ALESSIO #3
I help Beccs out of the Shelby, and we walk into the warehouse. The cages are still there, standing on the concrete floor like evidence the devil forgot to destroy.
Most of the blood has been cleaned up, but not all of it. Some stains will never come out. The bodies are gone. The screaming silence remains.
Beccs steps inside. Stiffens. Her hand slips from mine.
Slowly, she walks toward one of the cages.
I let her. Some things can't be rushed. She reaches out and places her fingers against the cold metal bars.
The gesture is small but telling of her inner turmoil.
For a moment she just stands there. Quiet. Staring.
I move beside her without saying anything. Close enough if she needs me. Far enough if she doesn't. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Rossi waiting near the entrance. Patient. Respectful. Giving her space.
Beccs swallows. Then looks up at me. Her eyes are shining with tears. "Do you think..." The words catch. She tries again. "Do you think they held Rachel in one of these?"
Jesus.
I wrap an arm around her shoulders. Pull her gently against my side. "Tesoro."
Her gaze searches mine. Desperate for certainty. For reassurance. For something I can't honestly give her. "It's possible."
I hate the words the second they leave my mouth. "But let's not torture ourselves with things we don't know."
She closes her eyes briefly. Takes a breath. Another. Then looks at me again. Still searching. Still needing confirmation.
I hold her gaze. "Speculation won't help us find her."
Slowly, she nods. "You're right."
No. I'm not. But right now, she needs something solid to stand on.
Even if it's a lie we're both telling ourselves.
Eventually she straightens. Wipes her face.
Puts the pieces back together. It's one of the things I admire most about her.
No matter how many times life knocks her down, she gets back up.
Every. Single. Time.
Then she turns toward Rossi. Businesslike. Focused. Ready. "Rossi. What do you have for us?"
His eyebrows rise slightly. I catch the look he shoots me. Amused. Surprised. Like he's watching a completely different woman than the one who was falling apart thirty seconds ago. Or maybe he's watching me. Watching the way I let her take control. I grin and give him a small nod. She needs this.
Rossi immediately straightens. "This way, ma'am."
The little shit.
Beccs pretends not to notice. I absolutely do. He leads us deeper into the warehouse. Past stacked crates. Past empty holding areas. Past enough evidence to bury half the people involved for multiple lifetimes. Then he opens a door. And everything changes.
The office beyond doesn't belong in this building. At all. It looks like somebody cut a piece out of a luxury downtown high-rise and dropped it in the middle of a trafficking operation. Dark hardwood floors. Leather furniture. Marble countertops. Expensive artwork. Money. Lots and lots of money.
The kind of money built on human misery. My stomach turns. Then I notice the computers. An entire wall of them. Dozens of screens. All running simultaneously with live feeds of video calls in encrypted chat rooms.
Auction interfaces.
Financial ledgers.
My pulse immediately spikes. "What the fuck..."
Rossi doesn't answer. Because he's staring at the same thing I am.
Slowly, my head turns towards the opposite corner. At first, I don't understand what I'm looking at. Then the pieces click together. Lighting rigs. Professional cameras. Backdrops. Makeup stations. Wardrobes. Jesus Christ.
It's a fucking photo studio.
The realization slams into me. They weren't just holding women here. They were cataloging them. Marketing them. Selling them. Like merchandise. Like livestock. Like products.
I look back toward the monitors.
And suddenly the images make sense. Women. Girls. Men. Boys. All ages, all ethnicities, standing on platforms. Turning in circles. Displaying themselves. Some look terrified. Some look defeated. Some look completely numb. Auction numbers scroll beside their pictures. Bids. Prices. Comments.
My vision narrows. This is a fucking atrocity. I've spent my entire life around criminals. Drug dealers. Murderers. Extortionists.
I've ordered deaths. Caused deaths. Seen enough violence to fill ten lifetimes. But this? This is different. This is industrialized evil. A business model built on destroying people. Beside me, Beccs goes completely still.
"Oh, God." The words barely make it past her lips. Her eyes are locked on the monitors. On the scrolling bids. On the terrified women. "This is happening right now?"
I nod. "I'm afraid so."
Tears gather in her eyes. Not falling. Fighting. Always fighting. "Can we stop it?"
Her voice breaks.
"I don't know," I answer truthfully. I glance toward Rossi. The expression on his face is murder. Pure murder. Good. Mine probably looks the same. "Get Valentina."
Rossi immediately reaches for his phone.
Beccs looks at me. "Valentina?"
"Our computer genius."
"Genius?"
I snort. "That's putting it mildly."
"She'll find them?"
"If they're using a toaster connected to the internet, she'll find them."
For the first time since entering the warehouse, a flicker of hope appears in Beccs' eyes. I pull her against my side. "We'll find them, mia piccola diavoletta."
The nickname slips out automatically. "We'll find every single one of them."
I kiss the top of her head. "And when we do..." My gaze returns to the monitors. "They're going to wish we hadn't."
A voice suddenly fills the room. Smooth. Professional. The sound cuts through the warehouse office. Every head turns toward the screens. The audio has been muted until now. Not anymore. A woman appears. Elegant. Beautiful. Smiling directly into the camera. The room disappears. My heart stops.
No.
No.
That's impossible. The woman smiles. And I find myself staring into my own eyes. Glacier blue. Dark ring around the iris. The same eyes that stare back at me from the mirror every morning. But the most chilling part is that one of her earlobes is missing, exactly the way Audra described.
Eighteen years. Eighteen fucking years. The room tilts. I don't hear Beccs move. Don't hear Rossi swear. Don't hear anything. Because she's right there.
Alive. Breathing. Smiling. Like she didn't leave her son behind.
Like she hasn’t spent nearly two decades pretending I don’t exist. A hand finds mine. Beccs.
Holding on. Grounding me. "Alessio..."
I can't look away.
"Is that..."
My jaw locks.
I nod once. The motion feels mechanical. "That's Luciana Vitali, my mother."
The woman on the screen smiles wider. "Good evening, gentlemen."
The accent is familiar. Painfully familiar. "Tonight, we present something very special."
My pulse pounds in my ears. "Many of you have been waiting for her return."
The woman gestures elegantly toward another camera. "Back on the market after years of private ownership..." The smile widens. "La Principessa Nera."
The Black Princess. A young woman steps into frame. Terrified. Beautiful. Human. Being sold like property. Something inside me snaps. Not because of the girl. Not even because of the auction. Because my mother is standing there.
Running it. Facilitating it. Smiling through it. Even after learning she was alive, I've imagined explanations. Reasons. Excuses. Maybe she'd been trapped. Maybe she'd been forced. Maybe she'd wanted to come back.
Maybe—
No.
There she is. The truth being broadcast in high definition. The room falls silent. Nobody moves. Nobody breathes.
I point at the screen. My voice comes out deadly calm. The kind of calm that terrifies people. "Find her."
Rossi doesn't hesitate. Already moving. Already dialing. "On it."
I continue staring at the woman who abandoned me. At the woman who chose this. Who chose them. Who chose everything except me. Eighteen years of questions coalesce into a single answer.
Rage.
Pure.
White-hot.
Absolute. "I'm going to fucking shred her."
And I mean every word.