My policy is never to answer such calls. But an instinct I can’t explain compels me. I accept the call, bringing the phone to my ear without a word.
For a moment, there is only static. Then, a sound that splinters my composure. A sob. And my name.
“Nico?”
Lea’s voice. Thin, ragged, and laced with terror. Every plan evaporates. My world narrows to that single, desperate sound.
“Lea,” I breathe, my voice rough. “Where are you?”
“Oh god, Nico, they took me,” she sobs, and the sound ignites my rage. I picture her, terrified and alone, and the image is unbearable.
“Who? Who have you, Lea?” I demand, my voice low and coiled, already knowing the answer.
“Moretti’s men,” she cries, the words tumbling out. “They came into the house… they dragged me out. I’m so scared, Nico.”
Her words align with the violated room around me. But even through my fury, the strategist in me latches onto one inconsistency.
“How are you calling me?” I ask, the question sharp, a test even now. “Where did you get a phone?”
I hear a gasping breath. “One of them… one of the guards,” she stammers. “He was careless. He was mocking me with it, showing me… pictures… When another man called him away, he dropped it. I grabbed it. Nico, I don’t have much time.”
I close my eyes. The explanation is plausible, reeking of the sloppy arrogance I expect from Moretti’s thugs. The thought of one of his men taunting her sends a fresh wave of possessive rage through me so visceral I can taste it. The story holds. It solidifies my purpose.
“Good girl,” I say, my praise a possessive growl. “Now talk to me. Where are you? Give me a location.”
“I don’t know… some kind of factory?” she says, her voice strained. “It’s huge and old… smells like rust and metal.” A pause, then a sharp intake of breath. “A sign… I saw a sign. Something about… Sterling Steel? At a place called… the Mill.”
I know it. A derelict industrial park on the Southeast Side. Abandoned. Isolated. A perfect kill box. Moretti has no imagination. He thinks this is a simple ambush. He doesn’t realize he has invited me to a battle on a field of my choosing.
“I’m on my way,” I state, my voice now devoid of all feeling but lethal intent. My mind is already mapping the area, calculating force deployment, entry points, sniper positions. “Destroy the phone. Now. Break it and get rid of the pieces. Do you understand?”
“Please hurry,” she says, a final, broken plea.
The line goes dead.
I lower the phone, turn from the wreckage of the room, my face a mask of cold fury, and stride to the door. I pull it open to findBlake waiting, his expression drawn and expectant. He sees the look on my face and straightens, ready for orders.
My voice is deadly quiet.
“Get the armory. We’re going to war.” I pause, my gaze locking onto him. “This is the second time my security has failed under your watch. Marco is dead. Lea is gone. There will not be a third. Fail me again, and you won’t be fired. You’ll be joining Domingo for your own… appointment.”
The threat is colder than any promise of death. Blake just nods, his face pale but his expression set. “Understood, sir.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
LEA
The phone slipsfrom my fingers, bouncing once on the concrete with a hollow crack. The plastic splinters; the battery pops free. My hands won’t stop shaking. The adrenaline that carried me through the call to Nico now recedes in a rushing wave, leaving my knees weak.
But beneath the tremors, my determination is a cold, hard thing in my belly. I made my choice the moment I saw the proof of my father’s murder. The grainy surveillance photo of him with Nico’s handwritten note:Eliminate. Make it look accidental.Six years of suspicion confirmed in a single, damning sentence.
Dante Moretti stands a few feet away, watching me with arms crossed. His face, usually animated with a dangerous charisma, is now all professional assessment. When our eyes meet, he gives me a gruff nod of approval.
“Good work,” he says, his voice resounding in the cavernous space of the abandoned steel mill. “Now for the staging.”
He gestures, and a pair of his men materialize from the shadows. They guide me to a rusty metal chair positioned in the center of the vast factory floor, directly beneath the single harsh pool of light.
“Sit,” one of them commands. I comply.
