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“The guy we think he is with doesn’t have any properties he could take her to. Is there anywhere Billy would use?” Massimo asks.

Elio has already tracked down two properties linked to Billy. His mother’s house in Cronulla and an apartment in the city.

“Nah, I mean he rents an apartment, but about a hundred people would see him if he tried to drag a girl in there. He crashes at our mum’s house…or he used to. She’s Satan’s Sons through and through.”

“What about his mates?”

“Doubt they have anywhere. These are kids, you know. Early twenties. Fuckin’ young, dumb, and full of come. They’ll be picking up gigs to pay for booze. No way they can afford property.”

Fuck. This is going nowhere. We are no closer to knowing where Francesca could be.

I shove my fingers into my hair and swear profusely under my breath. Dutch looks at me with pity.

“Sorry, I can’t be of more help. Can’t even try to understand what is going on in that kid’s head at the moment…”

We nod and say our goodbyes, dejected. What now? I want to tear up the city looking for her. I’ll knock down every door, but we just need to know where to start.

We reach the car and I am just pulling my door open when Dutch’s voice calls across the road to us. “Hey! Hang on a minute!”

He jogs across the road as I shut the door again and lean against it.

“Look, I duno if this is helpful at all, but I just remembered…when Billy first left we had some of the guys follow him for a bit. They trailed him to a storage facility out west. He was storing all his motorbike gear there. Nothing interesting, but yeah, do with that information what you will,” he shrugs.

“Text me the details?” I give him my number and when his text comes through a minute later we are already tearing down the road away from the Rusty Clutch and the surprisingly friendly biker.

We send Fat Tony and Tiny to Billy and Dutch’s mother’s house, just to be sure, but they quickly report back that there is no sign of him there and his mother is so furious with him that she wouldn’t open the door to him anyway.

Joseph Rossi and Frank Ambrosino cover the apartment, but that too is a dead end.

With the storage facility our only lead, Massimo and I break all traffic laws to meet Elio and Matteo there. They arrive minutes after us and we all rush towards the dark monstrous building, with no semblance of a plan, drawing our weapons as we go.

A security guard moves to stop us at the front door, but after looking all four of us up and down and noting we are armed, he makes the wise decision to open the door for us.

We vault one at a time over the security barrier that requires some kind of swipe card and push through a heavy glass door into a concrete maze. The reality of our situation sinks in. We don’t know which of the units is Billy’s. We could spend all night going from unit to unit while she is being tortured somewhere else.

“This is fuckin’ impossible,” Elio growls under his breath. “We don’t even know if she’s here.”

“I’m going back to talk to the security guard,” Matty announces quietly and heads back the way we came.

We’re all whispering and moving carefully as if by instinct. The empty carpark outside indicates that the building should be empty at this late hour, but something feels off. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking that we will find her here.

The door we came through seems to have led us to about the halfway point in the long building. On either side of us, stretches the beginnings of rows and rows of storage units. To our right, they are closer together, and more compact. To our left, the rows contain larger units with roller doors.

The cavernous space is only dimly lit. Power saving, I suppose. It makes for a spooky atmosphere. Full lighting only switches on in rows that are currently being accessed by users. Not a single row is lit up.

A wind whistles through the warehouse and a chill creeps up my spine. It makes me grip the gun in my hand slightly tighter. My gut is telling me this is the calm before the storm.

“We’re in the right place,” Matty whispers as he rejoins us. “The security guard is dead.”

“What?” I hiss. “The one who just let us in?”

Matty nods. “Yeap. Throat slit.”

“Fuck! Okay, odds are to fit bike equipment he will have needed to hire a large unit, yeah? So let’s start clearing row by -”

My instructions are interrupted by a high-pitched scream coming from somewhere far away to our left. It echoes through the open air and we all freeze. It was a female scream, but I couldn’t say if it was Francesca.

“Must have come from right down the end,” Matty’s lips barely move.