Chapter Eighteen

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Anthony

"Focus," Miko demanded, reaching for my shoulder and turning me to face him. "What might the code be?" he asked.

"I don't fucking know."

"What's her birthday? Her mom's birthday?" he asked.

"I don't know," I growled.

"Who might know?"

Sam.

Sam would know.

I reached for my phone, dialing Sam, who picked up on the first ring. "Anthony? Did you find her?"

"Sam, I need to know all of the dates Saylor might use as a code to get into the warehouse."

"Something happened," Sam said, the pain evident in her tone, but I didn't have the time to comfort her.

"Sam, please," I begged.

She rattled off the birthdays I asked for. Hers, Saylor's, her brother's, their dad. Nothing.

"Sam, what was the date of your son's death?" I asked, thinking of the story about how Saylor had come to take over this business.

Sam rattled it off, voice tight, and this time instead of a beep, the door unlocked. "Thank fuck," I said, rushing inside, gun drawn, frantically rushing around the vast, empty space.

But there was nothing.

No one.

My heart sank seeing Saylor's phone, set on the counter next to the sink. Like she'd put it down to have her hands free to fill Fury's water, then completely forgotten about it.

"Did you find her?" Sam asked, tone tight.

"No," I admitted. "Sam, I need to go, but I will call you as soon as I find her. I promise."

I didn't wait for an answer before I hung up.

"Fuck," I roared, storming back into the main area of the warehouse.

"Focus," Miko demanded. "There's no signs of struggle in here," he reasoned.

"I want to check out the studio myself," I said, rushing to the street to throw up my arm for a cab. Matej and Miko climbed in with me, leaving the Morellis to tell their cab to follow us.

The ride felt like it took for-fucking-ever, but, finally the cab was dropping us off, and we were all running down the street toward the studio.

"Whoa," Gio said, pulling up short at the sound of frantic barking.

"That's Fury," I said, seeing the pittie near Saylor's black SUV parked on the other end of the street, pacing and barking, panting like she'd been doing exactly that for a while. "Hey, girl," I called, trying to force some calm into my voice to offset her panic. "What are you doing here?" I asked, catching sight of Venezio and Brio walking down the street toward us.

She must have decided to bring Fury with her back to the studio for company. Then, I realized with growing panic, she must have been grabbed right off of the street.

Because Fury's leash was still attached.

"Matej," Gio called. "Where do you think your brother would take Saylor?"

"He had nowhere. Nowhere but my house," Matej said.

Gio looked to Elio. "Any chance someone saw you or Matej at the house? That they know he's not chained in the basement like he's supposed to be?"

Was that possible?

That they'd grabbed Saylor, then taken her back to Staten Island, where we'd just fucking been, as we galavanted all over the motherfucking city?

"Let's focus. Maybe she's not taken. Why would they take Saylor?" Elio asked. "They have the weapons. What's the motive?"

"I don't know. They found out we were staking them out?" I asked. I mean, Saylor had to leave multiple times a day to take care of Fury. And I sometimes went with her.

We were careful to leave through the back door, and we sometimes even wedged the door open, so we could come back in that way. But sometimes, we had no choice but to go through the front. If someone had just been looking out the window at the right moment, they could have seen.

Maybe Jan had wanted to eliminate her as a threat?

Or maybe he was holding onto her to use her against me? Against the Family?

I had no fucking idea.

I just knew she was gone.

And the only person I could think of who might have her was Jan.

If he'd decided to take her to Staten Island for… whatever reason, he would quickly learn that the house was cleaned up. And Matej was missing.

"I'm going back to Staten Island," I declared, thrusting Fury's leash at Brio, who I knew could handle her, even as she snarled at him, then rushed back to the cross street for a cab. "Do you know Keith? The hacker," I said, looking at Miko, who seemed to know everyone.

"Pizza roll guy? Yeah."

"See if Venezio can get any cameras or something on this street," I said, waving down toward it.

