24. Sal

I've been pouringover nautical charts and shipping records for an hour.

Marco's idea was to connect me to someone who could trace the boat, which wasn't a half bad idea. Marco's instructions brought me to the Belfast port authority, who was more than happy to loan me the office in exchange for an amount of money that would have been exorbitant in any other situation.

In this one though, it's not.

Gia is on the line.

It makes everything more urgent. And it makes me feel like I have no clue what I'm doing.

I've never been this helpless. Not in a very, very long time.

Not since I saw my family, one by one, be cuffed and put behind bars, and I couldn't do anything about it. I wanted to save them, that time.

But I didn't know enough. I had no control over the situation.

Now, though?

I should have control.

The problem is that I don't.

My mind also lingers on what Marco said to me earlier, in the pub when he gave me the tip about the shipping and port records.

I can't leave her for long.

I can't for the life of me tell if that means that he's being trapped by her…

Or if he doesn't want to leave.

There's no doubt in my mind that the woman Marco's living with is an Interpol agent. However, what's unclear to me is if there's anything else going on with her.

For some reason, I get the feeling that there's more to her and Marco's relationship than meets the eye.

I force myself to look back at the charts.

It's far too shortly, however, before my phone rings, jarring me out of my concentration.

I look down at my cell. I pick it up, my hands clumsy as I try to calm myself down.

It's Elio.

I don't want to take this call. I thought that Elio might give us just a little bit more time before he summoned me.

I had thought that, perhaps, he would think that Gia and I were still under cover.

But clearly… that isn't happening.

I gulp around the lead pit in my stomach and answer.

"Elio," I say into the phone. "How are you."

"Would you like to explain why a marriage contract came across my email this morning?"

I blink. "What?"

"There's an Irish man offering to marry my sister. Care to explain who the fuck this is?"

Elio's voice is absolutely vibrating with rage.

"I have no idea," I say honestly.

"You've been gone for months. You told me that you were going to bring Gia back in one piece. That you would look out for her. That you'd bring her back to me," he emphasizes that last part in a snarl. "And now not only are you not here, but you expect me to believe that you have no fucking clue why an Irishman named Liam MacAntyre is offering to marry my sister?"

I frown. MacAntyre?

The name is too familiar, because MacAntyre is the name of the man who kidnapped Caterina.

"Liam MacAntyre?" I say slowly.

"Si," Elio hisses and swears in Italian. "And I too wondered why the name sounded so familiar. Kieran was the one we killed. And we did kill him, did we not?"

"Stone cold dead," I mutter. I handled the body of the fucker myself.

Putting the man who kidnapped and assaulted my sister into the ground was pure joy.

"Then why the hell," Elio's voice is thick, his Italian accent pronounced as it often is when he's upset, "is someone named Liam MacAntyre saying he is going to marry Gia?"

I take a deep breath. There isn't an explanation for this, but more than that, I don't want to think about what's implied here.

That whoever kidnapped Gia is going to marry her.

When she's pregnant.

With my. Fucking. Baby.

"I don't know," I finally manage to get out.

The line is silent. So silent that I'm about to ask Elio if he's still there when he makes a noise that's somewhere in between a scream and a roar.

"Find her, Sal. Find her or I'm going to unleash hell on the world."

"Not before I rip it apart," I growl back.

Elio's clearly upset still, but I can hear him as he simmers down slightly. "You'd do that, wouldn't you?"

I can't tell him. Elio would be devastated if I told him about the baby and Gia didn't.

Hell, I'm still destroyed over the fact that she didn't tell me herself.

"Tear it to shreds, Sal. She's my sister," he says in a threatening voice.

And she's the love of my life,I want to add.

Instead, I open my mouth and bark out a quick "Copy," then shut the phone down.

There are so many feelings buzzing around in my mind, I can't keep them all straight. Terror. Anger. Confusion.

Then, back to that deep, soul-sucking terror the information Elio gave me brought on.

Gia can't be getting married.

There has to be some kind of threat embedded here. I'm missing something and I can't quite place what it is.

I dig for my laptop, opening it up and connecting it to the VPN for the port authority within moments.

Liam MacAntyre. Who the fuck is he?

Why does he have my Gia with him?

Why did he intentionally kidnap her? Why target specifically her?

Why the fuck did he leave me alive.

I'm staring at the blank screen. My mind is moving faster than the technology in front of me, and it's making my skin crawl. Finally, the computer boots up. It's still painfully slow, but at least it's functional.

Immediately, I start to search.

Liam MacAntyre.

I'm not sure if it's the fact that I'm in Ireland, and therefore on the correct VPN, or just stupid luck, but the search almost immediately brings something up.

My jaw drops.

This man is a fucking ghost. He's a corpse.

He shouldn't be alive. I watched him die.

I lean in closer, frowning.

No, he's not Kieran.

For one, his name is different, which sounds like a stupid difference until I realize that there are other subtle differences. Different tattoos.

Kieran's face had a cruel look to it, while Liam's has a stoic one.

