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CHAPTER TEN

Enzo

“Nowhere is safe, don’t you understand?” Valentina huffs at me across the kitchen island. “These people were in my house, in your house, in my car… Enzo, this is bigger than the mafia.”

“I don’t care,” I say, pacing the length of the kitchen in my bathrobe. I have been dreaming about this for so long that even the threat of The8 seems insignificant compared to her looking so delicious perched on the island in a matching robe, sipping her coffee.

We cleared the apartment earlier, making sure we were alone in here, and even then, I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

“The smartest thing to do would be to stay in the city,” she starts to reason, “so we can work together and figure out who the hell is behind this. Running won’t make a difference now.”

“Correction,” I say, stabbing a finger in her direction. “You run away; I figure this out.”

“Why the hell would I do that?”

“Because this is my job!”

“It’s my job, too!” she cries, hopping down from the stool and coming to circle her arms around my waist.

She presses her face against my chest, and all the frustration drains out of my bones. I stroke her head gently, debating what to do next.

“I know,” I finally admit. “I’m just worried about you… and Matilda. If anything was to happen to either of you, I don’t know what I’d do.”

“We’ll figure this out together,” she responds firmly, glancing up at me. “Anyway, it sounds like a jealous stalker or something… I mean, the lipstick, the messages. I don’t actually think any harm will come of this.”

“Why are you being so flippant about this all of a sudden?”

“Because it seems like a tantrum of a jealous woman,” she scoffs, studying her nails.

“You think getting into your completely locked-down compound without anyone noticing is just the work of a jealous ex?” I ask, the anger flaring up again. “I’d like to see what you think a professional mafia job would look like.”

“And you will,” she huffs, pushing away from me. “When I find this fucker, and destroy them, you’ll see how a professional handles it.”

“Are you saying I’m not being professional?” I ask, following her to the bedroom. She strips off her robe and starts throwing her clothes on haphazardly.

“Oh, run away, you delicate little female,” she mocks, imitating my voice. “You can’t handle the big bad baddie.”

“Lenny, that’s not what?—”

“No! I know what you meant,” she growls, whirling around to face me. Her cheeks are flushed with anger, but her eyes are watery, ready to spill at any moment. “Everyone, and I mean everyone , thinks I’m incapable of handling anything. But it’s my fault. I keep tiptoeing around everyone. I’ll fucking show all of you.

She storms down the hallway, calling the elevator repeatedly. I throw my hands up in frustration and run after her, grabbing her elbow just as she steps into the elevator.

“Lenny, stop,” I say softly, biting back the urge to explode on her or make a joke out of this. “Please, I’m just worried for your safety…”

“Worry about your own damn safety, Enzo,” she growls, shrugging out of my grasp and closing the doors. I stand in front of the elevator for far too long, staring dumbly at the numbers going down.

That’s not how I wanted it to go at all.

I spend the next few days practically locked in my office, my eyes glued to my laptop. Valentina refuses to speak to me, but I call every day, hoping she’ll change her mind.

Why can’t she just listen to me for once in her life?

My phone rings and I snatch it up, convinced it’s her. A series of beeps and clicks come through the speaker, and my first instinct is to hurl my phone across the room, but an idea strikes me.

I put the phone on speaker and place it gently on my desk so as not to disconnect the call. My fingers fly across the keyboard as I hack into every cell tower in the city.

Please don’t disconnect, please don’t disconnect—not until I find you.

I watch the screen impatiently as it runs through every connection and signal in the city. Finally, the screen flashes with the located connection, and I have an address.

457 West Street, I found you.

I disconnect the call and burst into the main office. I need to call for backup, but I don’t want to tip these fuckers off if they’ve tapped my phone.

When I see a couple of my associates lounging, I gather the group and get them up to speed. We pile into a couple of unmarked cars we keep in our garage and head to the address.

My head buzzes with excitement. My body is so jittery I nearly steer us off the road, much to the protests of my guys in the backseat, but we make it to the location in one piece.

It’s a shitty low-rise apartment building on the east side of town—all crumbling brick, bars on the windows, and burned-out bulbs. I send a small team to case the place and position themselves at each exit.

“I don’t know which unit it is exactly,” I whisper breathlessly. “But it looks like there are only two occupied at the moment.”

I scroll through the information I’ve pulled up on my phone after I hacked the building owner’s emails.

“Basement unit and one on the second floor,” I continue. “You two take the second floor, Marco and I take the basement.”

We slink out of the car in the cover of darkness and make our way into the building. Marco, one of the younger cousins, tails me, watching my back as we head to the basement unit.

This could be nothing, or it could finally be the end of this annoying little problem.

I hold my breath and knock, making sure to block the peephole with my finger. Faint shuffling sounds come from the other side of the door, but it doesn’t open. Marco meets my eyes, and I nod. Without hesitation, he aims and shoots the lock off.

Everything happens in hyper speed. The door flies open and a figure emerges, moving at full speed toward me.

He tackles me to the ground, knocking the air out of my lungs, and I helplessly watch my gun slip away, sliding across the dirty tile floor. The cold tip of a blade presses against my temple as I attempt to throw the guy off me.

Luckily, he’s not expecting two of us. Marco emerges from the shadows and kicks him off me, shooting him expertly in the shoulder—enough to disarm, but not enough to kill.

I catch my breath as the guy rolls around the floor, moaning and clutching his shoulder.

