Chapter 8 #4
Jace doesn't even look up. "Already on it, boss."
I pace. I can't stand still. My mind is racing, running through every scenario, every possibility. Lionetti is methodical. Calculated. He doesn't make moves like this unless he's already ten steps ahead. And that's what's killing me—we should've seen this coming. We should've been ready.
I pull up the CCTV feed from the Lionetti mansion. Nothing. Just maids moving through empty rooms. It's 2 a.m., and if they're not home by now, it's because they're dealing with shipments. Or worse.
"Fuck this," I mutter, grabbing my jacket. "I'm going to find Lionetti and squeeze the location out of him till his fucking head pops."
Jace is out of his chair in a second, blocking my path. "Boss. Stop."
"Get out of my way."
"No." His voice is calm, steady. "You know acting irrationally is going to fuck everything up. We will find them. But not like this."
I want to slam him into the wall. I want to tear this whole city apart until I find her. But he's right. He's always right.
I force myself to take a breath. To think.
"Five hours," I say quietly. "It's been five hours, Jace."
"I know."
I turn back to the desk, to the files we've been collecting on Lionetti for years. Folders. Pages. Books. Properties he owns under his name, his daughter's name, known associates. I've already sent men to every location we know about. Nothing.
This was calculated. He knew what he was doing.
And I didn't see it coming.
I should've seen it coming.
My mind spirals. What if I'd shown myself earlier? What if I'd approached her, told her the truth? What if I'd been the one following her, keeping an eye on her, instead of keeping my distance?
She'd be home right now. Safe. Warm by the fire. Having drinks with Inez. Laughing.
Instead, she's out there. Somewhere. And I don't know if she's hurt. If she's bleeding. If she's—
"Boss."
Jace's voice cuts through the noise in my head.
"I found something."
I'm at his side in two steps. "What?"
He pulls up a list of properties. "There's a few under Cesario Leavey. Lionetti's right-hand man." He points to the screen. "This one. It's in the city, a few miles from Lionetti's office. It's listed as a bar."
"A bar?"
"Yeah. But we've been by there. There's no active bar in that area."
I stare at the screen. And then I laugh. It's a bitter, humorless sound.
"That smart bastard."
Jace looks at me.
"After the last raid," I say, "Lionetti started moving assets. Putting businesses under his second-in-command's names. He knew we'd be watching him."
I grab my phone, dial. One of my guys picks up on the first ring.
"Get your asses over to Grove Street," I say. "There's a club there. I'm sending you the address. Stay close by and report back to me. Now."
I hang up. Grab my jacket again.
Jace steps in front of me. "Boss. Stop. Let me get eyes inside from here first."
"Jace—"
"Let me do my job."
I pause. Force myself to breathe. "Fine. But I'm heading over there. I have to make sure she's there."
Ten minutes later, my phone rings.
"Boss, there's foot traffic. Three guards outside in black suits. People going in dressed in masquerade clothes. Masks."
I freeze. "What?"
Pictures start coming through. Escalades. Porsches. Men and women, hand in hand with guards, all wearing elaborate masquerade outfits. Masks covering their faces.
"What the fuck?" I mutter.
"Jace," I say, turning to him. "Clean it up. Get me eyes inside."
He's already moving. His fingers fly across the keyboard, lines of code scrolling across the screen faster than I can follow. Jace is the best hacker I've ever seen—possibly the best in the world. He can crack into any system without leaving a trace. But even he's struggling.
"Stay put," I tell the guys on the ground.
Minutes pass. Each one feels like an hour.
Then: "Boss. I'm in."
The screens light up.
And what I see makes my blood run cold.
It's an underground auction.
A spinning stage in the center of the room. Behind it, separate two-way windows. Behind each window, a private buyer. They're all wearing masks. Each one has a button on their chair.
And on the stage—
Women. Children.
A man's voice comes through the speakers in each room, announcing them one by one. Describing them like they're livestock.
I feel sick.
I've seen a lot of shit in my life. I've taken down trafficking rings, busted operations, pulled people out of hell. But this—
This is worse.
"Behind one of the rooms, there's no camera," Jace says quietly. "That must be where Lionetti is. Taking offers."
