Chapter 33

33

Zara

I thought it was odd for the driver and passenger of the long white passenger van to insist everyone leave their weapons and cell phones behind; although, I know Creed is strict about those things in his club. After all, only his guys had devices and guns.

But then when the van drives over the Queensboro Bridge, heading the opposite way to the Staten Island harbor, I know that something is definitely wrong.

I try not to panic, not wanting Oriana, who is sitting on my lap in the middle row with the nannies, to worry.

While I pull off my rings and slip them into my jean pocket, I whisper to the guards squeezed into the two back rows and the nannies next to me, “This isn’t the right way.”

“Sure, it is,” says the driver. He even meets my gaze in the rearview mirror, a grin on his face. He, unfortunately, looks familiar.

If I had to bet, I’d say he’s one of Emilio Rovina’s men. I don’t know how the hell that’s possible, though. Maybe I’m just being paranoid.

Clearing the worry from my throat, trying to keep my voice calm, I ask, “Where are we going exactly?”

“Right where you need to be,” he replies ominously. “If anyone tries anything, I’ll run this vehicle into a brick wall. Me and Danny will survive, since we have airbags.”

Oh shit.

Emilio somehow knew when and where I’d be waiting, or someone saw me standing outside the building with Oriana and told him so he could have us picked up. I honestly don’t know what’s going on, but whatever it is, isn’t good.

After we pull up to an unfamiliar building and park in a double garage, the driver says, “Everyone out. Slowly. Try anything, and we kill all the women right now.”

Creed’s men are good guys. They wouldn’t let us die just to save themselves.

How do I know?

Because once everyone climbs out of the SUV, they all lift their hands in the air. They allow the three approaching armed men to pat them down. Those same men come and do the same to me and the nannies. I take one of Oriana’s small hands while Paige takes the other.

“Mr. Rovina expected better than this from you girls,” the driver says to Paige and Bethany.

“We were held at gunpoint. There wasn’t much we could do, but at least we stayed with his granddaughter,” Paige tells him. She still doesn’t know Oriana is his daughter, not grandchild.

“Right,” the man mutters with a roll of his eyes. “I’m sure Mr. Rovina will understand. Now, in an orderly fashion, everyone start walking over to that door.” He points the way.

I wish there was another option. Any option other than letting my daughter return to this son of a bitch. While I could try to grab her and run, I have no doubt his men would fire at me, and one of the idiots could accidentally hit Oriana.

“Too risky,” Paige says, as if she’s thinking the same thing.

“I’m sorry. I’ll figure a way out of this,” I promise them.

“You should worry about yourself, not us,” she whispers back.

I’m worried about us all, actually. Especially Oriana. She doesn’t seem to realize that we’re marching most likely to our deaths as she swings from between me and Paige. At least, I know she’ll be safe for the time being. Emilio won’t intentionally hurt her. No, he’ll wait until she’s older, so he can control her like he does his other children.

Our procession into what I’m thinking is Rovina’s construction office, since there’s a big truck with their logo in the garage, stops as the man in the front speaks to someone in the doorway. “Boss says only the women are going inside.”

No, no, no.

“Please!” I beg them. “These men…they were only sent to protect Oriana. That’s all they’re meant to do.”

“We know they’re part of the Ferraro family,” one of the men says. “Now get inside!”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!” I tell the guards left behind as we’re ushered into the building. It’s a normal-looking office with cubicles, conference rooms, printers, and computers. For once, I want to see Emilio. Maybe I can beg him to let the nannies and the guards go.

The door to the garage barely closes behind Bethany when we hear the rapid gunfire, making us all jump.

No! Fuck.

I’m too late .

Now four of Creed’s men are dead.

“What was that?” Oriana turns around and asks, her green eyes wide as she looks back at the door.

“Fireworks,” I blurt out. “Right, ladies?”

“Uh-huh,” Bethany agrees, her face pale as she nods too vigorously.