"On it," Venezio said, nodding.

"And we're coming with you," Gio said, moving into the street to throw his own arm up as Matej came with me into the waiting cab.

If Jan had taken Saylor to Staten Island, the only way he could have done so was to drive. Which maybe gave us the only bit of good luck we had so far.

Because the ferry was faster.

So if it took them an hour or so to get from Washington Heights to Staten Island, and we'd wasted somewhere around the same time taking the ferry and going to the warehouse, then we were only maybe an hour, tops, behind them when we got there.

Saylor was strong.

She would fight, stall for time.

She had to know I would be coming for her.

"What is it that your brother wanted from you?" I asked Matej as we made our way from the studio back to the port.

"Money," Matej admitted, shrugging.

"Did he get it?"

"No," he said, exhaling hard. "That was why you found me as you did. I imagine he would have come back after I had some time to… think about my situation," Matej said, being careful not to confess too much where he could be overheard.

Sure, New York cabbies had likely heard just about everything. But any head of a criminal empire worth his salt would never have his business getting around like that.

"Would you have ever told him?"

"No. What was left to take from me?" he asked.

"Do you think he could have tried to use Saylor against you?"

"How? When I didn't know her?"

In the front, the cabbie took a phone call, chattering away in another language, giving us a bit of freedom to get more specific.

"Would Jan think he could hurt her to get you to give him what he wanted?"

"Perhaps. I don't know if he was thinking that far ahead. He's never been one to be very good at multiple-step thinking. My best guess is he found out that Saylor was watching him, didn't like it, and he just grabbed her impulsively."

"And knowing that he was squatting at the row house, he wouldn't have wanted to leave any evidence of an assault or murder behind. So he decided to cart her back to the basement with you to figure out what she knew, and what she planned to do with that information."

"If she is smart, she will play games with him," Matej said. "Act like she was working with me, that she might have access to what he wanted. That sort of thing. Knowing I was on the loose, he would be desperate to get access to the money before I move it."

"She's smart," I insisted.

No, I didn't exactly know what she would be like when being tortured, but I'd seen her in action a few times. She was able to think on her feet, keep control over her emotions.

And, maybe more valuable than any of that, she was stubborn as fuck. She'd goad Jan regardless of the pain she knew she'd sustain for it.

I couldn't say she'd never fold. Everyone had a limit. But I hoped, prayed , that we would be able to get to her before she reached it. Before Jan got what he wanted from her. And then had no reason to keep her breathing.

"Then she has quite the advantage over my brother," Matej said, reaching out to squeeze my shoulder. "We will get her," he said, the certainty in his voice giving me some renewed faith.

Yes.

But how much would she suffer before then?

Memories of all the blood I'd cleaned up all day came flashing back to me. That had been pure revenge, and it had been brutal.

I could only imagine that Jan was even more cold-blooded and ruthless when it came to torture.

Majek, Gio, Elio, Ciro, Miko, and I all made our way onto the ferry, choosing to stand on the deck without discussing it. The bite of the night air cooled some of the heat of my anger, allowing me to focus past it, get my head in the game.

"We need a plan," Miko said, breaking the silence between us for the first time since we'd climbed in the cabs.

"The usual," Gio said, shrugging. "Front and back entrance, clear the upper floors, but I imagine that Saylor is being kept in the basement."

"I'm going down there," Matej said, face stone-still.

And, really, none of us were going to deny him the right to confront his brother after all he'd been through.

"Me too," I said, though I felt it went unsaid. My girl was down there. It was my right.

"We'll clear the house," Gio said.

"Depending on what we walk into, I will make a split decision based on need," Miko said, getting a nod from everyone.

"Is everyone packing?" Gio asked, getting a round of affirmatives as we closed in on the port. "Only half of us will fit in our car. So instruct the cab to park on the next street over. We will do the same, then fan in from opposite directions."

Plan in place, we met up on the street where Gio popped the trunk of his car, and handed out silencers. "The more quietly we do this, the better," he reasoned.

