“Are you sure about that? Daniella doesn’t have anyone close to her, especially not men. She uses them then tosses them away.”
Shut up, woman, you’re going to get me killed.
Vincenzo backs up, his brows lowered in confusion. “I saw her defend him on the video–”
The Duke scoffs. “Yeah, she’s an FBI agent, it’s kind of her thing.” Vincenzo sucks in a sharp breath, then turns my way, his eyes filled with paranoia and a special kind of crazy. “Then again, maybe he is someone special. I haven’t seen Daniella in weeks. But my stance stays the same—if either of us is important to her, you lose the upper hand if you kill us now.”
He grumbles under his breath, then unclips the chain holding her to the bed. Hauling her up, he grabs her chin and tilts it up. “If I find out you're playing one of your games with me, no one will ever find your body.”
She nods and he leads her away, coming back a few minutes later. Pulling a gun out of his waistband, he holds it to my head. “I don’t know if you’re important or not. For now, I’ll keep you alive on the off chance you become useful. The second you’re not, you’re dead.”
I nod in understanding, and he unclips my chain, keeping the gun pressed tightly to my head as he leads me down a long hallway. He has no idea how easily I could overpower him right now. It would be like taking candy from a baby. But I need to think logically, not with the primal part of me that’s screaming to get back to Dutch. I don’t know where we are, what men Vincenzo has, or what weapons they’re armed with. And it’s only me and The Duke—if she is indeed The Duke—against that unknown number. We’d be dead in seconds. I have to play this safe, have to live long enough to get back to the woman that’s stolen my heart.
So I let him lead me away, silently fuming, but resigned to my current fate. We turn right, and my jaw clenches at the rows of cells lining both walls. Women of all ages huddle on narrow cots, dressed only in opaque nightgowns that do nothing to ward off the chill.
Madre de Dios.
Vincenzo shoves me into an empty cell, adjacent to The Duke’s. He slams the door shut and locks it, not even giving me the courtesy of removing the manacles and chains. I wouldn’t remove them either if I were him. The fucker is too stupid to realize I can use them against him.
Wandering over to the cot, the chains around my feet dragging heavily across the floor, I sit down and run my hands over my face. Glancing up, I catch The Duke’s eye, and she puts a finger over her mouth. I dip my head, and it isn’t until we hear the soft sound of a door closing far away that she straightens.
“So, who are you?” she asks with a brow raised. “I never forget a face, so I know I haven’t seen you before.”
“Cruz Sandoval.” Her eyes go unfocused as she searches for my name. I’ll be impressed if she happens to remember it from over a year ago, before it disappeared from the news.
Her eyes clear and the corner of her mouth tips up. “The serial killer. I’m guessing you’re the one Dutch let go?” I lower my head in a nod. “And now you’ve come back for her?”
A scowl twists my features. “How’d you work that one out?”
She raises a shoulder. “She mentioned once about helping you escape, said you were the one man she might have risked everything for. I figured if she felt that way, you might too.”
“I do.”
“Good. That girl needs some love in her life. She’s alone too much.”
“And I’m assuming you’re The Duke?” The corner of her mouth lifts and she winks. I want to mention Ryan and how he’s been a shell of himself since she went missing. But that wouldn’t do her any good to hear, so I keep it to myself.
We spend the next few minutes talking. I catch her up on what’s been going on, and when I get to the part about the crucifixions, I have to give her a few minutes to catch her breath. Vincenzo didn’t tell her about that; she thought her team was still out there, gathering information.
I tell her how Dutch and I killed Dante, the secret tunnels under the building, the death of Stefano in New Jersey, and the death of the rest of the male cousins at the safe house. I explain about the drone with the camera, and how Vincenzo now has pictures of the six of us that took our helmets off.
“Who are the six?”
“Ryan, Kian, Eric, Theodore, Justin, and me.”
Her brows lower in confusion. “Who are Theodore and Justin?”
“They came with Susannah.”
“Susannah Gerhardt? She’s here too?”
“Yes.” The Duke goes still, and I can practically see the wheels turning in her head as she processes all the information.
“Nate didn’t go on this safe house raid?”
“No, he stayed behind with Jase. And Rebecca, Trey, and Tessa never came out on the patio where the drone was filming, so Vincenzo doesn’t know about them as far as we know.”
“That’s good to know.” We sit in silence for a while, The Duke’s fingers grasping as if she’s writing. “Anything else you can think of? No matter how small? The more I know the more I can try to help.”
