“Find her!”
I slam the phone down, spin on my heel and run my hand through my hair.
Two days. It’s been two fucking days and no word. Not a single goddamned, mother-fucking word.
“Fuck!”
Soldiers rush in and out, Millie trying for the hundredth time to get me to eat. I’m not fucking hungry. I want her back. I want her back now.
My cell phone rings. It’s still in my hand and I look at the screen.
Marchese.
Fucking Marchese. Finally.
I answer.
“If you send any more of your men to any of my properties, I’m going to offer a fucking bonus to anyone who kills one,” he threatens.
“I will search every one of your properties until I find her.”
“Where the fuck is she? What the fuck did you do to her?” he barks.
“She’d be here if you hadn’t sent your men to fucking pick her up! We had an agreement.”
“When my daughter calls me in the middle of the night begging me to help her get away from you, you can bet your ass I’m going to send my men. What did you do to her? Did you hurt her? If you hurt her—”
“If your idiots hurt her—”
“Fuck!”
I suck in a breath. I fired every man on the roof that night. Because how did an inexperienced, unarmed girl—a fucking girl—get down to the cove and into a boat without them seeing?
Marchese called me at six that morning asking where his daughter was and when I told him what had happened—still not quite convinced it wasn’t his men on the bigger boat—he sounded panic-stricken.
But I’m more likely to believe he’s a good actor.
“If I find out you have her, Marchese—”
“I’m not scared of you, Sabbioni. You’d know if I had her.”
I exhale. As much as I hate having to work with my enemy, I can’t believe he wants his daughter hurt. Or worse. “We’ve searched the island. She’s not on it.”
“She’s not in Rome.”
“Someone knew she’d be out there. This was planned.”
“How would they know?”
“I don’t fucking know. That’s my question too and since you’re the only one she talked to before leaving, you can see why I have fucking questions. Now for the last fucking time, did you stage the kidnapping?”
“Get your head out of your—”
I disconnect the call. He’s not going to tell me anything new.
She must have taken her phone with her and I’m guessing it’s at the bottom of the sea now because the tracking device comes up empty. She fell in. I saw that. Saw it in the floodlights of the speedboat, an unmarked and unnamed boat, too far for me to see anyone’s face.
They pulled her out, though. They must have. I have to believe that.
If they went to that much trouble to get her, they don’t want her dead.
But I should have had a call by now. If it’s money they wanted, I should have had a call.
The door flies open, and I spin around to find Rafa rushing in.
“I have a lead!”
“What lead?”
“I think they took her to Pentedattilo.”
It takes me a moment to register the name. To place the location. “In Calabria?”
Rafa nods.
“It’s a fucking ghost town. Are you sure?”
“I’m not sure but it’s the first clue we have. I’ve sent men from Taormina. It’ll be faster for them to get there.”
I stop. “Your father’s men?” Francesco Catalano is my uncle. His wife, my aunt, was my mother’s sister.
“Your uncle’s men,” Rafa states. “I figured this was more important than your feud.”
I grit my teeth.
“Get the jet ready.”
“Being fueled as we speak. Let’s go.”
I nod, stopping in the study to pick up my revolver and tucking it into its shoulder holster.
“Where’s your weapon?” I ask Rafa.
“In the car. I’ll drive. I’m faster than your guys.”
“Take this,” I tell him, tossing him a pistol. “I’ll drive.”
We step outside where Rafa’s SUV is waiting. I notice the deep, long dent on the passenger side, the white paint marring the shiny black of the SUV.
“You think you’re in any condition to drive?” Rafa asks as I bypass his SUV and climb into the driver’s side of the Bugatti.
“My car is faster.” I tip my head toward his, noticing a similar dent and scrapes of paint on the driver’s side. “And judging from the damage on your vehicle, I’d say I’m the best choice. Are you coming or not?”
His brows furrow together but he climbs into the passenger seat and not a moment later, tires scrape gravel, sending up a dust storm as I speed to the gates, exit the property and make it to the small airstrip where my jet is housed in just under fifteen minutes.
The captain and small crew await, and we board. They must know this impromptu trip is not a social one. No one talks or even greets me apart from a nod from the captain as Rafa and I board. A few moments later, we’re in the air.
“What was your tip?” I finally ask.
“My father has friends in the area. Two nights ago, there was talk at a bar about a girl. One of his informants followed the men and noted unusual activity.”