Then, weapons at the ready, we made our way toward the house, the tension palpable, though no more so than with myself and Matej. Who already felt responsible for the deaths of his loved ones, and now shouldered the guilt for Saylor being taken by his psychotic brother as well.

My pulse was a berserk bass beat in my chest as we silently split up as we closed in on the house, half going in front, the other half in back.

Inside the house, someone had the TV on a football game, the volume turned loud enough to allow us to catch them off-guard. And the pops of the guns as Miko and Gio took out the one guy in the living room would barely be noticeable through the rest of the house.

Gio, Ciro, Elio, and Miko moved through the house as Matej, Miko, and I went straight for the basement steps, moving down them as silently as possible, heading straight for that door that I knew Saylor was behind.

Because it made the most sense.

But also because I heard her stubborn "Fuck you," spat at whoever she was speaking to.

There was a loud crack, fist hitting skin and bone, that had my stomach twisting. Rage slid up my spine and exploded through my brain as another voice met my ears.

"Where. Is. Matej?"

With that, Matej used his free hand to yank open the door, me one step behind me.

"Right here," he declared to, I assumed, his brother, given the family resemblance.

"The fuck?" Jan hissed, starting to reach for his gun.

But Saylor was faster, kicking out a foot, sending the gun clattering to the floor as Matej charged at his brother.

He didn't, it seemed, want it to be a quick, easy death, a bullet to the head to end this. Matej wanted his brother to suffer like his men had suffered.

And, honestly, I couldn't fucking blame him.

Not as my gaze landed on Saylor's face, seeing the damage that motherfucker had already done to her.

One of her eyes was half closed, a deep blue bruise spreading underneath it. It matched the one forming on her cheek. And another on her jaw. And a fucking ring of them around her throat.

There was a slow trickle of blood from her nose and a split in her lip.

But alive.

She was alive.

Everything else could heal.

I'd be right there by her side through it.

I just had to get her out of here.

I tucked my gun into the waistband of my pants as I found the key Elio had used earlier to free Matej and rushed toward Saylor.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Fury," she said, voice raspy, likely from that fuck's hand being around her throat.

"We got her," I assured her, finding my hands fucking clumsy as shit as I tried to stab the key into the lock as Jan and Matej clashed together just a dozen or so steps away.

What felt like a lifetime later, the key slipped in, turned, and the chains loosened enough for me to work them free.

Saylor pulled her shoulders forward, cursing at the pain as she tried to work the tension out of her muscles.

I was still kneeling beside her when it happened.

A loud bang.

And white-hot pain piercing through my shoulder and chest, making me pitch toward the ground.

"No!" Saylor screamed, half folding over me, looking at the man who was in the doorway, the one with dried blood around his nostrils, and more of it staining his tee.

It happened so fucking fast, and I was a little distracted by the bullet wedged in my flesh, but I felt Saylor's hand reach into my waistband, then watched as, like some kind of fucking avenging angel, she lifted my gun, and emptied the fucking magazine into the bastard, her face twisted in rage.

I swear to fuck, she'd never been more beautiful.

I was vaguely aware of the thunk of a body hitting the ground before Saylor's focus was on me again.

"You idiot," she said, sniffling hard as tears flooded her eyes. "How are you always getting hurt?" she asked, pressing both of her hands into my shoulder, making the pain intensify.

Behind her shoulder, Matej moved behind Jan, producing a knife from his pocket, then yanking his brother's head back, and slicing across his throat.

Something about his practiced movements told me Matej knew exactly what he was doing.

If you wanted someone to die fast, you actually tilted a head forward toward their chest, which left their arteries vulnerable. Yanking the head back gave them some protection, made it less likely you would fully sever the artery. Which meant they bled out slowly, gasping for breath as they slowly choked to death on their own blood.

It was a brutal, terrifying way to go.

And maybe it was cold-blooded of me, but I felt that was a fitting fucking end to the bastard.