I want to give the order. I want to tell my guys to bust through the door, burn the whole place down, save everyone inside.
But I can't.
Not yet.
If we go in too early, Lionetti will disappear. The buyers will scatter. And we'll lose any chance of taking them all down and finding Becca.
I have to be strategic.
"Jace," I say, my voice tight. "I need to see everyone they have trapped in there."
I grab my jacket, head for the door.
"I'm headed to the city," I tell him. "Send everything to my phone. Now."
Jace doesn't try to stop me this time.
I get in the car—still parked outside Becca's house—and connect to the line with Jace through the dashboard.
"Call everyone we have," I say. "From here to Philly. Get them to my office."
There's a beat of silence.
Then Jace's voice comes through, quieter than before.
"Boss. You're going to want to see this."
I glance at my phone.
A live feed comes through.
And my heart stops.
It's her.
Becca.
She's drugged. Barely coherent. Two men are holding her up, dragging her through a doorway behind the stage.
"Becca," I breathe.
My hands grip the wheel so hard my knuckles turn white.
I floor it.
The speedometer climbs—70, 80, 90. The roads blurs past me.
"JACE!" I shout into the line. "I need you to find a way to interrupt the fucking sales. Do something. Anything. Till I get there."
"On it, boss."
There's a pause.
Then, quieter: "Hey. We're going to save her, boss."
I don't answer.
Because all I can see is her face on that screen. Drugged. Helpless.
And all I can think is I should've been there.
I should've told her the truth. I should've stayed closer. I should've—
It doesn't matter now.
All that matters is getting to her.
Before it's too late.
BECCA
I wake up drowning.
Not in water. In fog. Thick, suffocating fog that wraps around my brain and squeezes until I can't tell which way is up.
My head is pounding. My stomach is churning. My heart is still lodged in my throat from whatever nightmare I just crawled out of—Coney Island, the zoo, the emo club, all of it bleeding together like a fever dream I can't shake.
I try to move.
Can't.
My wrists are tied. My ankles too. I'm sitting in a chair, and there's something over my head—fabric, heavy, scratchy. A hood.
Panic flares in my chest, sharp and immediate.
Where the fuck am I?
I force myself to breathe. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Don't spiral. Don't—
A sound cuts through the fog.
Whimpering.
Crying.
Soft, broken sounds that make my skin crawl.
I'm not alone.
I twist my head, trying to see through the fabric, but it's too thick. I can barely make out shapes—shadows moving in the dim light filtering through the weave.
I grit my teeth and start working the hood. It's tied loosely around my neck, and if I can just—
There.
I jerk my head forward, hard, and the hood slips. I shake it off the rest of the way, and it falls to my shoulders.
And I see.
Oh, God.
I see.
Men in suits. White masks. Guns.
They're standing around the room like sentries, silent and still, watching us.
Us.
There are others. Women. Girls. Boys.
Some are sitting on the floor, tied up like me. Some are slumped against the walls, barely conscious. One girl—she can't be older than thirteen—is curled into a ball, sobbing quietly into her knees.
My stomach turns.
What the fuck is this?
I force myself to look past the guards, past the victims, to the front of the room.
There's a long desk. Behind it, three figures.
Lionetti. Jenna. And—
No.
Izzy.
He's sitting there, slouched in his chair, eyes half-lidded and glassy. He looks high. Disconnected. Like he's not even here.
Jenna is leaning forward, arms crossed, watching the screens in front of them. CCTV feeds. Dozens of them. Some show rooms with chairs and masked buyers. Others show hallways, doors, the spinning stage I saw in my dream—
No. Not a dream.
A memory.
They dragged me through there. I remember now. The lights. The stage. The—
A voice crackles through speakers somewhere above us.
A woman's voice. Smooth. Professional.
"One hundred thousand."
A pause.
"One hundred fifty thousand."
Another pause.
"Two hundred thousand. Going once—"
My blood runs cold.
They're bidding.
On people.
On us.
I'm going to be sick.
I squeeze my eyes shut, force myself to breathe, but the nausea won't go away. My head is spinning. My heart is racing. I can still feel the drugs in my system, dragging me down, making everything feel slow and distant and wrong.
Focus, Becca. Focus.
I open my eyes and scan the room again.
