Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Vittoria
Pain.
That's the first thing I feel. Sharp, throbbing pain radiating from the back of my skull down through my neck.
I try to open my eyes but my eyelids feel like lead. Heavy. Wrong.
Where—
The world lurches. My stomach rolls.
Moving. I'm moving.
The surface beneath me is hard. Cold. Metal maybe. Vibrating with the rhythm of—
A vehicle. I'm in a vehicle.
My eyes crack open. Darkness. Not complete. Dim light filtering through from somewhere. Enough to see shapes. Shadows.
A van. I'm in the back of a van.
Why—
Memory hits like a fist.
The club. Nexus. Dmitri putting the ring on my finger. The toast. Then—
Gunfire.
Screaming.
Dmitri pushing me down, his body covering mine.
The gun. I reached for a gun on the floor and then—
Hands. Someone grabbed me. Dragged me. A man's voice in my ear, breath hot against my skin. The barrel of a gun pressed to my temple.
Dmitri's face. The way he looked at me. The way he tried to—
The alley. Someone shot my captor. I tried to run but they were waiting. Two men in tactical gear. One of them hit me. I felt his fist connect with my face, felt myself falling, and then—
Nothing.
Until now.
I blink, trying to focus. My vision swims. The pain in my head intensifies, sharp enough to make me nauseous.
Don't throw up. Don't make noise.
I force myself to breathe slowly through my nose. In. Out. In. Out.
The van hits a bump. My body slides across the floor, shoulder slamming into something hard. I bite down on my tongue to keep from crying out. Taste blood.
How long have I been unconscious? Minutes? Hours?
I try to move my hands. They're behind my back. Zip ties cutting into my wrists. Tight enough that my fingers are starting to tingle.
My ankles. Also bound.
Panic flares hot in my chest. I shove it down. Force it away.
Think. I need to think.
The van is still moving. I can hear the engine, feel the vibration through the floor. Hear voices from the front. Men talking. I can't make out words over the road noise.
Still moving means they haven't reached wherever they're taking me.
Still moving means I have time.
Not much. But some.
I shift carefully, testing my bonds. The zip ties don't give. Too tight. Cut too deep into my skin.
My dress. The hot pink silk is bunched around my thighs, hiked up from being dragged. I can feel the cool air on my legs.
My shoes.
The thought hits like lightning.
My shoes.
Lorenzo's voice in my head from six months ago: "You're sure these will work?"
"They'll work. Trust me."
I'd embedded the tracking devices in all their shoes. Made them promise to wear them. Made them promise to activate them if anything ever happened.
But I never made one for myself.
Except—
My heart pounds so hard I can feel it in my throat.
Except I did. I made one for myself too. Just in case. Embedded it in my favorite pair of heels. The black ones I wear to everything important.
The ones I'm wearing right now.
I need to reach my shoe.
The van turns sharply. I slide again, this time toward the back doors. My shoulder hits metal. Pain shoots down my arm but I use the momentum, rolling onto my side.
My hands are behind my back. But if I can just—
I curl my body, bringing my knees up toward my chest. The zip ties on my ankles dig in but I ignore it. Ignore the pain. Ignore everything except the need to reach my feet.
My fingers brush fabric. The hem of my dress.
Not far enough.
I strain harder, arching my back, pushing my bound hands down as far as they'll go. My shoulders scream in protest. The zip ties cut deeper into my wrists. I feel something warm and wet—blood probably—but I don't stop.
My fingertips touch leather.
The heel of my shoe.
Almost.
The van hits another bump. I lose my grip, body sliding forward again.
No. No, no, no.
I curl up again, faster this time. Desperate. My fingers find the shoe, trace the edge of the heel, searching for—
There.
The small indentation. Barely noticeable unless you know it's there. I press down hard with my thumb.
Click.
The sound is so quiet I almost miss it under the engine noise. But I feel it. Feel the tiny mechanism engage.
The tracker is active.
Relief floods through me so intense I almost sob. But I swallow it down. Can't make noise. Can't let them know I'm awake.
The van starts to slow.
My stomach drops.
No. Not yet. I need more time. Need them to keep moving so the tracker can—
The van stops.
The engine cuts off.
Silence. Except for my breathing. Too loud. Too fast.
I force myself to go limp. Close my eyes. Let my body sag against the floor like I'm still unconscious.
Footsteps. Heavy boots on pavement. Coming closer.
The back doors of the van open. Light floods in, bright enough to see through my closed eyelids.
"She still out?" A man's voice. Rough. American accent.
"Hit her pretty hard." Another voice. Younger. "Might've given her a concussion."
Laughter. Cold. Cruel.
Hands grab my ankles. Start to drag me toward the open doors.
I keep my body loose. Keep my breathing steady. Keep my eyes closed.
The tracker is active. It's sending a signal.
Dmitri will find me.
He has to find me.
Dmitri
The laptop screen glows in the darkness of my office. I stare at it, willing the green dot to appear.
Nothing.
My hands curl into fists on the desk. Blood from the cut on my knuckles smears across the polished wood. I don't remember getting cut. Don't remember anything except Vittoria being dragged away and the door that wouldn't fucking open.
"Come on, solnyshko," I whisper to the empty room. "Activate it. Please."
The door opens. I don't look up. Can't tear my eyes from the screen.
"Lorenzo's handling the police." Pietro's voice. Flat. Cold. "Telling them it was a robbery gone wrong."
