Chapter 46
DANTE
I’m just wrapping up my conversation with an upstate family when Chelsea rushes up to me.
She holds Biscotti with his leash.
I immediately end my call.
“Mr. Ricci, I’m sorry to interrupt.” She pauses, glancing around. “Gina went with a woman from a magazine to take some photos, but that was over half an hour ago. She’s not answering my texts.”
I look down at the dog. Then at her. “Which direction did she go?”
“Toward the far end of the hall. I lost sight of them after that.”
I nod. “Stay here. Text me if she contacts you.” I give her my card. “Keep Biscotti close.”
I move away from the crowd and pull out my phone to track Gina’s photograph trail.
The last photograph she took was from the catacombs.
The tracker shows her last ping underground, directly beneath the east wing of the building.
I know that block.
I pull up Lorenzo’s number. “Where are you?” I ask when he answers.
“Parking,” he says.
“Don’t come in the front door. Meet me at the wine shop down the street instead. I’ll be at the side entrance in four minutes.”
A pause. “Why? What’s happened?”
“Be ready for action,” is all I say as I end the call.
I find the driver Marco outside at the car. A good man. New, but my gut says he can be trusted.
When Lorenzo arrives, I tell them both that Gina’s gone missing, what the tracker reveals, and how we’re going to get her back.
“We’re going in quiet,” I tell them. “Follow my lead.”
The shop’s still open, the lights warm behind the glass. A man in jeans stacks bottles near the front window. Aaron, my favorite clerk even though we mostly communicate by email.
“Mr. Ricci,” he says with a smile. Then he spots the hard-muscled Marco and Lorenzo with his gun out behind me.
His smile recalibrates.
“We need the old access door.”
He nods and leads us through the shop. We walk past wooden shelves and cardboard boxes. Then through a narrow storage room that smells of cork and cold stone.
I recognize the ancient, low-framed, wooden door. From experience, I know it takes only three strong kicks to open.
In seconds, it’s done.
The passage beyond is barely wide enough for a man’s shoulders. Stone floor. Marco angles his phone down for light. We move quickly without speaking.
Forty meters later, the passage opens up.
The catacombs spread out into a vaulted chamber ahead.
Candlelight flickers from somewhere to the left. Then I hear ghost-like voices, amplified and directionless.
I give the signal we agreed upon.
Marco peels left. I go straight.
Lorenzo stays at the passage entrance.
I can hear Silvio’s voice now, measured. Unhurried.
I move toward it and see Gina, seated, wrists bound, her dress incongruous against the stone.
Silvio stands with his back partially to me, still talking.
His two men are positioned badly.
They likely expected me to come down the grand staircase like some kind of amateur, guns blazing.
Instead, I’ve emerged from a centuries-old tunnel that connects to a wine shop in the opposite direction.
Lorenzo’s gun flashes in the darkness, the first man’s body crumpling before I even register the sound.
The second guard pivots, his weapon half-raised. I don’t hesitate.
I squeeze the trigger twice, and he drops like a puppet with cut strings. His gun clatters against the stone floor.
The gunshots bounce off every surface of the catacomb, multiplying into a deafening roar.
Silvio turns.
For a moment we simply look at each other, nephew and uncle. Ten feet of cold stone between us.
His expression settles into a twisted smirk.
“You think that killing your own blood makes you a Don? You’re soft, Dante. Soft.”
If he hadn’t tied Gina up like an animal, I might have given him a second chance.
He is my uncle, after all. But now… No.
He’s dead before he can finish whatever he was going to say.
I rush toward Gina, crouching as I work at the binding on her wrists. My hands are steady. Hers tremble.
I hold them for a moment and look into her face.
She doesn’t speak.
Neither do I.
“Lorenzo,” I call, jerking my head toward the dead. “You and Marco know what to do.”
“Got it, boss.”
I take Gina’s hand, and we walk back through the passage toward the light.