Riccardo
I skim through the photos on Paolo’s tablet and stop at the one that shows all forty packs of drugs. It doesn’t look bad for the first batch, especially as they promise more with each consecutive one, but the thing is…
“I don’t like the guy.” I turn around, handing the tablet to Paolo, and look at Matteo. “Have you found something on him?”
I have to have aces in my sleeves before starting the game with a new player.
“Federico Bianchi.” Matteo pushes his papers on the table toward me before leaning back into the armchair. “He’s been climbing the ladder for the last two years and has gained a reputation in the local circles. Federico has ties among local police officers and the staff of Naples’ airport, so-”
My phone buzzes on the table, forcing Matteo to pause, and I gesture for him to wait before checking the screen. Louis. Goddamnit. Didn’t I tell him to keep an eye on Elena? Why the hell would he bother me now, two hours before the arranged call with Federico?
I’m even tempted to decline the call, but at the last moment, I do answer it. “I hope it’s something important.”
“You bet it is.” Louis sounds out of his breath, and I frown and tense up. Paolo and Matteo exchange a glance and sit up straight while Louis audibly hisses before continuing, “Fucking Mexicans stole the boy.” What the hell?
I breathe out sharply and lean on the table, rubbing my forehead.
This is the last damn thing I need right now. “When?”
“Just now. They lured him onto the street while two other bastards sneaked up on us, and-”
“On us?”
“Me and Elena.” Ah, sure. I clench my jaw but say nothing, giving Louis a way to keep going. “Max was with her sister, and they shot her when she tried to take him back.”
I hear a displeased female voice in the distance, and Louis huffs. Are they joking there? I pinch the bridge of my nose, struggling to keep myself calm. “What about Elena?”
“She’s fine, too. Just, uh, distressed.” Oh, so she’s distressed?
“Where was she looking? Why wasn’t she with him?!” I can’t stop myself from snapping in a flash of rage because goddamnit, Elena is his mother. I’ve been doing all I can to protect them from the Mexicans, but the only time she leaves the house she manages to get both of them in trouble!
Louis goes silent for a fraction of a second, and please, god, don’t tell me she was the one to mess it up.
“It was my fault,” Louis says all of a sudden, and I can’t help but blink in surprise. He’s always been very diligent with his duties. “I didn’t let her know I was here, so Elena took me for a stranger following them.”
“What, did she fight you?”
“Yeah, kinda.”
God, that woman. I let out a deep breath while my thoughts scatter in every direction, looking for a way to get Max out of there. Those bastards knew what they were doing, so they aren’t gonna let Max go anytime soon. Where would they take him?
“Okay, Louis. Send Paolo your location, we’ll send someone to pick Elena up.” I pause as a sudden thought makes me wince, and I lower my voice. “She’s not hysterical, is she?”
“No, she’s just…different.”
As soon as I hang up, Paolo and Matteo turn to me at once like a couple of wolves only waiting for a cue to attack. They’ve both already heard enough to become tense and serious. They know I wouldn’t get so heated for nothing, so I don’t waste time going into details and get up from my chair.
“The Mexicans have stolen Max.”
Paolo curses in Italian and follows me to the door while Matteo lingers in the armchair. “What about the deal?”
“Forget about it.” I pause in the doorway only for long enough to turn to him. “Check Louis’ location and send Marco to pick Elena up. Paolo, you take care of the chase. I want to get my hands on those fuckers by midnight.”
“What about Elena? Where should they bring her?”
“Here.” I crack my knuckles and turn to look at the floor of the warehouse below us. “I’m going to talk to our guests.”
The warehouse has many rooms for many purposes, and that’s what I like the most about it. You never know what you’ll find in the cells and hallways of the basement unless you know what you’re looking for. While Matteo and Paolo follow my orders, I gesture for Omero, one of the guards on duty, to join me on the way down. It’s not that I need protection, but it’s never safe to be on your own amidst your enemies.
“Good evening, gentlemen.”
I fake a smile as the door creaks, and I walk into a small and crowded room full of moisture and sick scents. Only one of the air vents works properly, and its steady hum fills the room with constant noise mixed with shuffles and coughs. The old lightbulb right under the ceiling gives barely any light, and it dances on the dirty walls and puddles of water in the corners.
When I enter with Omero’s flashlight illuminating the room, the shadows inside fidget and let out weak groans. It’s hard to say whether they’re cursing or pleading with me for something-I don’t know Spanish well enough to recognize their mumbles. There are six men inside: the unlucky remnants of our recent raid on one of the Mexican gambling points. They all were claiming that they were only players there, not members of the Escarra family, so we decided to keep them until they were ready to tell us the truth.
“How are you feeling today?” I walk over, glancing at the row of their chained wrists and stains of urine. One of them moves his legs away to give me some space as I step over him, and I tilt my head, pausing next to him. “I hope you’re ready to give me some answers because I am not in the mood for bullshit. I’ve been kind to you so far, but your men have done something really bad and really stupid today. So trust me, I have no care for your lives anymore. Is that clear?”