Heavy footsteps pound down the stairs, and I’m surrounded by my guys, guns drawn.

“He’s disarmed,” I say, finally getting my breath under control. “Throw him in the trunk.”

While they deal with the fucker who tackled me, I slip into the apartment. Just as I thought. He’s the hacker.

I take in the rows and rows of screens and laptops propped on a large meeting desk. The apartment is bare except for surveillance and tech equipment.

But who the hell is this guy?

“Marco,” I call, as he storms into the apartment, ready to save my ass again. “Pull all this equipment, especially the laptops. I need to see what he’s got on me.”

Twenty minutes later, the guy’s bound and tied to a chair in our torture chamber, as Rafael so lovingly calls it. Really, it’s just a soundproof basement in our warehouse, but it sure feels like a torture chamber sometimes.

I watch him through the one-way mirror as I roll up my shirtsleeves.

“Never seen him before,” I comment when Uncle Joe joins me. Someone must have called him and pulled him out of bed for this. “Have you?”

“Looks too skinny and clean-cut to be mafia.” He smirks, squinting at the guy.

He’s right. This guy looks like he could have been one of my classmates at Yale.

“Well, let’s see if he talks,” I growl, throwing the door open and stomping inside. He doesn’t even look at me, choosing to keep his gaze trained on the bloody floor instead.

I pull in a deep breath and step into my alter-ego—Enzo “Golden Ace” Cavalli.

“What’s your name?” I try first, circling him slowly.

He’s quiet, as I expected. I grip his shoulder, gouging my finger into the bullet wound, and he screams in agony, writhing on the wooden chair.

“What about now? Feel like sharing your name?” I ask, grinning in his face like a maniac. “Or should I try to pull it out of you again?”

“Fuck,” he moans, low and animalistic as my finger slides out of the bullet hole. “Arkadiy.”

I note the accent and the foreign-sounding name. Joe meets my eyes across the room, noticing it as well.

“Full name,” I command. When he doesn’t speak, I reach for his shoulder again.

“Arkadiy Chernekov,” he spits at me.

“And what the hell do you want from me?”

“I don’t know you,” he grinds out.

“I think you do, Mr. Chernekov,” I drawl, placing myself casually in the chair across from him. “You’ve been calling me, sending me strange messages, breaking into my house, haven’t you?”

He smirks, his eyes filled with disgust and a glimmer of fear.

“I’ll give you a choice today.” I grin, leaning over to get in his face. “If you tell me what the hell you want, I’ll give you mercy and put a bullet between your eyes right now, nice and quick.”

“And if I don’t?” he growls at me.

“Well, then we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.” I snap my fingers.

Marco takes his cue and walks over to the empty metal pool in the corner of the basement. He cranks the cold water and starts filling it up nonchalantly. A few of the cousins walk in, holding bags of ice.

He stares as they dump the ice into the pool, a mixture of fascination and fear in his eyes.

“So, what’ll it be?” I ask, affectionately slapping his knee with my hand as if we’re old friends.

“Like I said,” he grinds out through gritted teeth, “I don’t know you. I don’t give a fuck about you. I’m just doing a job.”

“Well, well, well, we’re getting somewhere now,” I exclaim, hopping up from the chair. I circle around him, leaning close to his ear. My finger slides gently across his shoulder, hovering near the bullet wound again, and he twitches wildly with fear. “Who do you work for?’

“The8.”

“No shit, asshole,” I growl into his ear. “Who is The8?”

He laughs—a deep, rich laugh that grates on my nerves. I winch his shoulder back, putting extra pressure into the wound, and his laughter turns to screams. When I pull back, he laughs again, and it fuels my rage, fanning the flames of anger in my gut.

“Marco, the kneecap,” I command.

Marco looks up from his post near the waterboarding station and shoots out the guy’s kneecap without a second thought. Chernekov screams, trying to rock back and forth, trying to straighten out his fucked-up leg, but he’s tied up.

“Care to tell me now?”

“Enzo Cavalli,” he sneers, laughing through the pain. “The most brilliant guy at Yale. The best hacker in the world… I thought you’d be smarter than this.”

His refusal to reveal anything is getting to me. Usually, I’m much calmer and cooler in the face of this type of bravado, but tonight, I’m too frustrated.

And these attacks are too close to my heart.

This isn’t a fire in my warehouse. This is a direct threat to my child and Lenny.

“She said you’d figure it out,” he scoffs, groaning in pain. “But you’re a durak, just as I thought.”

The fact that he called me a dumbass in Russian doesn’t get past me, but I’m more focused on the she part of his little speech.

“Who is she?”

“Eight,” he cries, hysteria starting to set in. “She’s eight, you fucking fool… and she’s going to get your little girlfriend, and your daughter, too.”

I shoot him in the head without a second thought. Joe groans and curses my name across the room, but I don’t give a shit. This fucker deserved to die.

“Enzo,” Joe scolds. “Too soon. He could have told us more.”

“I know his type,” I grunt, wiping my bloody hand on the dead man’s shirt. “He doesn’t care about his own life. He wouldn’t have helped.”

I stroll out of the room, reflecting on what I just learned. The Russian name threw me off. That the person behind this is a woman threw me off even more.

“She’s eight,” replays on a loop in my head.

There has to be significance behind that number, and I need to figure it out before Lenny and Matilda get caught in the crossfire.