29. Alessandro

"Play it again," Lorenzo says to me as Jenkins talks on the phone with Don Rossi, who's coordinating with his connection in some government agency. I'm not asking any questions since Evelyn's father's been a Don for about as long as my father.

"I'm telling you that she's in the Bronx somewhere near a bus depot. Probably in a scarce area, not a lot of foot traffic, but off the river, maybe?" I rattle off my guesses from her message. "She is oblivious to everything around her, always. Except now, she's listening to the buses in the background? She said depot first, even though the first word of the instructions was ‘put'. She's trying to tell us where she is."

"We already found my truck," Jenkins murmurs. I can see the frustrated glare in his eyes, the face that says he's failed her, just like the rest of us. While I was pissed before, having this time to go over how we got here, the deck was stacked against him from the beginning.

"They switched cars near Columbus Circle," her father says over the car's speaker. "If I'm following your clues, she's probably near the West Farms Bus Depot. That's the closest depot near the Bronx River, fellas. We lose sight of it on the Cross Bronx Expressway. I'll keep working on it until we bring her home."

"Wait!" Jenkins swerves to a stop on the side of the road. "The tracker! I fucking forgot with everything happening."

"Wait? What?" I ask him.

"She wanted to go back to your place but said you were pissed and didn't want to see her. So she took me to some fucking dry cleaner with a tunnel."

"Great, now he knows about the tunnel too?" Lorenzo shakes his head.

"Spit it out, Jenkins," I tell him.

"I wouldn't let her go if she was going without me, so I told her the only way I'd stay with the car is if she has one of those GPS trackers to stick to your phone, kid, whatever."

"FUCKING LET'S GO!!" I charge. My adrenaline is pumping, heart beating, and I can't wait to get my hands on the motherfucker responsible for this. I just hope we're in time before something irreversible happens.

"Pull up the address," Lorenzo says to Jenkins.

While they coordinate where we're going, I'm changing clothes, getting ready for whatever may happen. A bulletproof vest, boots, two guns, and two knives. There are a dozen spots for me to pack extra bullets, but I'm hoping it's not necessary.

"Ren, send that address to Pop. Tell him to find out who owns it. I doubt this is random, and I doubt some hitman who shows up and lets people know he's looking for me—wait, how did Rossi's soldiers find out about the hitman?"

Lorenzo glances at me from over his shoulder in the front seat. "A waiter in some restaurant overheard a conversation about your netting a 500,000-dollar toe tag. He told his cousin, his cousin told someone else, and so on."

"Get Rossi back on the phone," I order them.

"Yeah, Jenkins?" He answers the call immediately.

"What restaurant did that tip about the hitman come from?" I ask him.

"Some spot in Queens. Donofrio's," he says.

Lorenzo and I exchange worrying looks as we both utter, "FUCK!"

"Thanks, Rossi," I tell him, and Jenkins ends the call.

"What's up? What's wrong with that restaurant?"

"That's where my father eats with his consigliere, my uncle, my Zio," I tell Jenkins with disappointment ripping through my body. I get on the phone to call Pop.

He doesn't hesitate to answer the phone either. "Did you get her yet?"

"We're on our way, Pop. When's the last time you ate at Donofrio's?" I ask him.

"Are you fucking serious right now, Alessandro? Your wife, my daughter, her life's hanging in the balance, and you're worried about some chicken marsala?"

"No, Pop, I need to know. The tip about the hitman came out of Donofrio's."

"Fuck, that's gotta be wrong, Alessandro," he says with hurt pouring through the phone. "I haven't been back there since the heart attack. Lara won't let me, and I'll be honest, she scares me a bit. She's got a screw loose, that one. Like a dog with a bone, she won't give up on getting me healthy. I give her shit, but I fuckin' listen."

"Check the address yet?" I ask him.

Pop moves around on the other end of the line. "Uh, yeah, let me pull that up. Just got it back from your guy, Mike. He's great at accounting, even better at finding shit."

"I know, he found a bunch of shit that's only adding up right now," I tell him.

"This is fucked, Alessandro. It's Oscar's building, but that doesn't make sense. Why?" my Pop asks. I can hear the crack in his voice as it dawns on my father how much shit we've been through the past few weeks at the hands of my uncle.

"We're here," Jenkins says.

"I gotta go, Pop."

