Page 79 of The Kingpin’s Bride

“He’s moved her three times in the last thirty-six hours,” Vincenzo said. “Paranoid prick. He’s keeping her quiet and compliant.”

The words landed like fists. I stared at the dashboard. “And Matteo?”

Vincenzo’s mouth tightened. “His teams are in the same radius you are. Closer than you think. They’re running the same leads. If you keep moving the way you have been, you’re going to walk straight into one of them.”

I knew. I had felt the weight of eyes on me more than once in the last few hours.

“I’m not going to them,” I said.

“You’re running on empty. You look like you’re about to fall over. Let them take you in. Let him finish the hunt.” He shrugged.

“No.”

Vincenzo turned his head and looked at me fully. He exhaled through his nose. “You’re going to get yourself killed trying to stay independent.”

“Then I get killed. But I don’t go back empty-handed,” I said.

He was silent for a long time. Then he reached into the center console, pulled out a folded scrap of paper, scribbled, and held it out. “Last known temporary location. Private house farther north. Light security. He won’t stay there long. If you’re going to move, you move now.”

I took the paper. The address was written in clean block letters.

“Why help me?” I asked.

“Because Aurora would have my head if I left a girl and a four-year-old to starve while I looked the other way,” he admitted. “And because you’re clearly not going to stop.”

He nodded at the door. “Get out. And lose the memory of my face. I was never here.”

I stepped out of the car. The door shut hard behind me. The SUV pulled away without another word. I stood on the sidewalk with the address burning in my hand.

Camilla was alive. Matteo’s men were closing in. And I was alone.

I started walking. The temptation to stop and let them find me sat on my shoulders. I was so tired. My feet were raw. My body ached in places that had nothing to do with walking.

Part of me wanted to sink to the ground and wait for the soft watches to become hard ones. Part of me wanted the man who had lied to me to just appear and take the weight.

Part of me wished I’d told him the truth. That I was pregnant…

The address Vincenzo had given me led me deeper into the quieter northern edges of the city. Private road. Trees. Houses that sat back from the street like they had something to hide. I slowed down the closer I got. Every shadow felt like it might contain one of Matteo’s men. Every car that passed made my pulse spike.

I cut through the trees instead of using the road.

The house sat at the end of a short drive. Lights on low in the back rooms. One car parked close to the side entrance. No obvious guards outside, but that meant nothing. Dario was paranoid enough to kidnap a four-year-old. He would not leave the place completely open.

I crouched in the tree line and watched. Movement behind one of the curtains. Small. Too small to be a man.

Camilla.

My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I had to press my hand over my mouth to keep the sound in. She was in there. Waiting. And I was close enough to see the light shift when she moved. I stayed low and counted the windows. The doors. The angles. Behind me, somewhere in the dark, Matteo’s teams were moving in the same direction. I could feel it the way you feel a storm coming. The soft watches had become something sharper. They would find the jacket soon. They would read the message. They would come.

I had a choice again. Step out of the trees and wait for them. Or keep going alone and try to reach her first. I looked at the house. At the low light. At the small movement behind the curtain.

I chose.

I started crawling forward through the underbrush, heart in my throat, the address and the hunger and the man I missed all tangled together in my chest.

I was close. So close. And this time the trail was not dead. I crawled forward through the underbrush until the trees thinned and the side of the house rose in front of me.

The siding was cold under my palms when I finally reached it. I stayed low, breathing through my mouth, listening. Inside I could hear the low murmur of a man’s voice.