Page 71 of The Voicemail

Of course the phone sits exactly where he wants us looking. My hand tightens around my own phone until the case creaks. Marco appears in the doorway, watching me closely.

He knows something has shifted.

“What do you want me to do?” Luca asks.

“Find him,” I answer without any emotion.

“I will.”

“And Luca?”

“Yes?”

“When you find Nico, don’t touch him.”

“Are you sure?”

“I want to deal with him myself.”

I end the call and look at Marco. “Nico is the leak,” I say.

His face hardens. “Jesus.”

My phone buzzes with a text from an unknown number. A photo comes through. Elena is on the floor of a vehicle, cheek bruised, eyes open and furious. Alive.

For one second, relief nearly buckles my knees.

Then I read the message beneath it:

Bring the file or I send her back in pieces.

I close my hand around the phone, squeezing so tight I’m surprised it doesn’t break.

“Back to the building,” I tell Marco. “There’s nothing more we can do here.”

23

ELENA

The SUV turns hard enough to throw me against the seat. For one second, the world flashes white at the edges. My cheek throbs where one of the men hit me, and my mouth tastes like blood. I’m on the floor between the back seats, half twisted onto my side, someone’s knee jammed against my thigh.

I kick anyway. My heel connects with something. A shin, maybe. The man above me curses and grabs my ankle.

“Hold her still,” someone snaps.

“I’m trying to.”

“Try harder.”

I twist onto my back and swing my other foot up. It catches the door handle, not hard enough to open anything, but hard enough to make one of them flinch.

Good. When Alex finds me, I hope he makes every last one of them pay for it.

That thought takes me by surprise and freezes me in place long enough for the man nearest my head to grab my wrists and pin them against my stomach.

“No,” I gasp. “Get off.”

He mistakes that for fear of him and smiles. “Settle down.”