26. Tristan
TRISTAN
T he warehouse where I tortured Enzo still reeks of blood and death as I stalk outside and leave my men to clean up the mess.
My hands are shaking—not from the violence, but from the rage coursing through my veins.
Sal played me. He fucking played me, and while I was here breaking Enzo's fingers and pulling out his teeth one by one, that bastard was taking my wife.
My pregnant wife.
The thought makes my vision go red around the edges. I've killed men for less than looking at Simone wrong, and now Sal has her. Has my child. The child I barely thought about until I saw that test on the counter and realized how much our lives were about to change.
How much I’d already wanted them to change, while I was pretending that all I wanted from Simone was her body and her inheritance.
Vitto steps outside next to me, his jaw set. “So Sal has her.” His voice is gravelly, flat. I know he doesn’t care much for Simone, personally—that’s been easy enough to pick up on—but he’ll do whatever I need to get her back. He’s loyal, and that’s what I need more than anything else right now.
“I need every man we have, every favor we're owed, every contact in this city.
I want Sal found, and I want him found now.
" My teeth grind together, and I try to think past the black rage that threatens to consume me. “We’re going after him, and we’re going to get her back.
And Vitto? When we find him, I want him alive.
What I'm going to do to that piece of shit is going to take time. "
Vitto nods, the threat of violence not fazing him in the slightest. "Understood. I'll start making calls."
I can’t stand still. Pacing, I send a message to Konstantin, to my father. The latter is the harder call to make—I can hear the disappointment in my father’s voice. The sound of a man who thinks his son has failed.
And maybe I have. I lost Simone. I lost our child. Maybe I was never strong enough to hold this territory.
Maybe she was right. I certainly don’t feel like I’ve earned it right now.
And regardless of what my father thinks, all I really care about right now is getting my wife back.
Before it’s too late to tell her how I feel.
The thought of Sal touching her, of him putting his hands on what's mine, makes me want to put my fist through something.
But I force myself to stay focused. Rage without direction is useless, and Simone needs me to be smart about this.
She needs me to be the calculating killer I was raised to be, not some lovesick fool who lets his emotions cloud his judgment.
Except that's exactly what I am now, isn't it?
A lovesick fool. The realization should terrify me, but instead, it just makes me more determined.
I've spent my entire life believing that love was weakness, that caring about someone gave them power over you.
My father drilled that into me from the time I was old enough to understand what power meant.
But as I listen to Vitto pass on the information he has, as we start to mobilize and make plans, I realize my father was wrong.
Love isn't weakness. It's fuel. It's the difference between killing someone because you have to and killing someone because they threatened the most important thing in your world.
Simone is the most important thing in my world.
Somewhere between our wedding night and this moment, between all our fights and the rare moments when she let her guard down, I fell in love with my wife.
Not just with her body, though God knows I can't get enough of that, but with her fire.
Her refusal to submit. The way she challenges me at every turn, makes me work for every inch of ground I gain with her.
The way she never made me feel like I could have her without earning her. I hated it when she said that, but now I look back and see how that just made me fall even more for her. How her self-respect, her refusal to be owned, made me feel more for her than I knew I was capable of feeling.
I've never had to work for a woman before.
They've always come easily, drawn to the power and danger I represent, the money and influence I have.
But Simone? Simone made me earn every smile, every soft look, every moment when she forgot for just a second to hate me for the circumstances that brought us together.
Every moan of pleasure and flickering instant where I connected with her, past all the barriers we both tried to put up.
And now some piece of shit who should have died with Giovanni Russo has her.
Vitto glances at his phone. “Shit, we have something.” He shows me a photo.
“Our hacker saw a black SUV matching a license plate on one of the cars the night he cornered Simone in that alley, driving into an old abandoned neighborhood. A subdivision that got wiped out by a hurricane and never rebuilt.”
Of course . It makes sense. Old, washed-out houses, a place where no one will notice what Sal’s up to. “Let’s get the men together and go. I’m not leaving her there a second longer than I have to. Full tactical gear, weapons, the lot. I’ll tell my father and Konstantin.”
