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Fuck, this isn’t the time to discuss or assign blame. “Fine.” I turn to face him fully. “But you follow orders. Every one of them.”
He nods, and that’s the end of it.
Gio barks orders to the men, and while I go to get the car, he sprints inside. Probably to make sure Carly’s okay. I get it, I really fucking do. But if he’s not back before I bring the car around, I’ll leave his ass.
Reaching the car, Paolo jumps into the back seat, slamming the door shut as I peel away from the parking area and toward the side entrance. Gio’s already there, one arm around his wife as he tells her something.
I’m just about to blare the horn when he kisses her and pushes her toward two of our men. Then he runs to the car and slides into the front passenger seat.
Gio has the tablet balanced on his knees, his fingers flying across the screen. “Got a partial on the plate,” Gio says as we pull onto Main. “Massachusetts registration, last three digits seven-one-four. Running it against DMV records for sedans matching the color and model.”
The expressway stretches ahead of us, gray and endless. Rush hour hasn’t started yet, which means traffic is light, which means Harry could be anywhere by now. My hands are loose on the steering wheel.
Four minutes in, Gio’s phone rings. He listens for ten seconds, says, “Send it to me,” and hangs up.
“Traffic cam at the Route Two interchange caught the sedan exiting westbound. Plate matches our partial. The vehicle continued on Route Two for approximately eight miles before taking an exit onto a county road. Cameras thin out after that.”
“Private property,” I say. It’s not a question.
“Most likely. Rural, wooded. Lots of places to hide a car if you know what you’re doing.”
“Harry doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s desperate and stupid.”
“Desperate men do stupid things,” Gio says quietly. “Stupid things get people killed.”
In the back seat, Paolo’s been quiet. Now his phone chimes with a notification, and he leans forward between the front seats, his screen lit with something that makes the blood in my veins go cold.
“I just pulled Harry’s recent communications. Text messages, mostly encrypted, but the encryption is shit. He’s been talking to someone for the past forty-eight hours. Someone with money.”
The screen tilts toward me. I take my eyes off the road for half a second, long enough to read the fragment visible on Paolo’s display.
Ready to move. Twenty-five thousand upfront, seventy-five on delivery. She’s worth every penny…
The words land like a fist to the gut. I knew it. Of course I fucking knew it. Harry Adams, with nothing left to lose and a daughter he’s already sold once, doing the only thing a man like him knows how to do.
He’s not running with Kira. He’s delivering her.
“Gio.” My voice is so quiet Paolo has to lean closer to hear it. “When we find him, there is no arrest. No second chances. No conversation. Harry dies the second my wife is safe. That clear?”
“Crystal.”
The road unwinds ahead of us, narrow and tree-lined, frost clinging to the bare branches overhead. Somewhere up ahead, my wife’s in a car with a man who’s already decided what she’s worth, and the distance between us feels like something I could measure in heartbeats.
I press the accelerator harder. The car responds, engine growling beneath us.
The property sits half a mile off the county road, down a gravel drive lined with pines so thick they block what little daylight is left. Two stories, weathered clapboard, a porch that sags at one corner.
No neighbors for at least a quarter mile in any direction. Perfect place to hide a car, or a person, if you don’t want anyone hearing the screams.
Harry’s sedan is parked behind the house, partially concealed under a tarp that does nothing to hide the distinctive rust along the rear quarter panel. I spot it from the treeline twenty yards out, and something cold and patient settles behind my sternum.
Gio and Paolo stand on either side of me, both of them throwing around ideas I don’t like. Each of theirs involve waiting for more backup, which isn’t fucking happening.
“We go now,” I bark, ending what they apparently perceive to be a motherfucking brainstorm session. “Got the comms?”
Nodding, Gio pulls out the comms units our men usually use on jobs—small earpieces with built-in mics. We each take one and place it in our ears.
“Backup’s only a few minutes out,” Gio argues.