“And he just decided to tell us now even though I’m guessing he knew of Gabriela’s disappearance two nights ago?”
“He wanted to be sure, Stefan.”
I’m not sure I believe it, but I know Rafa. His relationship with my uncle, Francesco, is not an easy one. And it drives me insane that he still seeks the old man’s approval.
“What was the unusual activity?”
“Two vans. Blacked out windows. Looked like they carried a bundle inside and they’ve had the building guarded ever since.”
“A bundle.” Christ. I suck in a tight breath.
“She’ll be okay, Stefan. If they wanted her dead, they wouldn’t have gone through the trouble they did.”
I nod.
It’s less than an hour before we’re climbing back out of the plane at Calabria’s regional airport where Rafa has arranged a car for us. Well, his father has.
I try to shove all thoughts of my uncle out of my mind. I need to focus.
Rafa and I ride in the same vehicle. It’s just over an hour as we approach Pentedattilo. I haven’t been here in over twenty years but seeing the cliff town brings back memories.
My mother had a special fondness for places like this. Abandoned. Old. So much in Italy is old I’m not sure why it fascinated her to the degree it did. Pentedattilo is a ghost town now, with few inhabitants. But the tourists still come piling in.
“Get around them,” I snap, sliding my window down to yell at them to get the fuck out of the way.
The driver honks his horn, and someone gives us the finger. I’m tempted to shoot it off.
Rafa puts a hand on my shoulder. “She’ll be okay, Stef. We’re almost there.”
I turn to look at him, see he’s got his phone out. He’s tracking the locations of the men his father sent.
I try to relax, forcing myself to breathe a deep breath in.
The tourists thin out as we climb deeper into the town. I’m grateful for the stifling heat keeping the throngs away.
The four SUVs behind us follow along.
“How many men does my uncle have up there?” I ask, trying to decide if it’s better to go on foot.
“A dozen sharpshooters.” He turns his phone toward me, and I see the red dots situated in buildings surrounding the one we suspect Gabriela is in.
“How many are guarding the property?”
“Three outside. There are six total from what they saw.”
I wonder if they thought we wouldn’t find the place or if they wanted us to find it when I hear that number.
“Keep driving or go on foot?” the driver asks me when we’re about two streets away.
I rub my jaw, the back of my neck. This is easier than it should be, which makes me question why. “Only six men?”
Rafa nods. “You want them to take out the guards outside?”
I shake my head. “No kill shots but incapacitate them if we need to. None of them will walk away anyway, but I have questions. Let them know we’re coming by cavalcade.”
He nods and sends the message to the soldiers surrounding the property as well as those in our vehicles. He waits to receive confirmation.
Once we have it, I gesture to the driver, taking my pistol out of its holster as we drive on.
I see the first two men when we turn the corner. They look almost weepy from the heat. They’re leaning against the wall of the building, each smoking a cigarette, each with a machine gun slung over his shoulder.
“Where’s the third?” Rafa asks.
I’m already scanning. “There. Taking a piss.” The man is the first to see us as he walks out of the bushes along the side of the road. A look of panic crosses his features and I watch as he fumbles with one hand on the fly of his jeans while trying to get his gun with the other.
Before he can get either done, he’s down.
The shooter must have a silencer on his weapon because although I don’t hear the shot, I know exactly when he hits his target in the right knee, dropping him instantly as he screams in agony.
“So much for a quiet entrance,” Rafa says.
“My entrance wasn’t intended to be quiet,” I say, opening the door as the SUV comes to a stop. I see another of the soldiers drop as a third raises his arms high in surrender.
Francesco Catalano’s men step out of their hiding places and Rafa flanks me as we walk toward the entrance.
“Stefan, you should wait until we have the soldiers contained.”
“I’m not afraid of these men. They have what’s mine.”
A machine gun unloads and we take cover as the shooter appears in the upstairs window. Bullets spray the SUVs. A moment later, the shooting becomes erratic as he’s hit by one of our men and his body flops over the windowsill, the glass of the window long gone.
The machine gun finally drops to the ground and the shooting ceases.
The door bursts open and a soldier rushes us, weapon ready. Another man appears at a different window upstairs.
They get a couple of rounds off before I hit one and one of our soldiers takes out another.
At my signal, the men spread out around the building.
“On your knees. Hands behind your head,” I yell to the one guard who surrendered like a pussy when we pulled up.
He obeys instantly, but his gun is still strapped to his shoulder.
