65. No One’s Gonna Love You
NO ONE’S GONNA LOVE YOU
Igo over the entire sedan a second time, simply because there’s nothing else for me to do. And it’s a quick process—the car is spotless. Brand-new with stolen plates. The only indication Carina was here was found when it was first searched. Her golden necklace was in one corner of the trunk.
There’s no blood and plenty of fingerprints. The men didn’t seem to care about camouflaging their identities, which isn’t reassuring.
On the drive back to the Caruso villa, my phone begins buzzing. I check the caller immediately, disappointed when it’s Maksim, not Misha.
I don’t answer. I don’t have time to deal with anything else that might be happening. He’ll have to consult Igor or Aleksandr.
Maksim calls a second time less than a minute later.
I ignore it again, watching the road ahead as Enzo navigates through the busy streets. Trying to think of some clue I might have missed, any way to track her I haven’t thought of. Her phone was found at the restaurant and—
More buzzing.
After the fourth straight call, I answer. I can’t shut my phone off without blocking Misha, too, which Maksim’s repeated attempts are already doing.
“I can’t talk right now,” I bark without waiting for my younger brother to say anything.
“Did you find her?”
How—
Misha, I realize. I didn’t tell him not to mention Carina’s abduction to anyone, but I’m annoyed he took the time to update Maksim when there are far more important things he should be doing—like trying to locate the device.
“No,” I clip.
“What can I do?”
“Nothing. I’m—we’re doing everything we can.” My fingers tighten around the phone. “It was well planned. There aren’t a lot of leads.”
A rare pause on my brother’s end. Maksim usually has a reply for everything. Not to mention, it’s a weekend, and he must be at Serebryanovo if he spoke to Misha.
“She’s strong, Lev. She’ll be fine.”
Those two sentences pummel me. The bizarre reversal of my little brother being the mature one.
The reference to what Carina might be having to survive right now—possibilities I can’t allow myself to consider while remaining functional.
The realization my brother called because of what’s happening, not because of poor timing.
“I’ll let you know if there’s news,” I say, then hang up.
I’m hardly holding it together as it is. I don’t have it in me to reassure Maksim, and nothing he can say will make me feel better. Finding Carina is the only thing that will accomplish that.
Enzo looks curious about the conversation, but he doesn’t ask, seeming to trust I’d share anything relevant.
“Some of Nico’s dealers hang around here,” he tells me, nodding to a building up ahead on the right that advertises a club. “I know a few guys who have bought from them. We could see if they know anything.”
I nod. “Pull in.”
The parking lot is empty. I let Enzo take the lead as we enter the darkened building. He has a rapid exchange with the beefy man who appears to be one of the club’s bouncers. Then we head back outside and around to the alley. Two men are astride motorcycles, smoking.
Enzo speaks first, asking if they’re selling.
One ignores him.
The other shakes his head, saying to come back later.
“Ask where they pick up Morello shipments,” I instruct Enzo.
The kid who stayed silent smirks. “Nico isn’t hiring—”
Any patience implodes. I draw and fire, cutting him off mid-sentence.
The other guy is frozen, staring at where his friend’s head just was. A wet spot appears in the crotch of his jeans, steadily spreading. His gaze jerks to mine, eyes wide and terrified. All I can think about is that same expression on Carina’s face.
Frantic Italian pulls me out of that nightmare and back to the present.
“He doesn’t speak English,” Enzo translates. “He’s sharing addresses.”
I watch Enzo type them into his phone while the courier cowers on his motorcycle. I contemplate killing him once he stops talking, which must be obvious because the guy begins shaking. Then come up with a better idea.
“Have him tell his boss I’m looking for him.” I holster my gun and walk away while Enzo relays the message in Italian.
Morello already knows we’re hunting for him. But a phone call from a scared kid will annoy him. He won’t like that we tracked some of his associates down. Anything that rattles or annoys him could make him sloppier. Could help us.
“How many addresses are there?” I ask Enzo once he joins me by the car.
He checks his phone. “Six. But”—he hesitates—“Morello was so careful with the cars … I doubt he took her somewhere a low-level dealer knows about.”
I pull my lighter out of my pocket. “He wouldn’t,” I agree. “Send men to five of the addresses. Burn whatever’s there to the ground.”
“That’s going to seriously piss Morello off.” A smile appears, then quickly fades. “He could take it out on her.”
I flip the cap off and flick the flame to life, allowing it to singe my thumb for a few seconds.
The pain centers me. “He doesn’t have endless resources.
He might send men from wherever he’s hiding out.
We can backtrack any vehicles that show up via cameras and try to triangulate a region to start searching. ”
Enzo makes the call while we drive to one of the addresses.
I check my own phone obsessively, but Misha doesn’t call. I hope that means he’s working on cracking the encryption, not that he’s avoiding letting me know he failed. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it was related to Carina.
The address we arrive at is an abandoned warehouse. It’s empty, out in the middle of nowhere, and Morello likely won’t realize—or care—it’s been burned down.
We set it ablaze anyway, watching black smoke choke the sky and waiting to see if anyone besides local firefighters show up. No one does—another dead end.
It’s dark when we return to the villa. I watch footage from the streets around the restaurant until well after midnight.
A new day. A different day from when Carina was taken, which feels like a spectacular failure.
I attempt to get some sleep since there’s nothing else to do, but my brain won’t shut off. It spins in answerless circles, trying to review anything I’ve overlooked. I’ve never been so helpless. It’s a paralyzing sensation, as though I’d lost a limb. Confidence that’s normally there is absent.
Once the sun comes up, I go for a run, trying to expel excess energy that’s mainly stores of adrenaline. I shower and pace by the pool, ignoring the anxious glances aimed my way by Salvatore’s men and staff.
Misha finally calls around noon. “I just landed in Chicago,” he tells me over the commotion of voices and honks in the background.
“As far as I can tell, all the data being collected by the device is transmitted to the hospital that treated the patient. If I can access their local network, I should be able to tell where the device is located. It’s not available through the cloud to protect privacy—well, to prevent exactly what I was trying to do. ”
I don’t care about the details. “How long will it take?”
“Hard to say. I’m en route to Chicago General. I should be able to hack from any device on the network, but it’ll take a minute for me to find one and get set up. An hour? Maybe two?”
“Okay. Keep me updated.”
“Will do, boss.”
The title catches me off guard. We’re not on an assignment where I’m in charge. I’m not his pakhan. Misha is risking a lot. I can’t stomach telling him to think through this decision, in case he changes his course, but I can promise, “I’ll make sure Igor knows this was all my request.”
A pause.
Then, “Igor was the one who put me on a plane to Chicago.”