Paige seems to be holding it together better than me and Bethany. She gives Oriana an explanation and everything. “I bet someone left fireworks from the Fourth of July in their truck, and when they get too hot, they go pow-pow-pow.”

“Can I see the fireworks?” Oriana bounces on her tiptoes.

“No, honey. The show is over now. There’s just yucky smoke left behind,” I tell her as I guide her by her shoulders to face forward.

I swear, one of these days, I’m going to kill Emilio Rovina.

The fucker himself finally strolls out of one of the rooms. “Sanzio, take the nannies upstairs to my office with little Ori,” Emilio directs his men. “Hi, doll.” He smiles at his daughter, then his face reddens. All that fury is directed right at me. “Zara’s staying with the rest of us down here.”

Knowing this may very well be it, the last time I ever see my daughter, I kneel and give her a big hug, holding her tight, inhaling her orange and vanilla scented shampoo. Her arms hold me tight like she’s afraid, too, even if she doesn’t know what there is to be afraid of yet.

“I love you so much.” I kiss her cheek, then her forehead. “Miss Paige and Miss Bethany love you too. Behave for them, okay?”

She nods, and then each woman takes one of her hands to lead her to an elevator with the door standing open. Oriana glances over her shoulder at me once before they disappear.

“Take her to the back and put her on the table,” Emilio orders his men .

I don’t know what the “table” is, and I don’t really want to find out.

“Please, Emilio. I’m her mother!” I yell at him as his men grab either of my arms. He doesn’t respond when they begin to drag me down the hall into a room in the very back. Inside, there’s nothing but a long wooden workbench with a table saw on the end and a wall of toolboxes. I have a really bad feeling that the tools aren’t just for building houses.

The men drag me over, wrench my arm around, and zip tie my right wrist to one of the legs, so tight, I can’t even move it an inch. Then they yank my other arm across, forcing me to lean or risk pulling it out of socket. Once my wrists are tied, there’s no point in trying to resist as they lift my legs to tie my ankles to the lower table legs with the table saw sticking up right between them.

Still, I try to kick them in the face as they grab my legs, but they ultimately have my ankles secured, within seconds.

Emilio won’t kill me quickly. He’s going to take his time, draw it out, and make it hurt.

Why else would he go through all the trouble of strapping me to the table?

“Leave us,” he tells his men. “Make sure the nannies don’t try to go anywhere. They’re going to pay for their fuck up soon enough.”

“It’s not their fault. The women didn’t have a choice,” I tell him.

Ignoring me, Emilio goes over to the workbench. He pulls something from inside a toolbox, then leans over me, holding a long knife. He slashes it across my chest, making me cry out as it easily slices through my shirt and into my skin.

“You’re in for a world of pain, Zara,” Emilio says in my face. “How long you stay here on this table depends on how quickly you tell me what I want to know. Did you kill my son, or was it Creed Ferraro?”

Of course, he thinks it’s me. Why should I bother dragging Creed into this hell ?

“It was me,” I confess.

“I know.” His knife lowers, my blood staining the tip already. And this time, the sharp point scrapes across my chest. I scream through the pain, and only vaguely recognize that he just carved a giant capital I into my chest, inches above my right breast.

“Tell me what part Ferraro had in my son’s death. I know he was involved. Why else would he have come after your daughter and hid you both in his penthouse?”

“It was...it was all me. I shot Izaiah. In the head. Then threw him down the trash chute.”

His knife drives into my skin again, this time carving the letter Z without lifting the blade even once until he’s done. The burning pain is like nothing I’ve felt before. I can’t lift my head enough to see it clearly, but I feel my blood drip down my torso.

“You’re lying. Admit it was Creed Ferraro who killed my son, and I’ll stop.”

I don’t respond at all, which earns me a big capital A.

I close my eyes and clench my teeth for the next half hour or five minutes — however long it takes for him to carve Izaiah’s name into my flesh.

After he finishes the H, I’m shaking so badly, it’s hard to even take a breath. Emilio returns above me with a different tool. I’m not sure what it is until he shoves it into the I shape, and it sizzles.