I take it, sling it over mine. I lean down, grab him by his dusty hair and make him look at me.
“Any more men inside?”
“No!” he shakes his head frantically, looking at the dead one in the window.
“And the girl?”
He’s shaking, blubbering.
“The girl,” I ask, fisting his hair hard.
“Out back.”
I haul him to his feet. “Take me to her.” I shove him ahead of me into the building.
It’s dark, the only light streaming in from the few glassless windows. The interior is completely destroyed, the stairs half-ruined. Any furniture that’s still recognizable is rotting and the place stinks of piss and earth.
Better than the morgue, I tell myself.
I push him along. The house is deeper than it appears from the outside.
Rafa is behind me along with two other men. Our weapons are drawn, in case anyone lied and there are more armed men inside.
We walk through two more rooms, stepping over debris, the bones of some unidentifiable animal.
“If you’re fucking with me,” I start.
He shakes his head, moves through an opening that was once a door to a walled-in courtyard. The walls are high and in the center is a well and I’m going to fucking kill him when he goes directly to it. He shoves the piece of wood covering it aside.
I hear her before I see her. Her gasp echoes as sunlight pours into the deep well.
I look down.
Something moves and she screams, pulling her knees in and the terror in her voice makes every muscle in my body tighten.
“Gabriela,” I yell down, shoving the man aside and leaning the machine gun I took off of him against the well. A soldier takes hold of him and I peer down. The well has got to be sixteen, maybe eighteen feet deep.
Rafa is beside me in an instant. He looks down at her.
“Ah, fuck,” he mutters.
She’s huddled against a corner on her knees. Her hands are bound behind her and a hood covers her face. Something runs across her lap, a mouse maybe, and she screams again.
“I’m coming, Gabriela. I’m coming to get you.”
I don’t know if she hears but she’s trying to stand, to press her back into the wall.
“Here,” Rafa says and I look at him, at the rope ladder he’s unraveling into the well.
“We’re throwing a ladder down. Just be still, Gabriela. It’s me. It’s Stefan. I’m coming.”
I climb down into the cold, damp space. The rope is old, and I have to be careful.
When I get closer, she starts screaming again.
“It’s Stefan,” I tell her, taking hold of her shoulders, pulling her into me. Holding her tight.
The instant she knows it’s me, her body goes limp and she begins to sob, her hooded face buried against my chest.
I look around. I’m glad the well is at least dry. They didn’t have her sitting in filthy water.
I pull back to look at her. She’s covered in dirt and shivering and for as hot as it is up there, it’s fucking cold down here. Although I think without that covering at the top of the well, it would have been worse for her.
She’s cold, but she’s alive.
I have to hold her upright as I look around the small space, see the hole the mouse must have disappeared into, see the carcasses of bigger animals rotting nearby.
It’s probably better she had that hood over her head.
“Stefan?” she manages.
I hug her again, hear her whimpering softly beneath the hood.
“Are you hurt?”
She makes a sound and leans against me, her face, her torso, her weight fully into me. I want nothing more than to pull that hood off. To look into her eyes. To see for myself she’s not hurt. To tell her she’s safe.
But I need to get her out of here before I do that. She’ll panic if she sees what’s down here.
The rope ladder concerns me, though. She’s too weak to climb on her own but I’m not sure it will hold both of us.
First, I untie the rope at her wrists, rub them, eyeing the bruised, raw flesh, the marks on her through the ripped tatters of her clothes.
Her hands move to the hood, but I capture her wrists.
“Let me get you out of here first,” I say.
“I want it off.”
“Trust me, Gabriela.”
She hesitates, then nods. “Okay,” comes her small, trembling voice.
“We’re going to climb up,” I tell her, trying to keep my voice calm. I have to carry her up. I have no choice.
When I pull away, she cries out. “Don’t leave me!”
“Shh. It’s all right. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Stefan,” Rafa’s voice calls down when he realizes what I’m going to do. “The rope isn’t strong enough.”
“It has to be,” I say. I turn to Gabriela who can’t see me. “Wrap your legs around me,” I tell her, lifting her up.
She barely manages and I wonder if they’ve given her food or water in the last few days.
“Good. Now hold on tight and don’t let go no matter what,” I say, folding her arms around my neck and holding her to me with one arm wrapped around her.
I keep her like this for a moment before beginning the careful climb up. My progress is slow and the rope strains beneath our combined weight. When I’m about two-thirds of the way up, it tears beneath my foot and Gabriela screams, clinging so tight she’s almost choking me.