"They'll never believe that."
"They don't have to believe it. They just have to accept it."
Footsteps cross the room. Pietro stops beside my desk. I feel his eyes on me but I keep staring at the screen.
I can't finish the thought.
"She's smart," Pietro says. "She'll activate it, if she can."
"If she's conscious." The words taste like ash. "If they didn't—"
"Don't."
I look up at him then. Pietro Sartori stands beside my desk, blood splattered across his white shirt, a cut above his left eye. His face is carved from stone. No emotion. No weakness.
But his hands shake.
Just slightly. Barely noticeable. But I see it.
"She is still alive because you pushed her down." Pietro's jaw works. "Sophia took a bullet to the shoulder. Aleksander was grazed across the ribs. Everyone else is bruised, cut, terrified. But alive."
Everyone except Vittoria.
The thought sits in my chest like a blade.
"I should have—"
"Should have what?" Pietro's voice cuts like a whip. "You did everything right. We need to find who planned this."
"Rogers."
"Maybe."
I look at him sharply. "You doubt it?"
"Rogers is an entitled prick," Pietro says slowly. "But this?" He gestures toward the window. "This takes planning. Resources. Men willing to die. Those shooters knew they weren't walking out of here."
"Suicide mission."
"Exactly." Pietro turns back to me. "Rogers doesn't have that kind of loyalty. His people work for money, not devotion."
He's right. I know he's right. But Rogers is the only one who makes sense.
"Then who?"
"I don't know." Pietro's hands curl into fists. "But when we find them—"
The door slams open.
Igor stumbles in, blood streaming down the side of his face. His left ear is mangled, torn. More blood soaks through his shirt from a head wound.
"Blyad!" I'm on my feet, moving toward him.
Igor waves me off. "I'm fine. Bullet grazed my head. Made me fall. Hit the floor hard." He touches his ear, winces. "Bleeding like a stuck pig but I'll live."
"Sit down before you pass out."
"The cops left, Yuri called to our man and they left. They grabbed 3 men just for show." Igor says.
I guide him to the leather chair by the window. He collapses into it, head falling back against the cushion. Blood continues to stream from his ear.
"How many men do we have?" I ask Pietro.
"Now? Twenty of mine. Fifteen of yours." Pietro's voice is clinical. Detached. "We've got eight of the shooters alive. The rest are dead."
"Good." I move back to my desk. The laptop screen still doesn't show her. "We need to get them to warehouses. All of them. I want them separated. I want them scared."
"Already done." Pietro pulls out his phone. "Nico's overseeing transport now. Lorenzo's keeping the police occupied with statements and bribes."
"Your mother?"
"Safe. Dante got her and Amanda out through the kitchen. They're at the compound with Nora and Kristen."
I nod. Try to focus. Try to think like a pakhan instead of a man whose world just got ripped away.
The laptop chimes.
I freeze.
Pietro stops mid-sentence.
Igor sits up so fast he nearly falls out of the chair.
On the screen, a green dot appears.
Moving.
"There," I breathe. "There she is."
Pietro is beside me in two strides. We both stare at the screen.
The green dot moves steadily. Not fast. Vehicle speed. Heading south on—
"Kedzie," Pietro says. "They're taking her south on Kedzie."
"That's our territory," Igor says from the chair. "Why would they—"
"Doesn't matter." I'm already moving, grabbing my jacket from the back of the chair. "We follow that dot. We get her back."
"Wait." Pietro grabs my arm. "You can't just—"
"Watch me."
"Dmitri." His grip tightens. "Think. They're expecting pursuit. This could be a trap. They could be leading us exactly where they want us."
"I don't care."
"Well I do." Pietro's voice goes hard. "That's my sister. My blood. And I'm not letting you run into an ambush because you're too emotional to think straight."
I round on him. "Emotional? They took her. They took Vittoria."
I can't finish. Can't say the word.
My fiancée. My future. My everything.
Pietro's expression softens. Just slightly. "I know. But we do this smart. We track them. We gather our men. We plan. And then we get her back."
"Every second we wait—"
"Is a second we use to prepare." Pietro releases my arm. "The tracker is active. We know where she is. We can follow her without being seen. But if we rush in blind, we risk her life."
He's right. I know he's right.
But every instinct I have screams at me to move. To find her. To kill everyone who touched her.
"Grab the laptop and follow me downstairs." Pietro moves toward the door. "We need to use our brains for this."
I glance back at the laptop. The green dot continues moving south. Steady. Constant.
Still alive.
"Dmitri." Pietro's voice cuts through my focus. "Five minutes. That's all I'm asking. Five minutes to do this the smart way instead of the stupid way."
"Fine." I grab the laptop, tucking it under my arm. "But we start now. Not in five minutes. Not in three. Now."
"Agreed."
We move into the hallway. Igor struggles to his feet, one hand pressed against his mangled ear.
"Stay here," I tell him. "Get that looked at."
"Fuck that." Igor's voice is rough. Blood continues streaming down his neck. "You need every man you have."
"I need you alive and functional." I point to the chair. "Call the doctor. That's an order."
Igor's mouth opens. Closes. He drops back into the chair with a curse.
Pietro and I head for the stairs. The main floor of Nexus looks like a war zone. Broken glass crunches under our feet. Tables overturned. Chairs splintered. Blood smeared across the floor in dark streaks.