He doesn't, however, look unhinged like Kieran did.

That's a relief, I think.

The tattoos are also totally different. Both of them are (or had been) covered in tattoos, with only their faces exposed, but Liam's tattoos are artful. They look more like they're done intentionally, whereas Kieran's tattoos had looked like they'd been done by a drunk pirate somewhere around the end of his career.

Or maybe by someone who had been given a tattoo gun for the first time.

Either way, I can appreciate the elegance in Liam's ink. It doesn't mean I like the guy, but it does mean that he doesn't appear on the surface to be a total fuckwit.

That also means he's going to be a pain in the ass to deal with.

He wants to marry Gia.

My email pings, and I open it. Elio's forwarded me the email from MacAntyre.

I scan through it.

Every sentence burns through me like a branding iron.

It's well-worded. The man is perfectly logical. Perfectly sane. He's absolutely thought every aspect of this, and I fucking hate him for it.

It's a good bargain. He's proposing that he and Gia get married in order to satisfy the terms of an old debt that his father had. In return, Elio would receive a fighting force nearly triple our current numbers. He would have unfettered access to the Irish supply of weapons that flowed from Eastern Europe, and he would have exclusive trading rights with the diamond mines that the Irish somehow had a hand in.

I didn't know what else they have a hand in across the world, but I knew what was being offered in the letter was good.

There is one line, however, that lingers in my mind. The words waver in front of my face.

I would give her a position as my equal. The organization would benefit from having Gianna Rossi at my side, and I would never be unaware of that.

He sounds like he knows her.

Like he's talked to her.

And, like he understands her.

My hackles are up. No one understands Gia except me.

Or at least… that's what I thought.

My heart thumps.

I shut my eyes and I take deep breaths. Gia isn't mine. She made that very clear. Even though I thought we were on the same page…

We aren't.

I can't let our personal situation interfere here. I need to find Gia.

Even if when I find her, it breaks me.

* * *

An hour later,I find it in the harbor's video recordings. An unmarked ship left and headed north.

North.

There isn't much north when it comes to Ireland. Scotland. Maybe Iceland. Canada?

God, it would be fucking terrible if she was back on North American soil and I didn't have a clue.

Elio's words ring in my mind, but more than that, I can't stop thinking about the fact that Gia is with some guy who wants to marry her.

Who didn't exactly give us an "or else" when he sent his message, but the implication was clear all the same.

North.

I pour over a map, doing everything I can to figure out what ‘north' might be. Russia?

God I hope it's not fucking Russia.

It's not exactly like I can reach out to any of the Russians, either. Even if she didn't get taken to Russia, they have pretty much a monopoly on shipping anything above the latitude of New York City. Their network of ships and containers and the movement of goods is vast, and if anyone knows where Gia's been taken in the general direction of ‘north,' it's them. If they know directly, they'd tell Elio, since Elio and the Russians are fairly tight, but even if they don't know…

They definitely have an idea of where the Irish would hide her, especially in the north.

However.

They also think that Gia and I are dead. If I show up and announce that not only are we very much alive, but we managed to survive the blast that took out two of their top guys, they're immediately going to suspect one person.

Me.

No matter how strong we've been as allies in the past, when it comes to stuff like this, people are pretty predictable. The Russians are absolutely going to think that we had something to do with all of this.

Unless…

An idea pops into my head. It's stupid, potentially to the point of being reckless, but it's the only lead that I have.

I shuffle through my pockets until I find Gia's phone. I tap in her password, then scroll through her contacts.

There's one Russian who owes Gia more than the other ones. Do I think she will be particularly helpful, considering that she got herself kidnapped in Belarus and Gia had to be the one to save her.

And I had to be the one to save Gia.

But she won't squeal. She can't. It would mean violating one of the more sacred rules of this life, which is that people who save your life basically own it until you repay them.

Usually, by saving theirs.

A life for a life. That's how the world goes.

So when the phone rings and a bubbly, valley girl voice answers, I know that no matter what, I have no regrets. The Russians will know that I called their precious princess, but they'll also know why.

And that I had no choice.

"Gia!" Anastasia Novikov, also known as Stassi, chirps into the phone. "Oh my god, it's been like, forever. What are you doing? What are you up to?"

I take a deep breath. "Anastasia. It's Sal De Luca."

She's quiet for a second. "Where's Gia?" Stassi says in a small voice.

"That's why I called. Gia's been taken, and I need your help to find her."

There's a shuffling sound. I think Stassi has put the phone against her chest and she's walking somewhere.

I'm hopeful that it's somewhere private.

"I'm back," she whispers. The ditzy, bottle-blonde voice is gone.

In its place, there's a throaty, even-toned sound.

"Tell me everything," she demands.

I steady myself. There's a moment of regret before I launch into the story.

Gia needs us.

Stassi is the key to finding out where she is.

Even though I don't like it, and even though it's a risk, it's the only way.

With that in mind, my mouth opens.

"Let me start at the beginning."