I stop moving. Hug her tight to me.
“It’s okay. We’re okay.”
I look down. I look up.
“A little farther and I can take her,” Rafa calls to me.
I move again, carefully but as quickly as I can, hearing the tattered rope strain with every move, and just as Rafa takes hold of Gabriela, the rung I’ve got my feet on rips away, the ladder dropping to the well floor, leaving me dangling.
She screams again, but Rafa hauls her up and I shift my grip to the edge of the well and hoist myself up and over.
I go to her, ignoring the burn of the rope on the palms of my hands. I take hold of her shoulders, pull her to me once more before taking the hood off. Relief floods through me at seeing her bruised, tear-stained face again.
She blinks, squints. It was black where she was, and the sunshine is bright.
I move her into the shade of the house. After a few moments, her eyes adjust and when they focus and she sees me, she breaks down into a sob and clings to me and I think how scared she must have been. How terrified.
And I know I’m going to kill these men. I’m going to kill them slowly.
“I want the men lined up outside. On their knees,” I tell Rafa, cupping the back of her head, keeping her close.
“On it.”
Without a word, I lift Gabriela in my arms and carry her out. One of our men opens the back door of the first SUV and I set her inside it.
“I need water,” I tell him.
He nods, goes to the trunk and returns with a bottle. I take it from him, open it. I haven’t taken my eyes off her once as I brush matted, dirty hair back from her face. I hold the bottle to her lips, and she takes a sip.
“Make sure none of those tourists get close,” I tell the soldier. “Station men on either side of the street.”
“Yes, sir.”
I pet the tangle of her hair, look at the dark spot on her temple. Notice the old one on her forehead and remember the damage to Rafa’s car.
But that’s a question for another time.
With my thumb, I wipe away a tear. I rub her skull, feeling for bumps, but I don’t find any. I note each bruise on her neck.
Where her top is ripped, I see the bruise on her side, and another near her belly button. I can make out the print of a shoe and rage boils inside me.
I touch each mark softly, making a mental note, shifting my gaze to her thighs, to the marks there, and down to her feet. She’s wearing one running shoe. The other foot is bare.
I meet her gaze again, tilt her face to mine. “Did they touch you?” I force myself to ask and I can see the effort it takes for her to shake her head.
Her gaze widens when it moves over my shoulder and I know the men are ready.
She pulls me to her when I draw back.
“I want to go. I want to get away from here,” she manages.
I nod. “We will. I need to take care of this first. Do you know which ones put the bruises on you?” The others will have a swifter death.
She glances over my shoulder and I follow her gaze when it focuses on one man in particular.
“Him?”
Before she looks back at me, I see her exchange a look with Rafa.
My muscles tense and my eyes narrow when I look back at my cousin and he quickly shifts his gaze.
“I don’t know,” Gabriela says. “When I woke up, I was in a van and they never took the hood off.”
“Did they give you any food? Water?”
“Water once.”
“Okay. You’ll wait down the hill for me.”
She shakes her head, wraps her hands desperately around my shoulders. She opens her mouth to protest.
“Shh,” I say, again cupping her face. I kiss the first tear that falls, taste the salt of it. Then kiss her forehead. “I don’t want you to see this.”
“I don’t want to be alone.”
“You’ll do as you’re told now. The driver and another soldier will be with you. You’re safe. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
She looks over at the kneeling men again. At the dead one still flopped out of the upstairs window. He got off easy.
“You’re going to hurt them?” she finally asks.
“Yeah. I am. For every mark on you, they’ll have twice that from me.” Before I throw them into that well to rot.
I leave that part out.
She studies me, those sad sea-foam eyes understanding I won’t let this go. Is that because she’s a Marchese? Would someone outside of our world understand?
“Okay,” she says.
I nod, but before I let her go, I need to say one more thing. “I didn’t hurt Alex, Gabriela. What happened to him, it wasn’t me. I swear it.”
She freezes and it’s like she just remembered. A moment later, her face crumples. I take her in my arms, and she sobs again, silent sobs that wrack her shoulders. I hold her, cup the back of her head. Feel her like this, feel her giving herself to me in her grief.
“Go on now, let’s get this done and go home, okay?” I whisper in her ear.
I feel her nod as I draw back. The driver and another of our men get into the car after I give them instructions and once the SUV is out of sight, I turn to the kneeling men awaiting their sentence.