"Yeah, do that. I'm going to run some errands." He hangs up, and while I want to warn him, or tell him to let me handle it, I don't have time to stop him.

"Okay, fellas, let's go get my wife out of there."

Jenkins is smart enough to park a few blocks away from the warehouse where Evelyn's being held. It's probably under surveillance because of its proximity to the water, but by whom is anybody"s guess.

Lorenzo uses his military training to lead the charge toward the warehouse. We're able to use one of his drones to look at the roof and into a window that shows us what we're up against.

"It's just him and Evelyn inside. He's got a table with a knife set, and right now, it looks like she's cursing him out.

Mio dolce.

That's when it hits me. "Alice Andrew."

"What?" Jenkins whispers.

"That's what the asshole called me. Alice Andrew, but there's only been one guy to ever call me that. It's him. It can't be, but there's no one else. That voice, the enjoyment of his insanity. It's him, but he's supposed to be dead."

Lorenzo sets his drone and its controller down before grabbing me by the shoulders. "Brother, you're a lot older now. Let's make sure he's dead this time around."

Jenkins moves around the building, finding its outdoor fire alarm. He purposely sets off the blaring ringing that lets the kidnapper know he's been found. Lorenzo pops the locks, and we move inside swiftly.

We circle around a few stacks of crates, coming to the opening in the center of the room where the maniac is holding a knife at Evelyn's throat.

"How are you still alive?" I ask, guns pointed at the man responsible for the nightmares that plague me to this day.

"Well, after you broke my jaw and sliced my throat open…" He pulls his shirt down to show me a jagged scar across his neck. "See? Yeah, blood buddies."

"The fuck is wrong with this guy?" Lorenzo asks.

"Ah, stop!" Kidnapper points to Jenkins, who's trying to make a move behind them. "Get over there. Now, everyone, put your weapons down, because I'm absolutely certain you don't want me slicing into her like a fruit ninja. Back off. Me and Alice have unfinished business. Where is my money?"

"In hell. I got a one-way ticket for you, too," I tell him, calculating in my mind how fast I need to move to get to him before Evelyn gets hurt. "Mio dolce, you okay?"

"Sono grande! I'm just great.Get me the fuck out of here," she growls.

"Cops are going to be here about that alarm, Slick," Lorenzo says, taking the kidnapper's attention.

"Then we don't have long. How about this? An oldie, but a goodie, seeing as I'm outnumbered. I'll untie her, and we can fight."

"You want to fight Evelyn?" I ask, blinking rapidly. "Don't untie her. She has a thing about knives and will fuck you up."

"HA! I don't think so. She's been pretty helpless so far."

"Fuck you," Evelyn snaps. "Untie me and see how fucking helpless I am."

He thinks I'm fucking joking. I put my gun down and strip out of my vest. It's a shitty distraction at best, but I'm willing to try anything.

"What are you doing, Alice-Andrew?"

"You showed me yours, it's about time I show you mine," I tell him, taking my shirt off to show him his handiwork. I barely turn to the side so I can keep my eye on Evelyn.

"Alessandro, don't!" Evelyn shouts.

"Alice-Andrew, do," he sings. "It's marvelous. A masterpiece."

As he stands up to get a better look, Evelyn swings up wildly, slamming her bound fists into the center of his face, right across the bridge of his nose, and sends him staggering backward.

Perfect.

My knife is faster than Jenkins as I fling it with deadly accuracy. The blade pierces him through the mouth and the back of his head. He falls back, coughing and gagging, tears streaming down his face and bleeding onto the cement floor.

Jenkins rushes over to untie Evelyn while Lorenzo and I approach the squirming body of her kidnapper.

"You want to punch his ticket to hell?" Lorenzo's sarcasm is unmatched in moments like this.

I nod, and just to finish my handiwork, I plug two bullets into his face. Evelyn comes to my side, spitting at his feet.

"I said, I'm going to kill you if my husband doesn't kill you first. Macchia di merda." She curses the guy with my arm around her.

None of this should have happened, and it makes me sick to my stomach thinking that Oz had anything to do with it.

"I'm so sorry," she tells me. "He killed your mother. He told me."

"Don't apologize for anything this psycho did. I'm just happy you're okay. He's dead now, and my mother, Rosalie De Luca, can finally rest in peace."