Chapter 13
Luca
Blood dripped from Claudia's split lip as I circled her, moonlight filtering through the warehouse skylights casting long shadows across the concrete floor.
The waitress Ricci had planted sat bound to a metal chair in the center of the abandoned storage facility, her designer clothes incongruous against the decay surrounding her.
"I'll ask one more time," I said, voice carrying in the cavernous space. "What does Ricci know about my wife?"
Behind me, Marco and Dante flanked the only exit, weapons visible, faces impassive.
We'd spent weeks tracking Claudia's movements, documenting her communications, waiting for the perfect moment to spring our trap.
Tonight, she'd finally made the mistake we'd been waiting for—meeting with one of Ricci's lieutenants in a place she thought was secure.
She hadn't expected us to own the building. To have cameras embedded in every surface. To be three steps ahead.
"Go to hell, Romano." She spat blood onto the floor near my shoes. "Salvatore Ricci sends his regards."
I moved with sudden, vicious speed, gripping the back of her chair and tilting it backward until she teetered on the edge of falling, her eyes widening with genuine fear for the first time.
"You seem confused about your situation," I said, each word precise and cold. "This isn't a negotiation. This isn't an interrogation. This is me deciding whether you die quickly or slowly."
She swallowed hard, the movement visible in her throat. The pulse there fluttered rapidly, betraying the calm she attempted to project.
"Kill me, then," she said. "I'm dead anyway if I talk."
I let the chair drop back onto all four legs with a jarring thud that made her gasp. "Perhaps. But Ricci's death will be theoretical, distant. Mine would be immediate. Intimate." I leaned closer, my voice dropping to a near whisper. "And I'm very, very good at making it last."
Terror flickered across her face before she could mask it. Good. We were getting somewhere.
"You're bluffing," she tried, but her voice wavered. "You're not the monster they say. Not anymore. Not since the Moretti girl. She's made you soft."
The words hit their mark, a flash of rage surging through me that I carefully controlled, channeling it into calculated menace rather than blind fury.
"Test that theory," I suggested, pulling a knife from my jacket pocket and setting it on a nearby crate with deliberate precision. "See how soft I am when it comes to protecting what's mine."
Something in my expression must have convinced her. She broke, words tumbling out in a desperate rush.
"Ricci knows the marriage is fake! He has photos, evidence. Planted me right after you got out of prison, when you were rebuilding. He's been planning this for months, working with—" She stopped abruptly, as if catching herself.
"With who?"
She pressed her lips together, shaking her head.
I moved toward the knife, my intent clear.
"Her uncle!" she blurted. "Don Moretti's brother. They've been working together for nearly a year. Planning to take over both families. The Romano-Moretti alliance threw a wrench in the works, but then—" She hesitated again.
"Then what?"
"Then we discovered it wasn’t a love marriage. That you two hated each other. It was perfect—we could expose the lie, trigger a war between the families, and sweep in during the chaos."
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Angelo's security detail. I frowned, surprised they'd break protocol for a routine report during an active interrogation. Something cold slithered down my spine as I accepted the call.
"What?"
"Boss." The voice was tight with tension. "We have a situation. Your wife—she's gone."
The world stopped for one crystalline moment of perfect clarity.
"What do you mean, gone?" Each word emerged with deadly precision.
"She's not in the apartment. Security logs show the service tunnel door was accessed about ninety minutes ago."
Ninety minutes. She could be anywhere by now.
"Lock down the club," I ordered, my voice deadly calm despite the ice flooding my veins. "I'm on my way. Marco—finish here."
I turned back to Claudia, who was watching me with growing comprehension and something that might have been satisfaction.
"What did you do?" I demanded, crossing back to her in three strides. "Where did Ricci take her?"
"What? I don't—"
I grabbed the armrest of her chair, leaning in until we were inches apart. "My wife is missing. Disappeared from a secured location ninety minutes ago. You just told me Ricci and Giuseppe have been coordinating. So I'll ask once more: where did your people take my wife?"
Confusion flickered across Claudia's face—genuine confusion, not an act.
"We didn't take her. The plan was to wait until after the Moretti situation resolved.
