand?” he asked. “I gave the killing blow.”
I didn’t know why that mattered. Without help, Santino would have bled out from what I had done to him, but I nodded like I understood him.
“Isabella.” I turned, and there was Lorenzo. His face was grim, but to me, he had never looked more wonderful. A sob wrenched itself painfully from my throat, and I ran to him, throwing my arms around his neck.