Page 46

S arah

My head is pounding with a dull ache when I finally wake up.

I blink, trying to focus my vision, as I remember what happened. I was in the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria with Lea and Cadence. Rowan was there, along with Massimo’s security detail. Then Solitude showed up.

“Lea!” I call out, looking around, but still unable to see much.

“I’m over here,” she groans, her voice coming from my left. “I can barely move. It feels like I’m paralyzed.”

“They drugged us,” I deduce, finally seeing my best friend.

I move toward Lea, but something catches my leg. I look down and see that my right ankle is shackled to the floor. I pull on the chain and get enough slack to crawl over to Lea.

“Are you okay?” I whisper. “Baby okay?”

“I don’t know,” she groans, putting her hand on her stomach. “Where are we?”

“Good question,” I say, looking around.

We’re in some sort of cage. There are bars on all four sides. A door that is wrapped with a chain and secured with a heavy padlock. The floor is an iron grate, and while the light is too dim for me to tell what it is covering, I can tell there’s something below us.

The room looks like a bunker. The walls are metallic. No paint, no decoration, just brushed metal and bolts. It smells like rust, but there’s a chemical scent lingering in the air I can’t place.

I search the walls, looking for anything that will tell us where we are, and notice security monitors lining the far wall, but they’re turned off except for one.

It shows our cage, and I’m able to find the video camera that is pointing at us based on the angle.

The camera is mounted on a tall tripod, and the red light blinks ominously in the dimly lit room.

Wires snake across the floor, including some that are heavy cables, all pushed through the floor. I assume they’re attached to something, so I press my face to the grate, but still can’t tell what is lurking beneath us.

The only exit is a heavy door with a wheel-lock mechanism. Definitely looks like the sort of thing you’d see in a military bunker—possibly a submarine, but I don’t think we’re underwater.

“We’re in some kind of bunker,” I sigh, pulling at my chain and checking the one attached to Lea’s ankle.

“It was Solitude, wasn’t it?” Lea asks. “That’s who got us?”

“Yeah,” I confirm. “They were looking for you, but they scanned my face too. Somehow, they know I’m with Boyd. That’s why they grabbed me.”

“What about Cadence? And Rowan?” Lea grimaces and tries to sit up, so I help her. “The rest of the security detail?”

“I saw Cadence get shot with a dart, and they gave an order to kill everyone except for the Capo,” I say, squeezing Lea’s hand. “Said they wanted someone alive to tell Massimo what happened.”

A grinding noise sounds out and draws both of our attention to the door. The wheel turns and then the door opens, revealing a man dressed in the same black body armor and mask the guys at Waldorf Astoria were wearing. He’s alone, holding a device in his hand.

“You two bitches awake?” he snarls, his voice muffled by the helmet. He doesn’t have a Russian accent. I’m pretty sure he’s the one who pinned my arm to the floor at Waldorf Astoria. “Ah, yes, the star of the show has opened her eyes.”

He looks directly at Lea as he approaches the cage, and I try to move in front of her, but I don’t have enough chain. I pull against it angrily, staring the man down.

“And Sarah Parker. The podcaster,” he chuckles. “I’m curious to know how two lovely young women from Pine Grove got tangled up with the Morandi family.”

“We’re not telling you a damn thing,” I snap at him.

“No?” He presses a button on the device. “And here I thought the two of you would beg for your lives. Or at least beg for the baby’s life.”

My breath catches in my throat as I hear something grinding below us. The lights get brighter, and I can finally see what underneath the iron grate. Except I’m still not sure what I’m looking at. There are cylinders, spread out across the solid floor that’s about ten feet below the grate.

“You’re going to kill us, anyway, aren’t you?” Lea grinds out. “Begging won’t help.”

“Of course I am,” he sneers. “But it would make for a much better show if you were begging for your life the entire time.”

The man reaches through the cage and grabs Lea’s arm. I grab her other one and try to hold on, but he drags her out of my grasp.

“Let go of her, you bastard!” I scream, nearly tearing the skin off my leg as I yank on the chain.

“I’m not going to kill her yet,” the man growls, pulling a knife out of his pocket and dragging a bucket over by the cage. “I just need her blood.”

Lea fights against him, but his grip is too strong.

I can’t get to her. All I can do is watch helplessly as he digs the knife into her arm, and blood streams into the bucket.

Blood. That’s what the Mafia Prince Killer uses to write his messages.

I glance at the wall behind us. The one framed perfectly by the video camera.

It’s not only bare, but appears to have been cleaned. It shimmers more than the others.

“You better hope Massimo never finds you,” Lea spits out, grimacing as her blood continues to trickle down her arm.

“Oh, I’m counting on him coming for his wife,” the man snickers. “I expect Massimo Morandi to bring an army.”

“Won’t just be an army,” I mutter.

“You’re talking about Big Boyd, aren’t you?” the man says. “That’s the only reason we took you. The Bratva has some unfinished business with that asshole.”

I stare the man down, watching helplessly as he extracts Lea’s blood.

“And when they come for you, we’ll be ready,” he grins, shoving Lea’s arm back through the cage and picking up the bucket.

The man walks around the cage, then picks up a paintbrush and dips into Lea’s blood. He starts writing on the wall and I do my best to console my best friend, holding my hand over her wound to apply pressure that I hope will stop the bleeding.