Giuseppe wanted to move against you when you were weakest—after your wife's family fell.
Taking her now would unite the families against us, not divide them. "
The words hit like ice water.
She wasn't taken. She left.
"Terminal B," I said. "The text message Giuseppe sent her. The bait about her father."
Claudia's eyes widened slightly. "I don't know anything about—"
"She got the message. I told her it was a trap. I told her to stay put." Rage and fear warred in my chest. "And she went anyway."
"Then she's walking into exactly what Giuseppe wanted," Claudia said, and for once, I heard something like genuine concern. "He's been setting up Terminal B for days. Security bought off, escape routes blocked. If she goes there alone—"
I was already moving toward the door, phone in hand.
"Marco," I barked. "Terminal B. Full team. My wife just walked into Giuseppe's trap."
Every instinct screamed to put a bullet in Francesco's skull right there. But that would tip off Giuseppe before I found Sienna. Better to let the traitor think he's unsuspected. Let him report back that I'm scrambling, that I'm distracted, that my wife escaped and I'm in chaos.
Let him feed Giuseppe exactly what I want him to hear.
"Keep Francesco in the dark about Terminal B," I told Marco quietly as we moved toward the exit. "If he asks, tell him we're still searching. Let him think we have no idea where she went."
"You're going to use him," Marco said, understanding dawning.
"Once I have Sienna back, Francesco becomes our weapon. He'll lead us straight to Giuseppe." My voice was ice. "But first, I get my wife."
Marco nodded. "He won't suspect a thing."
Behind me, Claudia called out, desperation in her voice now. "Luca—if Giuseppe gets his hands on a Romano-Moretti heir, Ricci won't need our alliance anymore. He'll have leverage over both families. That baby is worth more than all our territories combined."
I didn't look back. "Then Giuseppe better pray I reach my wife before I reach him."
I sprinted to my car, the underground garage a blur. My phone was already at my ear as the engine roared to life, calling my security team. "Get me everything—traffic cameras, terminal security feeds, anything showing a woman matching Sienna's description in the last ninety minutes."
"Angelo, status on Terminal B surveillance."
"Pulling feeds now, boss. Traffic cameras show a woman matching Mrs. Romano's description entering Terminal B approximately forty minutes ago. But you should know—Francesco was asking about Mrs. Romano's location an hour ago. Said you'd requested a status update."
Francesco. Even knowing he was compromised, hearing it confirmed sent cold rage through my veins.
"Find him," I ordered. "Bring him to the club. I'll deal with him after I get my wife back."
Forty minutes. She could already be in Giuseppe's hands.
I was three blocks from the club when my phone rang. Unknown number.
I answered, hoping against hope it was Sienna.
Instead, Salvatore Ricci's smooth voice filled the line. "Luca. You know, it's amazing how easy it is to intercept communications these days. One of your wife's father's men tried to warn her about Giuseppe's plans. Such loyalty. Such... misplaced trust."
"If you touch her—"
"Now, now. Let's not resort to clichés. Besides, I don't have your wife. Yet. But I know someone who's meeting with her right now, filling her pretty head with all sorts of interesting truths."
My knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. "What do you want?"
"The same thing I've always wanted. Your territory. Your resources. Your power. The difference is, now I have leverage you care about."
The call ended, leaving me in ringing silence.
I floored the accelerator. The drive to Terminal B should have taken twenty minutes. I'd make it in twelve.
My hand moved unconsciously to my jacket pocket, my mother’s ring.
Never once had I imagined giving it to someone.
But now, with Sienna in danger because of me, because of the choice I'd forced on her, the weight of that small box felt different. Like possibility. Like hope I had no right to feel.
For the first time in my life, I felt something beyond anger, beyond tactical calculation, beyond the cold ruthlessness that had kept me alive.
I felt fear. Raw, primal terror.
Because somewhere out there, Sienna was walking into a trap.
And it wasn't just strategy or possession or duty driving me to find her. It was something I'd denied for too long, something I hadn't dared name even to myself.
My phone rang again. Marco.
"Her uncle's making his move," he said without preamble. "We intercepted a call. They're planning to eliminate both her and the baby tonight, then frame you for it."