Page 117 of The Beast Who Begged Me

DAMIANO

I stand there for another second, staring at the tracker capsule in my hand and trying real fucking hard not to make assumptions. The cold of the room seeps into me, but it’s not the reason I’m shivering.

There’s nothing here to tell me where they might have taken him next. Just the capsule, the blood, and a faint smell of bleach, which is its own worry.

I need to get the fuck out of here and find out where they’ve taken Caligula. I close my hand on the tracker and turn to go.

At the top, Fontana and Gallo lower their guns as soon as they recognize me. Benedetti is waiting behind them.

“Anything?” he asks.

“They’re not there. Only the tracker. They must have taken it out of Caligula.”

Horror crosses his face as the implications sink in. But I don’t have time to coddle him. “Keep your shit together,” I tell him sharply.

I show them the tracker. No one says anything, and then I slide it into my pocket.

“Let’s blow,” Fontana says. “Fast, but watch for booby traps.”

We head for the back exit together. Fontana goes first and I watch our six, but if Gallo chose that moment to turn around and shoot me in the face, I’d be too slow to stop him.

Caligula is not here. I have no idea where he is.

He might be…

By the time we hit the street, the other teams have also pulled back, waiting for further orders. We pile back into the car. Fontana takes the wheel this time, and I get in beside him while Benedetti and Gallo climb into the back.

I barely have the door shut before my phone buzzes in my hand. It’s a text from a number I don’t have stored in my phone.

For half a second I just stare at it. There are no words, no previous messages, just a location pin.

I look at it again, checking the map. It’s across the state line in fucking Jersey, and when I zoom in, it’s pinned over an old, decommissioned slaughterhouse in the industrial meadows of South Kearny.

Fontana glances over. “What is it?”

“An address.”

“You trust it?”

“No.”

He waits. In the back, I hear Benedetti suck in a breath and hold it.

I look down at the pin again. The last anonymous text I got gave me the information that led me to the Obelisk the night Caligula was being sold.

That text for the auction was from Tiberius—or his right-hand man, Marcello. Same difference. This could be from one of them. Or it could be from King himself.

Whoever sent it, it’s probably a trap. But whoever sent this also knows where Caligula is, or they want me to think they do.

And right now it’s all I have.

I reach beneath my shirt and find the chain around my neck. My fingers close around the little ouroboros, hard enough to feel the edge bite into my skin.

“We’re going to Jersey,” I say.

“Home, sweet home,” Fontana mutters. “Tell Vitali and my two. We should go light. Keep the rest in reserve.”

I’m already texting the Morellis while he stabs the address into the GPS, and then he swings out onto the street. I tell the remaining teams to hold back until we know what we’re walking into. Ferraro, I send to the townhouse to make sure it’s protected tonight.