Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
LUCA
“ H ow do you know this girl?” Ardesia asks me.
I scrub my hands over my face as I rub out some tension. “She’s the daughter of my deceased friend, Ray.”
Ardesia looks over her picture on his phone screen again. He’d come over first thing this morning, willing to help me. At least, I think he’s willing to help me.
“Father Russo, you’ve helped my cause more than words can convey. So, I’m going to help. But I need you to prepare for the worst. You’ve seen just as much death as I have in the last couple of years. You know the outcome of the shit some of these girls get sold into.”
“You think someone has her, then?” I ask him, looking up at him with my hands still clasped, as if I’m going to pray at any moment.
Ardesia’s unblinking eyes weigh his following words as he sighs. Setting down his phone on his lap, he licks his lips and leans forward. “You’re already looking away from that which is before you, Father.”
“Luca, please. I’ve asked you multiple times to call me Luca.”
Ardesia smiles. “No can do, Father.”
“How am I looking away from anything?” I say, ignoring his respectful antics.
“Because she was stolen from the same block that the last ten girls to be reported missing got kidnapped from.”
I know he’s right. That part of the Bronx lately has been a hotbed of girls going missing and nefarious deeds done down dark alleys. We’ve been monitoring the situation and trying to find a way forward.
We have a couple of contacts inside the precinct, but we haven’t gotten far. They’re only collecting profiles, as women are reported missing—I should say, girls.
The oldest girl to have been reported missing was twenty.
“You need to treat her like any other girl, Father. Don’t get too involved emotionally.”
I scoff, sitting back in my chair. “I don’t know the girl. I know she’s my friend’s daughter, and I owe it to him to look for her. To at least try.”
Do I owe it to him?
I haven’t seen him in years. Not since I took my vows and moved up in the church. He’d come by now and again. His heroine-laced voice would filter through the latticed screen separating us and confess everything he’d been up to. Half of me always thought it was his way of connecting with me, without seeing the disappointment on my face when I heard his stories or his gaunt features.
“I just wanted to be sure you knew what I could find at the end of this road, Father.”
I nod at him. “I understand more than most.”
He knows I do. The haunting images we’ve witnessed lately, the deafening sounds of their cries when they realize they’re saved that echo in my mind, the acrid smell of unwashed bodies and piss that fills the air, and the profound sense of despair that grips my soul — these are the elements that have shattered my faith to its very foundation.
“Alright, then. Expect to hear from me soon. I’ll get my men and Brynne’s on this.”
I perk up in my chair. “How is Brynne doing?”
He smiles, pure light and happiness gleaming in his usually dark eyes. “She’s great. I was worried, you know? How she’d handle stepping into her role as the head of one of the families, but she’s become a formidable leader. One I won’t cross. Unless I’m looking to…” he trails off and clears his throat. “Sorry, Father.”
I laugh at the implication left hanging in the air between us. “You have no idea what I hear inside that confessional booth, Slate.”
Using his translated name makes him feel more at ease, and he sits back in his chair with a smirk. “And do you never get jealous or want to quit this life? It can’t be an easy one to live.”
I sigh. Confessing how my devotion has been faltering isn’t something I’m ready to do, especially not with him.
Even though he’s a man with blood coating his hands and a dark veil surrounding his soul, I can see how his eyes look at me with respect and admiration, as though he’s in the presence of an individual booming with higher authority than he is.
I shrug. “It gets hard. But nothing in life comes easy, does it?”
He laughs. “Just the riddled answer I’d expect from a man of the cloth.”
I shake my head and stand to lead him to the door. “I have to get to confessionals and then write a sermon, but if you need anything else, let me know. I don’t know much about her, but I’ll try to get you any information you might need.”
Ardesia follows and steps out the door, returning to shake my hand. “I know you’re breaking a million church rules to work with us, and it’s a massive risk. But, Father, you’ve done more good than you know. Finding this girl is the least I can do.”
I watch him get halfway to the carport, where he’s parked behind my car.
He turns back. “What do you want done with her if we find her?”
And for some ungodly reason, without thinking, I say, “Bring her to me. I’ll handle her from there.”
He smirks knowingly, but nods. “Have a good day, Father Russo.”
A deep sense of foreboding propagates through my stomach.
“You, too,” I whisper, closing the door and letting my back sink into the cold glass of the windows within it.
After writing my sermon for Mass on how we shouldn’t let others influence our decisions and actions as we try to live in His light—more a lesson for myself than the parishioners—I began cleaning the spare room in the rectory. Why? I honestly don’t know.
Other than that, if anyone is going to find her, it will be Ardesia. And I assume she’s going to be bad off.
The only address he could find for her was that of her mother’s house, and if she’s in rough shape when he finds her, that’s the last place I want her to be.
Or that she’ll want to be.
I try to ignore the way I feel authority over her already, just from seeing one photograph.
More than just slipping in my faith, I feel as though I’m losing my damned mind.
I drop the blanket I had been making the bed with and growl.
She’s not allowed to be in the rectory, and I know it. But there’s nowhere else I want her to go home to whenever I find her.
If I find her.
My phone goes off in the living room, and I trudge into the room and plop onto the couch with it. It’s a text from Ardesia.
I’ve found some information I’m running down on where I think she might be. If it’s true, it will be hard to get her back.
Get her back?!
What do you mean, get her back?
My heart hammers in my chest as the little bubbles pop up as he’s typing back to me.
We’ll talk in person.
I growl, throwing my phone onto the coffee table. It’s the nature of working with Ardesia Ricci. He’s weary of any paper trail, even digital. He leaves his footprint nowhere the cops can make stick to him.
I close my eyes and see Sloane. She’s bound and gagged, men standing over her. I snarl and stand, putting my hands on my head as I pace through the room.
I have to stop this.
I don’t know her any more than I knew Ray. Sure, we were friends growing up, but we grew apart. No matter how I wanted to bring him into the light, he crept into the darkness. And even though I’ve recently stepped into the seedy parts of New York at night, I don’t think I’ve seen half of it.
When my phone goes off again, I nearly fall over myself to get to it. But it’s only an email that there’s a meeting for the budget next week for the church with the board.
I laugh at myself, lying on my back. “Get it together, Luca. Damn.”