Page 84 of The Voicemail

He grabs my bound wrists and hauls me up. My balance is gone, but my anger burns as hot as ever. So does the clear, vicious thought that I will not let this baby end here, on a restaurant floor, before anyone else even knows it exists.

I slam my forehead into his nose. It hurts so badly my vision whites out for a second, but Tomaso howls and lets go. Blood spills over his mouth. I stumble backward, half blind, and swing the letter opener again. This time it slices his cheek.

Before he can reach me, Bianchi’s men pour into the kitchen. Two of them grab Tomaso. Another catches me from behind and tears the letter opener out of my hand. I kick at him, twisting hard enough that his grip slips once before he locks both arms around me.

“Enough,” Bianchi says from the doorway.

The room stops moving.

Tomaso is breathing hard, blood running from his nose, his arm, his cheek. I’m shaking so badly I can barely stand, but I’m standing.

Bianchi looks at him with mild disgust. “She played you because you let her.”

“She manipulated me,” Tomaso spits.

“Yes,” Bianchi says. “And that should embarrass you.”

Tomaso jerks against the men holding him. Bianchi turns to me. For the first time, I see him reconsidering me, though not kindly. He’s recalculating, deciding how to proceed now that he understands me better. Then he looks at the man holding me.

“Search her again. Then put her with the other one.”

My throat goes dry. He means Maya. I know he does. So she’s here. She’s alive and she’s here. It’s a small victory, at least. Now I just need a miracle to get the two of us out.

26

ALEX

The lights cut out across the block as we reach Vespero’s kitchen door. The restaurant sign dies first. Then the streetlights go, followed by the glow behind the butcher paper taped over the front windows.

Through the narrow window in the kitchen door, I see the room drop into emergency red. Stainless steel tables catch the weak light in dull strips. Men turn toward the sudden darkness, and one of them drags Elena tighter against his chest.

My hand tightens around the gun. She’s standing in the middle of the kitchen with her hands bound in front of her. Her face is bruised, her mouth is bleeding, and one side of her hoodie is torn at the shoulder. Even from here, I can see how carefully she’s holding herself, like every breath costs her and every movement has to be measured.

Bianchi is near the doorway to the hall. Tomaso is being held by two men near the prep table. He’s bleeding from his nose, his arm, and his cheek, but I barely register that once I see his hand.

There’s blood on his knuckles. Elena’s, I presume. Luca checks the window beside me, then mutters, “Bianchi’s in sight.”

“I see him.”

“We can take the room.”

I fire through the glass and hit the man holding Elena in the shoulder. He drops back with a shout, and Elena hits the floor hard on her hip. She twists that way on purpose. I see it, and something ugly tears through my chest.

Luca kicks the door open before the broken glass finishes falling. We move in fast. The first guard is down. The second comes from the left side of the kitchen, raising his weapon too slowly. Marco shoots him twice, center mass. Another man lunges for Elena, and I put a bullet through his throat before he touches her.

Bianchi steps back toward the hall. For half a second, I have a clean line to him. Then Tomaso breaks free. He doesn’t run from me. He turns toward Elena. That’s the last mistake he makes.

I cross the distance before he gets two steps. He sees me at the last second, eyes wide, face slick with blood and panic.

“She made me do it,” he says.

I shoot him in the head. Tomaso drops between the prep table and the tile. Elena jerks at the sound, but she doesn’t scream. She looks at his body once, then looks away.

Bianchi uses that second to slip away. He disappears through the hall doorway while two of his men fire from the dining room. Luca breaks right with Marco, returning fire as they move after him. I take one step toward the hall.

Elena tries to push herself upright and gasps. I stop. Every instinct splits in half. Bianchi is close enough to catch. He’s in the building, running through the back routes Nico gave us, and if I leave now, I might get my hands on him before he reaches the tunnel.

Elena is on the kitchen floor with blood on her mouth and one hand pressed to her stomach. There’s no choice.