"How many men?"
"All of them." I'm already striding toward the car, my heart a pounding drum in my chest. “This is going to be a fucking all-out fight. And we’re going to overwhelm him.”
I’m not taking a chance. Not with Simone. I think Vitto realizes that. “It’s going to take time to mobilize,” he says, sliding into the SUV next to me, and I clench my jaw.
“We move as fast as we can.”
It takes longer than I’d like to get three different crews of men assembled. Konstantin brings Damian and several of his men, and my father sent one of his trusted soldiers and five others. I have my team, and we outnumber Sal, but I’m not taking anything for granted.
Not until Simone is safe in my arms again. Maybe not even then.
I’ll never take her for granted again, that’s for certain.
My phone buzzes, and my blood turns to ice when I see a text from an unknown number.
Your wife is very beautiful, O'Malley. It would be a shame if something happened to her before you could say goodbye.
Attached is a photo that makes my vision go hazy with rage. Simone, handcuffed to a bed, naked and terrified. There's a man in the background I don't recognize, older, carrying a medical bag.
A doctor. Sal brought a fucking doctor.
My hands are shaking as I type back: Touch her and I'll skin you alive.
The response comes immediately: Too late for threats. But if you want to see her again, come alone to this address. You have one hour. Come alone.
An address comes through a moment later, one that matches our destination. Our source was right about that, at least. My mind races, calculating my decisions. It's obviously a trap. Sal wants me to come alone so he can orchestrate my ‘accident’.
I have no intention of playing into that plan. “We need to move in quietly,” I tell Vitto. “We go in, stay silent as long as we can, and then hit them hard and fast before they can do anything to Simone. We can’t wait any longer. We need to go now .”
I can’t get the image of the doctor out of my head. I don’t know how much time we have. I know moving fast could mean making mistakes, but I can’t risk it.
I won’t lose either of them. Not Simone or our child.
"Boss," Vitto says carefully, "if it's a trap?—"
"It's definitely a trap." I check my weapons one more time, making sure everything is secure. "But Sal thinks I’m stupid enough to follow his instructions. He's wrong. We’ll get to her, and we’ll take them down before they can hurt her."
We pile into several SUVs, engines roaring as we race through the empty streets toward the abandoned subdivision. The sun is rising, casting long shadows across the ruined buildings and broken pavement.
By the time it’s all the way up, I intend for Sal to be in my hands, and my wife safe.
As we drive, I can't stop thinking about that photo.
About the fear in Simone's eyes, fear that I know they must have threatened her with horrible things to draw out.
My wife is many things—stubborn, infuriating, beautiful beyond words— but she's not weak.
She'll fight Sal every step of the way, which means he'll hurt her to make her comply.
The SUVs park far enough down to avoid detection. We spill out of the cars into the greying light, moving as quickly and silently as this many men can as we head toward the address, fanning out. I see three men guarding the front of the house, and motion to two of our men up front.
They move out, sneaking in behind the patrol.
With quick movements—hands over mouths, knives as weapons—they silence the guards and drop their dead bodies carefully to the ground.
The rest of us move forward, past the backyard of another ruined house, and toward the fence at the back of our target.
In the overgrown grass to the left, I think I see a snake slither past, but I ignore it.
The only snake I’m interested in is the one keeping my wife captive.
As we move through the gate and toward the back door, I hear voices murmuring. And then, cutting through the dawn air like a knife, I hear Simone scream.
A woman’s scream, but I know it’s hers. The sound hits me like a physical blow, and suddenly I'm not thinking tactically anymore. I'm not the man who was raised to be a calculating killer. I'm just a man whose wife is in danger, and nothing else matters.
"Move," I snarl, and we're running toward the building.
The first guard never sees us coming. Vitto puts a bullet in his head before he can even reach for his weapon. The second guard manages to get his gun halfway out of its holster before I put two rounds in his chest.