Smoke rises into the air with the scent of my burning flesh right before the icy sting has me slipping into darkness.

Cree d

“He has her. Emilio has her!” I tell Dre and Tristan while clenching my fists and staring out the view of the busy, crowded city from my office window. Zara could be anywhere.

“We don’t know that yet,” Dre says.

“Then where the fuck else could she be?” I shout. “Gideon’s boat left the harbor an hour ago, and she wasn’t on it!”

“There are still plenty of places —”

“Shut the fuck up! I don’t want you to give me a list of places Zara could be. I want to know which of Emilio’s properties he took her to.”

I don’t have weeks like before to stake out each building and wait. Zara and my men don’t have that kind of time. Emilio is going to kill them and her for Izaiah’s death. He’s spent weeks searching for her, plotting his revenge.

I feel so fucking helpless, even more so than I did when Carmine bled out on the club floor. That night...at least I knew what had happened to him and why. But this...I can’t stand not knowing where Zara is or what he’s doing to her, wondering if I’m going to be too late.

No, I can’t let myself think like that. I have to believe that she’s still alive, that she may be in agony, but she’ll be able to hold on until I find her.

We may not have spent much time together, but I love her and can’t bear the thought of losing her. Especially not to that son of a bitch.

Zara took a piece of me I can’t live without, a heart that I never knew I possessed because she’s had it this whole time.

The night she came to the club, it was fate. Carmine recognized it right then and there. I know now that I’m meant to be with Zara. My brother likely saved my life that night by giving me shit, convincing me to go talk to her.

And I’m glad I did, even though that decision meant Carmine dying alone instead of with me by his side .

That night in her apartment, I waited outside Zara’s window for her to turn on the shower before slipping inside. And like a pervert, I watched her as she threw her head back, washing her long hair and scrubbing her beautiful body clean.

Maybe Tristan was right, and it was love at first sight.

All I could think about in that moment was I’d give anything to be in the tub with her. When she got out of the shower wearing nothing but a towel and found me sitting on her sofa, well, it was hard to hold on to my anger instead of telling her whatever she wanted to hear to convince her to let me kiss her.

And then Izaiah put his knife to her throat and ripped that towel away when he didn’t deserve to be in the same room with her, much less be that close to her body, touching her.

Trying to push aside my emotions and think rationally, logically, I tell Tristan and Dre, “Get the list of Emilio’s properties. Send at least three of our men to every single one of them. They don’t leave until I give the order. Tell them to take listening devices, binoculars, whatever spy shit they have to look for Zara and the others.”

It may be impossible for me to be in twenty places at once, but I have the manpower to cover every property. If I asked them to sit on them for days, these men would because they’re loyal to me.

Pulling out my cell phone, I call Roscoe.

“What do you need?” the NYPD Commissioner asks, skipping the bullshit so we can get right to the point.

“I need you to trace a phone.”

“Okay. Text me the number. I’m driving right now, but I can pull over and run it when it comes through.”

“The number is Emilio Rovina’s,” I warn him, so he knows what he’s getting himself into.

Roscoe whistles through his teeth. “Then the search will probably get flagged by someone on his payroll when I type it in. I can try to get someone in IT to delete it… ”

“I know and I don’t care. You don’t need to worry either. He won’t be a problem for you or me as soon as I find him.”

“Understood. Get the number to me. I assume you want to try and pinpoint his location?”

“Yes. How small an area can you narrow it down to?”

“Ten blocks at best.”

Ten blocks of New York are still a lot of ground to cover. But it’s better than the entire state, since I don’t even know for sure if he’s crossed into New Jersey.

“That’ll help. Thank you.” I end the call.

Tristan and Dre are bent over my desk, going through the list of properties and splitting them up into groups of our guys.

“Roscoe will try to narrow it down. The three of us go with ten others to whatever property is the closest to where the cell phone tower pings. While you’re handling the assignments, I’ll go upstairs and grab us more firepower. Be ready to leave when I get back.”

“We’ll be ready.” Dre nods.