I don’t know how much of my English they understand, but they huddle as close as possible together and stare at me with dark eyes. They look like rats from this angle-poor, pathetic, and so easy to break. One of them opens his mouth to tell me something, maybe even beg for mercy, but as soon as I hear Spanish coming out of his mouth, I quirk an eyebrow. The man immediately shuts up. Wise.
“Is that clear?” I repeat, taking my dagger out of my inner pocket, and the men exchange a few glances and nod. “Good. Omero, bring the interpreter. Gentlemen, who wants to be first?”
But despite their exhausted and broken looks, the men turn out to be more resistant than I imagined. One by one, I go through them with my usual tactic: warn, hurt, ask, then hurt again. It gets loud and bloody very quickly.
I don’t like bloodying my hands, but I almost enjoy the trembles and grimaces of my victims when my dagger digs into their flesh. Cold weapons give you the power of pain that no firearm ever will.
The Mexicans, however, refuse to give up. No matter how many screams and pleading cries I get out of them, all six of them keep insisting that they don’t know what I’m talking about. Even when I start calling them by their names-because, honestly, it didn’t take us long to find all the information on them-they refuse to admit that they are pawns of the Escarra family.
It takes me a while to reach the point where they feel the breath of death on their necks and their resolve starts to waver. No matter how loyal men are to their masters, when their lives hang by a thread, they take the last chance to think about their values again.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to just tell me where they took the boy?” I look at the blood running out of the corner of Pedro’s mouth before raising my calm gaze to his eyes. They’re already glassy, barely holding on to the last flickers of life, and I sigh. This one goes to waste.
I wipe my dagger off on his shirt and stand up, shaking my head. “Do you see what happens when it takes too long to-”
“Signor.” I pause, switching my attention to Omero’s voice.
“Signora is here.”
Who? Oh. I blink and look back at the door. Elena has finally arrived.
She stands in the doorway right behind Marco, and I can see that she’s not her usual self. The look on her face is grim and detached, her blue eyes dimmed with thought, and only when Marco steps to the side to let her in does Elena blink and look up at me. But I still feel like I’m looking at a porcelain doll rather than the woman I left in my house this morning.
“Elena?” I turn my body toward her, unable to keep a surprised note out of my voice. I did order Marco to bring her to the warehouse, but I didn’t expect her to show up here. It’s not a place for someone who has detached herself from the Mafia world-but Elena doesn’t seem to care.
She takes one look at the scene in front of her, and the muscles of her face don’t even twitch. Her gaze lingers on the Mexicans instead, and the only change I notice is the way Elena clenches her jaw. Is she mad at me for doing something like this? Shit. She really shouldn’t be here.
I turn to Omero with an order to take her away on the tip of my tongue when Elena finally opens her mouth. “Have you gotten anything out of them?”
Her voice is as cold as her eyes when she looks up at me, and I realize that there’s not a trace of displeasure in her features. Elena doesn’t seem to be mad or surprised by my cruelty. She looks calm and completely indifferent to the suffering of people in front of her, and I suddenly realize that Elena isn’t just a woman.
She was born and raised the same way I did, and it looks like even the eight years she spent away from Chicago didn’t change her that much. Elena is still a Princess of Russian Bratva, and the power of pain is closer to her than the weakness of mercy.
Elena quirks her eyebrow expectantly, and I realize that she’s still waiting for an answer. She’s silently nudging me to reply like a teacher waiting for a student to answer, and I have to be annoyed by such boldness -but for some reason, it makes me excited. I’ve never seen that side of her, but shit. It’s kind of hot.
“Nothing worthy of mentioning,” I say after a moment of silence, just to make her more impatient, and glance at the bodies of Mexicans behind me. “They claim they don’t know anything.”
Elena hums and turns her body toward them, her nose slightly scrunching in disgust as her gaze darts over the pool of dirt, urine, and blood. But she doesn’t step back-she only steps forward and tilts her head with cold curiosity.
“And you think they do know something that can help me find Max,” Elena says calmly, not looking at me, and I can see only her profile as she walks toward my victims. Or should I say, our victims?
Because it looks like Elena is ready to take over, make them suffer, bring them pain, and… Shit. I swallow. Why does this thought make me so excited? And why do I want to see Elena do all of that so badly?
I clear my throat to catch a moment to collect myself. Damn it, Riccardo. This is really not a good time for lust-but when Elena looks over her shoulder to catch my gaze, I can’t help the surge of heat in my body.
She has the eyes of a killer, and I suddenly remember how I would make her uncomfortable and on verge of crying in college. A gray mouse has turned into a cat, huh?
I smirk as a melted pool of desire trickles down my body the longer I hold Elena’s gaze. God, I can’t wait to see her claws.