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“I’m coming, Franky,” I promised silently.

Hurrying to dress, I slipped out of the cocoon of warmth and the illusion of safety that was my bedroom and strode purposefully into the night.

***

“Donna Isabella, you have to let me come with you,” Vincenzo insisted.

I bit my lip and shook my head. “The only reason I let you drive was because you promised to stay in the car.”

“But—”

“No buts,” I snapped.

The lad strangled the steering wheel. “They won’t let you escape. Once you’re inside, you’re as good as stuck!”

“Then you and Franky get the others and bust me out,” I countered.

Vincenzo braked hard. “I don’t like this.”

“Neither do I.” I stabbed the seatbelt release. “But I will do anything for my men.”

He rested a hand on top of mine. “We know. Why do you think so many have joined us?”

A wave of emotion constricted my chest.

It was true. But I didn’t put two-and-two together until this devoted soldier pointed it out.

“I just thought they wanted to be on the winning side,” I said with a self-deprecating chuckle.

“No, donna, they want a real leader.” With a squeeze, Vincenzo let me go. “I’ll be right here. Waiting. Whatever comes.”

“Whatever comes,” I repeated, grabbed the briefcase of cash from the floorboard, and bolted from the car before I started crying like a little idiot.

That wouldn’t help my fierce image if I started blubbering like some chick at a February rom-com movie.

The Sleepy Time Motel glowed sickly yellow in the midnight air, its neon sign flickering with electrical death throes. A relic from the seventies that time and good taste had forgotten. The L-shaped, single-story structure huddled against the highway like a beggar, rooms numbered one through fifteen with peeling paint on each door.

I approached cautiously, counting five vehicles in the cracked parking lot. Three motorcycles clustered together like insects, a sedan with out-of-state plates, and a black SUV with tinted windows that screamed trouble. Room eight had its curtains drawn tight, but a sliver of light escaped from one edge.

I gulped.

That was where they’d been keeping him.

The office sat at the corner of the L, its windows grimy with decades of road dust and cigarette smoke. A vending machine stood sentinel outside, humming loudly as if to drown out the illegal acts that happened on a regular basis in this place of sin and filth.

I marched up to the door and knocked.

The door swung open with a protesting creak, revealing two of the most repulsive men I'd ever laid eyes on. The first, a hulking mass of scar tissue with a nose that had been broken so many times it resembled ground meat, grinned at me with teeth stained brown from tobacco. The second was lankier, his face pockmarked and pale, with greasy hair slicked back and a twitch that made his left eye flutter constantly.

“Signora Moretti,” the scarred one gurgled through phlegm. “Don Bonetti is waiting.”

They stepped aside, revealing a room that assaulted my senses. The stench hit me first—a nauseating cocktail of mildew, sweat, and something rotten beneath it all. The carpet squished under my feet, damp with substances I didn't want to identify. Stains of various colors and ages mapped the walls.

But I pinned a hard look at the grotesque fiend with a crooked, bulbous nose, standing with his gun pointed at my bodyguard.

Franky looked rough.

I didn’t examine the cuts and bruises too closely, or else the tears were bound to come back.