Page 86 of Caught in the Crossfire

But I had to do this first.

“No.”

When he left my room, I yanked my backpack out and waited until the house was quiet.

My motorcycle dartedthrough the city.

I first drove to the street corner where Lucchese said he dropped off Vokshi. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary or of any interest, besides the location being seedy. This area was no stranger to crime.

An idea struck me. If Vokshi disappeared in a camera dark spot, what other dark spots were located around the city? What if there were a connection between them?

I’d have to ask Ciel to look into it, but not when I’d snuck out after lying to him.

I drove a few blocks away and started asking questions of some neighborhood drug dealers and sex workers. No one had any information.

The big news was that an underground casino owned by Max Volpe had been bombed tonight. He was out for blood.

Frustrated with the lack of helpful information, I hopped back on my bike and headed outside the city, toward the safe houses Lucchese mentioned in Trenton.

I drove to one and parked my bike down the street. I flipped off the lights and waited, watching. With my dark bike, dark clothes, and dark helmet, I was concealed in the shadows of the night, but just in case, I strapped two guns to holsters on my belt. My brass knuckles waited inside my pocket, the weight heavy and familiar against my thigh.

After almost an hour of waiting, I glanced at the time on my phone. 2:53 a.m.

I had to get back to the penthouse before anyone noticed I was missing.

Just as I was about to turn on my engine, a car rumbled down the perpendicular street. I froze, watching as the old beater turned into the driveway of the safe house. Four men hopped out, walking straight to the front door, where it opened and a man inside greeted them.

My eyes widened.

I pulled out my phone and used the camera to zoom in on the group just as they were crossing the threshold. When the door shut, I snapped a picture—grabbing the profile of a man at the very last second.

It was him.

Orik Vokshi was here.

Where had he come from? How did he get here?

We hadn’t installed cameras here yet; we only knew the addresses because of Lucchese. Had Vokshi been here the whole time?

My hands went to my guns.

I could kill him now. By myself.

A house full of five of them wouldn’t be an issue.

I could go back to the penthouse tonight knowing that I’d redeemed my failure of letting him go at the marina.

But we also needed to understand how the Albanians kept evading us. We needed more information so we could keep going after them. We were planning to torture Vokshi in order to get it.

My eyes narrowed on the house as I watched lights flick on inside, dimly flickering through the closed blinds. They were moving inside.

I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed Obi. He picked up on the second ring.

“Wynn?”

“Don’t ask how, but I found Orik Vokshi.”

“Where?” I could hear rustling, with Leona’s sleepy voice, in the background.