"Fuck," Miko's voice called as he rushed into the room, phone already to his ear. "It's Anthony," he said, voice tight. "Shot. Shoulder. Babe, please, let me look," Miko demanded, trying to move Saylor out of his way.

It was Elio who rushed in, reaching for Saylor, and moving her away, his arms staying wrapped around her as she tried to fight him, my blood covering her hands, so she couldn't even reach up to brush the tears off of her cheeks.

"Pulse is fast, but steady," Miko said, likely talking to Salvatore. "No, no, not the heart. Right side. It's too high to have hit the lungs. Don't hear any air in it," he said, leaning over my wound to listen as I slow-breathed through the pain.

"No, it's not wedged. It's a through-and-through. Okay. Alright. No, we're not in the city. We're on Staten Island. Yeah, I know. Okay. Yep. Let me give you to Gio Morelli. I need to go get supplies. Babe," he called to Saylor. Elio released her, and she flew to me, dropping down on her knees. "Keep the pressure on," he said, giving her an encouraging nod, then looking to Matej.

"Emergency supplies," Miko demanded, and Matej spared one last look at his brother on the floor. If not dead, then close. Then he ran after Miko into the rest of the house.

"You're gonna be okay," Saylor said, sniffling hard.

"Not my first rodeo," I said, reaching toward my pocket.

"What are you doing? Stop moving," she demanded as I pulled my phone out, swiped the screen, then pulled it to my ear.

It rang once before Sam picked up.

"Anthony?"

"I got her," I said, then hung up, deciding it was a good time to conserve my energy.

"Was that my mom?" Saylor asked, pressing hard into my chest and shoulder.

"Promised her I'd tell her when I found you," I said, reaching up with my free hand to wipe some of the tears off of her cheek. "Saved the girl," I said, feeling so fucking tired. "Not a bad way to go."

"You're not going anywhere, you asshole," she snapped, pressing more of her weight into my shoulder, making the pain soar again, jolting me more fully awake. "Do you hear me? You're not going to fucking die over a stupid little bullet in the shoulder trying to save me."

"You saved me a few times."

"It's not a contest," she said as footsteps thundered back down the stairs.

Matej set a plastic container down on the floor beside me, and Miko reached inside for gloves.

"Sal is on his way," Miko said, tone calm as if this was just a casual conversation, not an emergency situation. "‘Till then, you got me. And your pretty nurse here," he said, actually fucking winking at Saylor. "How's your stomach, babe?" he asked her.

"I can handle it," she said as Miko nudged her out of the way to yank my shirt open, spreading the material wide so he could look at the wound. "Eh, think you've had worse," he said, shrugging. "Just aren't gonna be able to lift your arm up for a while. Lucky you got someone to cater to you," he said as Saylor paled as she looked at the wound.

"I was supposed to be taking care of you," I said, reaching out to place my hand on her thigh, giving it a squeeze.

To that, she rolled her eyes at me. "I'm fine."

"Face says different," I said, wincing as Miko poked at the wound before reaching back into the kit for something.

"I've taken harder hits in the ring," she lied. "Oh, this is gonna suck," she said, wincing, just a second before the cold liquid burned like fire over and into my wound, making me let out a string of curses that would get me a stern punishment from the preacher in the shame box the next time I went to church.

"One way to keep ya awake, huh?" Miko asked, tone calm. "Sal wants me to pack this to hold you over until he gets here," he explained. "Can't imagine that's gonna feel good either. But, hey, pain means you're alive, right?"

I might have wished a bit for death as he packed shit into the front and back of the wound before they sat me up.

"Here," Gio said, coming into the room with a bottle of booze. I didn't even give a fuck what it was, I took it and gulped, feeling it burn down my throat, but knowing it would dull the edges of the pain.

"Okay. Okay. Let's not add alcohol poisoning on top of everything else," Saylor said, taking the bottle from me, but taking a quick swig out of it before setting it down.

