One of the other medics puts his hand on her shoulder and shakes his head. He’s on my payroll. He knows the drill and he nods to assure me that he’ll enlighten the new girl on how things are handled here. “We’ll take care of your friend, Mr. Adami,” he says respectfully. “Do you need any more help?”
“No, thank you. The rest of my men will handle this scene.”
Once the paramedics leave, and I know that Nick is in good hands, I assess the damage. I am now currently without an underboss, myconsigliereis in the hospital, and half a dozen of my men are dead. I call my usual clean-up crew to come and deal with this “mess” before anyone else sees it, and then I focus on the one thing that’s usurping all of my attention now. Camille is missing, my brother is missing, and myborgatahas just suffered a direct attack. This is all connected, and I need to figure out how, before something happens to Camille and Leo. The person behind this can try to take away my resources and distract me, but they’re severely underestimating the fact that the only thing I need in order to catch them and put them down is myself and a burning desire to stick a gun in their mouth. A violent desire which they have now stoked the flames of. I am hell-bent on finding out who is doing all of this and why.
13
CAMILLE
I don’t even know what hits me when I’m ambushed in the street. I’m in the middle of my run to Noho to pick up the suspected stolen goods I was hired to transport, which was obviously and expectedly a set-up, when a canvas sack is thrown over my head. I didn’t even see it coming amidst the crowd of people, and how could no one else have seen it either? I skid to a stop since I can’t see where I’m going, and my hands instantly grab at the fabric covering my head. But there are hands holding it around my neck and then I feel my arms being pulled behind me. Within seconds, I feel myself being hoisted over someone’s shoulder and carried somewhere.
The fabric is porous enough that I can still breathe, although not with ease, and I scream and kick my legs in the air, hoping to garner someone’s attention enough that they stop whoever my kidnapper is. How is it that in a city this packed with people, no one will help me? Unless all the people around are working for whoever my kidnapper is. I feel a surge of panic when I think about where I am—on the edge of Noho, in a less populated side street, and closing in on the address I had been given.
Fuck. Here I was, trying to set a trap, and I’ve walked straight into one instead.
I feel myself being dumped into the backseat of a car and can hear the engine speed off. It drives even though my hands are left bound. When I’m eventually yanked out of the car, I see that we’re inside a giant warehouse. There are several guys standing around, none of whom I’ve ever seen before, which is strange because I keep a pretty close eye on the major players in New York City. Whoever my kidnapper is and whoever’s behind this strange plot, I still have no idea who they are. I’m tossed into an empty room with nothing but a table and two chairs in the center of it. Inside the door, two guards stand there talking to each other as if I’m not even here. “Hey,” I say as I try to get their attention. “Where am I?”
“You’re in a room,” one of them laughs as if he thinks he’s particularly funny. I can already tell there’s a shortage of IQ here.
“Great, that’s very helpful, thank you.” I roll my eyes. “Who brought me here, you?”
“Nah,” the other guy says as he shakes his head like a shaggy wet dog. “Our boss, the new Grecocapo, is who you can thank for that.”
“You dumbass,” the other guard says as he smacks him to silence. “Stop telling her shit, she’s the prisoner!”
After that mistake, the two guards knock on the door which opens, and then leave me alone in the room, but not before having given me a tasty tidbit of information. Whoever’s calling the shots here is indeed trying to grasp power as the newcapoof the Grecoborgata. I wonder who it is. I sit down on the floor in the center of the room and try to think of who could possibly despise me and Gabriel Adami enough to be doing this. It has to be someone with some sort of grudge against the both of us, otherwise why go through all the trouble?
I’m alone all day and most of the night, until finally the door is opened, and Leo is tossed inside. “Leo! What happened to you?” I ask, noticing that he looks injured. He’s cradling his right arm and his face looks scuffed up. Whoever captured me must’ve gotten to him too. Instantly my thoughts go to Gabriel and wondering if he’s hurt too.
“The apartment was ambushed,” he says. “A lot of the men were killed, including Nick and Pito.”
Panic grips me. “What about your brother—what about Gabriel?”
“He wasn’t there,” Leo answers as I let out the breath that I’ve been holding in. “He was out looking for you.”
“Who was it that attacked the apartment?”
“I don’t know,” he shakes his head slowly. Leo is acting strangely. He isn’t even looking me in the eyes. I chalk it up to him being injured and traumatized, and I’m sure I would be too if I had just witnessed what sounds like a mass murder and barely escaped with my life. I feel bad for him, but I also need answers.
“I don’t know how we got separated,” I continue as I think back to how we got to this point. “Somehow, someone managed to get the jump on me in the city. My bag was over my head, I couldn’t see anything, and then all of a sudden I was here.”
“Do you know who the captors are?” he asks. “Were you able to see any of them?”
“No. Did you get a look at them?” Leo shakes his head, still not looking me in the eye. He looks injured, but not deathly so. Just banged up a bit, which for Leo is considerable, considering that he never actually gets into any fights. He tends to lay low and keep his head down inside his brother’sborgata. I don’t think he has the constitution to deal with much of it.
“We need to figure out how to get out of here,” I say. “We need to plan an escape and find Gabriel so we can sort out what to do.” Usually, Leo is at least good in the “thinking and calculating” department. But right now, he just seems quiet and flustered, as if his mind is elsewhere. “Leo,” I say again, trying to snap him out of it. “We’ve got to get out of here now.”
“Tell me what really happened between you and Gabriel,” he says completely out of the blue. That has nothing to do with our current situation at all. I know he’s upset about it, but that kind of thing can wait until our lives aren’t in danger. “Were you really going to have sex with my brother again when I walked in on the two of you in his apartment?”
“Leo, don’t you think this is a bad time to talk about that? This doesn’t have anything to do with right now and we’ve got much more pressing matters at hand.”
“I think it has a lot to do with things right now,” he argues, finally looking up at me with a piercing stare. He looks distraught, and I can tell that he isn’t going to move on from this until I answer him, as ridiculous as it seems.
“Fine—yes, I was going to have sex with him again. But I fail to see why that’s at all important right now.”
“Are you in love with him?”
“Leo, what the hell is wrong with you? Can’t you see we’re in a dire situation here?” But the real reason I don’t answer that question is because I know I’ve already started to have feelings for Gabriel. In fact, I’m pretty damn sure I know I’m in love with him. But I’m not ready to admit that to anyone or even myself yet. And besides, it’s none of Leo’s business.