Looking for Inez.
She has to be here. She has to—
My gaze lands on a woman slumped against the wall.
And I freeze.
No.
No, no, no.
It's not Inez.
It's Christina.
Christina from the tattoo shop.
The girl who came in with her husband David. The one I did the lion and Viking piece on. Just a week ago. Maybe less.
I can see the tattoo from here. It's on her thigh, still red around the edges, not fully healed yet.
What the fuck is she doing here?
My chest tightens. My breath comes faster.
Did I—
Did I get her into this?
Did they take her because of me?
Oh my God.
"Christina?" I whisper, leaning forward as far as the ropes will let me. "Christina, it's me. It's Becca."
She doesn't respond.
Her head lolls to the side, eyes unfocused, lips parted. She's drugged. Just like the rest of us.
"Christina, please," I try again, louder this time. "Look at me. It's Becca. From the shop. Remember?"
Nothing.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
David!
Her husband. The guy who held her hand the whole time I was working on her. The guy who looked at her like she was the only person in the world.
The one who has the matching tattoo.
Is he okay?
Did they hurt him?
Did they—
Stop. Stop spiraling.
I force my eyes open, force myself to breathe.
And then—
The screens behind Lionetti's desk start flickering.
One by one, they go black. Then static. Then they flash back on, but the feeds are scrambled now, jumping between cameras, glitching out.
Lionetti shoots to his feet.
"What the fuck is going on?" he barks, slamming his hand on the desk. "Get this shit under control!"
Jenna looks up, eyes wide. "Dad—"
"NOW!"
One of the guard’s steps forward, speaking into a radio. "We're on it, sir. Looks like a system malfunction—"
"I don't give a fuck what it looks like. FIX IT."
Izzy doesn't move. Doesn't even blink. He just stares at Jenna, his expression blank.
The guards start moving.
Fast.
They grab us—me, Christina, the others—and start dragging us toward a door at the back of the room.
"No—wait—" I try to twist away, but my legs won't cooperate. The drugs are still in my system, making everything sluggish and heavy.
They shove us through the door and into a smaller room. Concrete walls. No windows. A single flickering light overhead.
The door slams shut behind us.
The lock clicks.
And then—
Chaos.
The girls start crying. The boys are shouting. Someone is pounding on the door, screaming to be let out.
I force myself to move.
I crawl across the floor, wrists still tied, dragging myself toward Christina.
"Hey," I say, my voice hoarse. "Hey, it's okay. Everyone, listen to me. It's going to be okay."
No one listens.
I reach Christina and grab her face with my bound hands, forcing her to look at me.
"Christina. It's Becca. Look at me."
Her eyes flutter. Focus. Just barely.
"Becca?" she whispers.
"Yeah. Yeah, it's me. You're okay. I'm here."
"What—what's going on? Where are we? Where's David?"
Her voice cracks on his name, and my chest tightens.
"I don't know," I tell her. "But I'm going to figure it out. I promise. What do you remember? How did you get here?"
She blinks, trying to focus. "I—I was at a gas station. Getting coffee. For the road. And then—" She winces. "I felt something. In my neck. And then I woke up in a warehouse. That's it. I don't—Becca, what are you doing here? Why are you here?"
I swallow hard. "A bitch’s vendetta. But we're going to get out of here. Can you stand?"
"I—I think so."
I help her up, steadying her as she sways on her feet.
Then I turn to the others.
"Okay," I say, louder now. "Everyone, listen to me. I need you to calm down. I know you're scared. I'm scared too. But we're going to figure this out. I need to know your names. First and last. Can you do that for me?"
A few of them nod. One girl—maybe sixteen, with dark hair and tear-streaked cheeks—whispers, "Sophia. Sophia Martinez."
"Good. Thank you, Sophia. Who else?"
One by one, they tell me their names.
I try to remember them all. Try to keep my voice steady. Try to be the thing they need right now.
And then—
Gunshots.
Loud. Close.
Right outside the door.
Everyone freezes.
The room goes silent.
Another shot.
Then another.
Closer.
Shouting. The sound of boots pounding against concrete.
I look at Christina.
She looks at me.
And for the first time since I woke up in this nightmare—
I let myself hope.