“Sarah, you should be thrilled right now,” he comments as he drags the paintbrush across the wall and gestures toward the camera. “Your final podcast is going to break the Internet. A live stream of the Mafia Prince Killer’s swansong.”

He steps back from the wall and my eyes get wide when I see his message.

Farewell, Las Vegas. It’s time to go all in.

“All in?” I question. “What the hell does that mean?”

The man walks over to the camera and presses a button, then he moves to a table, opening a laptop.

He’s blocking most of the screen, but I can see enough to recognize my own podcast. He sets everything up, just like I would, then I see a countdown.

Two hours until my next podcast—and I’m going live.

“You’re a sick bastard,” I mutter, checking on Lea again before turning my attention back to our captor. “You know Lea’s pregnant. You’re really going to kill an innocent child?”

“Massimo Morandi’s child will never be innocent ,” the man snarls. “He’ll grow up to sit in his father’s throne, just like Massimo.”

“It’s a boy?” Lea whispers, glancing nervously at me.

“You didn’t know yet?” the man asks. “Congratulations, you’ve got a Mafia prince growing inside you. But not for much longer.”

The man in black walks around to the front of the cage. He places the remote on the floor and sits cross-legged, staring us down for several seconds before he reaches up and unfastens his mask. I blink in confusion as he reveals his face, because it’s one I know well.

“Arthur Dykstra?” I question, shaking my head. “No, you’re supposed to be in prison! I thought you were framed!”

“You mean the decoy sitting in solitary confinement in New York?” he laughs. “No, I fucked up during the last kill in New York. Somebody saw me and ratted me out to the cops. But I had some guardian angels watching over me. Someone more invested in my work than I was.”

“Solitude…” I suck in a breath.

“Exactly,” Dykstra says. “They got in contact right before the cops raided my safehouse. Already had a decoy, ready to quietly take the fall in my place. Dead man’s switch.

Wish I’d thought of that. They even hacked my old military records.

When the cops ran the decoy’s fingerprints and DNA, it was a perfect match. ”

Lea glares at him but doesn’t say anything. I keep pressure on her arm.

“So now, instead of killing for revenge, you just do the Bratva’s dirty work?

” I ask. “You realize that’s what this is, right?

Same thing happened in Chicago, New Jersey, and New York.

You took out a few crime bosses and then the Bratva moved in.

You think they’re any better than the guys you sent to prison after killing their children? ”

“It started as vengeance, yes. No real exit strategy. I just wanted to do as much damage as I could after I lost my wife,” he says, leaning forward.

“I assumed I’d get caught eventually. I made a mistake in Chicago and left some evidence behind.

Now that evidence will exonerate me. Well, exonerate the decoy, but it’ll clear my name. ”

“Solitude and the Bratva will take the blame,” I deduce, shaking my head. “And we’ll be dead.”

“You along with everyone the Morandi family brings to rescue you,” he confirms, pointing at the grates.

“Those are jet engines underneath you. You’ll get the brunt of the first blast, so neither of you will suffer.

The rest of the Morandi family—they might not be so lucky, but none of them will survive.

This bunker is lined with enough explosives to shake the ground from here to Caesar’s Palace. ”

I swallow hard and look down. Jet engines? I’ve never seen a jet engine before, but they have a lot of power. Enough heat to melt the flesh off our bones. It may be quick, but I still think we’ll suffer. Long enough to scream, at least. But I’m not going to beg. I won’t give him that satisfaction.

“You’re fine with the Bratva taking over Las Vegas?

” I mutter, unsure why I’m still trying to appeal to whatever sense of right and wrong may be lurking inside the Mafia Prince Killer.

“Fine with them killing innocent people? Kidnapping women and selling them? That’s what they do.

They’re a lot worse than the Morandi family. ”

“Las Vegas can burn for all I care,” he snaps. “Just like the Morandi family will.”

Arthur Dykstra stands up. I pull Lea as far away from the cage as I can, but he doesn’t make a move toward us. He slides his helmet back on and turns toward the door.

“Wish I could stay for the live show, but things will be a little too hot in here for my liking,” he chuckles. “But I’m sure the last episode of True Crime Minutes will be the most explosive one yet.”

Lea and I are quiet after he leaves the room and closes the door. Silence says everything. Tears trickle down Lea’s face and she holds her stomach. I want to tell her everything will be okay. That Massimo, Boyd, and the rest of the Morandi family will come to our rescue.

But that’s unrealistic. Nobody has survived the Mafia Prince Killer, even before he was working with Solitude and the Bratva. Except now, Arthur Dykstra is nothing more than a pawn. He’s no vigilante. He’s a monster.

“We have to warn them,” I say, checking my chain and Lea’s before moving closer to my laptop. “When the podcast goes live, we have to scream. Tell them not to come. Tell them it’s a trap.”

“Massimo won’t listen. He’ll come for me anyway,” Lea sighs. “Do you really think Big Boyd will listen, either?”

“No,” I admit, looking down, tearing up as the awful truth sours my stomach. “Nothing is going to stop him.”

We’re going to die. Massimo, Boyd, and the rest of the Morandi family will die trying to save us. Doors may not slow Big Mafia Boyd down, but he’s not as tough as he thinks he is.

I fight the tears as long as I can, then I break down, and move close to Lea. She’s crying too. We hold each other as the clock counts down to the final episode of True Crime Minutes .

My very last podcast.

My life is going to end, just when I finally started to figure out what I wanted to do with it.