I lost time. It jumped in huge leaps, and I couldn’t keep track. I was at the station, and Elio was telling me about Charlotte, then I was back at Casa Nera, in the weapons room.
My men geared up beside me. There was no small talk or grim humor today. It was silent. I strapped on my knives, guns, and ammo over my tactical gear.
“Ren. We should go without you. You’re the one they’re waiting for,” Elio dared to say beside me.
I didn’t bother responding.
“We need backup.”
I ignored him. Waiting for someone else meant leaving Charlotte in Castillo hands for longer, and that wasn’t happening. We’d taken too long to find Juan and his hideout, and now my wife was paying the price. It was my fault, and I had to fix it.
Bristling with weapons, I strode through the house. Giada fell into step beside me, her tablet in her hand.
“The GPS in the ring has stopped moving. It’s at an abandoned motel on the edge of Atlantic City.”
“Send the coordinates to Elio.”
“Done.” She stayed with me as we made our way through the main hall.
Behind me, more than fifty armed men followed. Carmella watched me walk past, her mouth pressed into a worried line. She crossed herself as I passed by.
“Monitor the police channels. I don’t trust this timing. Something is going on,” I told Giada, reaching the outside steps.
“Agreed, but I can do that with you,” she said, dogging my steps. “I want to come.”
“No. I need you here, my eyes in the sky.”
“Please, Ren, they’re my family, too.”
I stopped. Her heartfelt words reached into the coldness that had filled my chest since the police station.
“I know, but I need you here. You’re our eyes, Giada, and we need you. They need you.”
She swallowed hard, fighting an internal argument but losing. She nodded reluctantly. The rest of the men filed out of the house and into the waiting cars.
Gravel sprayed out as the cars pulled out of the courtyard and down the winding Casa Nera driveway.
“We don’t know what we’re walking into,” Elio said quietly, still not dropping the topic. He handed me a phone. “Call your sister and Nikolai, at least.”
“She’s in Russia, if you’d care to remember.”
“Call.”
Time skipped again, my mind unable to focus on anything clearly.
We’d stopped a block away from the abandoned motel.
I’d barely been able to focus on the phone call with my sister and her husband, the Palach.
While they lived in Maine, too fucking far away to be any help to me, as a member of the vor v zakone, Nikolai had access to Russians all over the country. Not only that, but his brother led the bloodthirsty Chernov Bratva out of New York. New York was a lot closer than Maine. I’d only met Kirill Chernov a couple of times, most recently at the wedding, where he’d come to pay his respects. In return, I respected his power and the efficiency of his men. I wasn’t too proud to ask for help, but I also wasn’t waiting around for the Russians to arrive.
“Let’s move.” I was first out of the vehicle.
My men hurried to spread out. The neighborhood was run-down and quiet at this time in the afternoon. Giada was live in our ears as we headed toward the building where the ring was located.
“I don’t see anyone in the buildings around you. This is amateur hour, clearly,” she said over the headset. She used satellites and thermal imaging to look for threats like snipers.
“And in the motel?”
A clacking of keys filled my ear. “Room eleven, right in the middle. Five heat signatures. One is alone in a room, the rest outside in the other room.”
One alone? Would they split up Lucy and Charlie? A sense of foreboding filled me.
We advanced on the motel. Loud music played in room eleven.
“Okay, two people in the back room now, and three in the front,” Giada updated as we got closer.
“Copy,” Elio said into his headset.
He was ex-military, and the scariest motherfucker I’d ever met. I trusted his tactical skills. He sent men around the back, and we waited a couple of beats before advancing on the front door.
A quick shot made short work of the doorknob, and a kick sent it crashing to the floor. My men entered, and shots fired. Music boomed, and blood spattered the walls. It was over quick. Too quick. I was a man possessed; I couldn’t focus on anything but the door to the bedroom. Kicking it in, I raised my gun toward the guy who bent over a bound, trembling figure on the bed. My gaze took in the scene dispassionately. She still had her clothes on, she was tied up and had tape over her mouth.
Lucy. The disappointment crashed against me.
I aimed my gun at the man who had whirled around, clearly shocked to find an entire team of men busting in on his attempted assault. My bullet caught him between the eyes, and he fell.
I strode to Lucy and helped her upright. I ripped the tape off her mouth before I could calm my silent panic.
“Where is Charlie?” I demanded immediately. “She has to be in this room.”
Lucy was crying, huge glassy tears dripping down her cheeks. Slowly, through the sobs racking her, she opened her mouth, and I saw it. The wedding ring with the tracker, my wife’s tracker, sitting pretty on her little sister’s tongue. I plucked it out of Lucy’s mouth before she choked on it.
“She’s not here. She gave me this, and then…they took her. I don’t know where,” Lucy cried and then grimaced with pain.
“Boss,” Elio urged.
I realized I had gripped the girl’s arm hard with one hand, enough to bruise the bones. I released her, and Elio crouched beside her.
“Did you hear that?” I asked Giada, listening silently in my ear.
“I heard,” she said, her keys already clacking. “I didn’t think to track both of the devices because they were together, which was so fucking dumb. I’m sorry.”
Both of them?
Right.
I snapped my head to Lucy. “Where are your father’s rosary beads?”