"I'm gonna be alright," I told her, even if the wound packing had made a sweat break out across my forehead and intensified the pain a solid threefold.

"Maybe we should move you out of the basement," Elio suggested. "Kitchen is clean enough to eat off any surface," he added.

"Think you can move?" Miko asked.

"Yeah," I said, even if the idea made my stomach lurch.

Miko offered an arm and there was no room for pride as I let him help me off of the ground.

"Sorry about your floor, man," I told Matej as I looked down at the bloodstain I left there.

It wasn't until I was sitting on a kitchen chair that I realized Saylor hadn't followed us up.

"Where's—" I started.

"Looking for something," Matej said, shrugging. "Maybe she lost something in the fight."

"Can someone make sure she's not touching the bodies?" I asked, looking at the small crowd around me.

"Don't worry about the bodies," Matej said, shaking his head. "I will handle it. No one is going to find them.

"That's an impressive girl you got," Miko said. At my blank look, he shrugged. "Took out three of Jan's guys even though she was outnumbered and knew she would pay for it. Then took out the one who tried to take you out."

Shit.

That was a big body count.

Was that why she was down there still? Freaking out about it?

As if my thoughts conjured her, I could hear her footfalls as she ran up the stairs. She was still tucking something tiny into her front pocket as she came into view.

"I brought this," she said, lifting her other hand where she was holding the neck of the liquor bottle. "But small sips," she demanded as she handed it to me.

It was maybe just five minutes after that when there was the smack of the screen door in the front room, making the Morellis reach for their guns. Just a second before Salvatore came rushing into the kitchen.

"Sal," I said, offering him a weak smile.

"Is it ever not you getting shot?" he asked. His gaze scanned around the room, giving the Morellis nods, then landing on Saylor.

"Let me look," he said, setting his bag on the kitchen table beside me, but turning to Saylor.

"I'm fine," she insisted. "Take care of Anthony."

"He'll keep," Salvatore said, reaching for a pen light from his bag and shining it in each of Saylor's eyes. "Open," he demanded, pressing her lower lip until, with a scrunched brow, she did what he asked. "Lucky. Didn't lose any teeth," he said. "Don't even look loose." With that, he set down the light to press his thumbs into her cheeks and jaw, I guess feeling for breaks or something. "You're alright," he declared.

"I told you that," she said, getting a smile out of the older man.

"Ice all that, though. And ibuprofen for the swelling. Alright, onto your clumsy ass…" he said, turning to me with a smirk. "How long you gonna need to be on my couch again?"

"He's coming home with me," Saylor insisted, making all the men try to hide their smiles. "I can take care of him," she added.

"Dunno about your bedside manner," I said, shooting her a smirk even as Salvatore pulled open my shirt and started poking around.

"I can be nice," she said, slitting her one good eye at me.

"Hmm," Salvatore said as he pulled the packing out and flashed the light inside. "Can someone find the bullet, so I can see if there is any major damage to it that could suggest shit scratched off inside this?"

"I'll go—" Matej offered.

"Wait," Saylor said, reaching into her pocket, and pulling out the bullet.

So that was what she'd been looking for.

"Babe…" I said.

"It was the bullet you took trying to save me," she said, shifting her feet.

And she wanted to keep it as a memento.

"Should make a necklace out of it for good luck," Elio said, and the way her neck went a little pink suggested she'd thought the same thing.

"Should I fish the one you used to fill the fuck who'd shot me out of him?" I asked.

"Dunno, man," Miko said, smirking. "She practically emptied a magazine into him. Hard to tell which one finally did him in. Could make you a pearl necklace out of ‘em all, though."

I offered him a small smile, but my gaze was focused on Saylor.

And I knew right then, without a fucking shadow of a doubt, that all the men in my family were right. You knew it when you had the right one.

Saylor was the one.

It might take some convincing on her part to make her accept that.

But, hey, I had nothing but time while I recovered…