Page 5 of Dirty Hearts

I had enough money. My brother Luc and I were capos to the Rossi Family. Raphael Rossi owned Chicago.

I had long since abandoned the poor life I had lived in my teens and God, I had so much money I could barely keep up with what I had and what I didn’t have.

So, why’d I think it was a good idea to take on this fucking side deal that put both my wife and her sister in danger?

The truth was, it was a distraction from all the shit that had happened in my life. A fucking selfish distraction.

Now I was paying for it in the worst way possible. Bad enough to take Marissa, but Ava too.

Ava… the woman I…

No. I willed myself not to think of the mess of a situation I’d had with her. I willed my heart not to venture down that path. I willed my mind not to contemplate the possibility of the fear that rose in me, telling me what this game was.

Two warehouses.

One had a bomb.

One sister in each.

With so little time to get to the docks, the crux of the game was either to kill me and one twin, or make me choose who I saved.

Bile rose in my throat at the thought. Bile and the cold tendrils of fear that wrapped around my nerves.

Twenty minutes.

It took me twenty minutes to get there. The darkness of night was already settling over the place. I leapt off the bike and ran down the boardwalk that led to the host of warehouses. There were at least twenty of them.

How the hell was I supposed to know which to go in was anyone’s guess. Time was ticking, moving, getting away from me.

Like a madman I ran for all I was worth, adrenaline kicking in. I opened the first door and abandoned the place when I saw it was empty. It was a storage facility.

Warehouse two was empty also. Three and four held some large freight containers, so I looked around those to see if either sister was hidden there.

Five minutes…

My hands were shaking, my body a mess.

My throat dry and my skin on fire.

I ran inside warehouse five, and that was when I saw Ava tied to a chair. There were crates everywhere and barrels of fish.

She’d been gagged, and when she saw me, her eyes went wide.

I moved to her with lightning speed, pulled the gag from her mouth, and—

“Claudius,” she wept.

“There’s no time,” I cried trying to keep my hands steady as I started

undoing the rope. “Where’s Marissa?”

“I don’t know. Claudius, I don’t know. The bomb’s attached to her.” Hysterical tears were pouring down her cheeks.

I stopped what I was doing and stared at her.

“Attached to her?”

“Yes, I don’t know where they took her.”