Page 35 of Sin City Obsession (De Salvo Empire #1)

Alessa rolled her neck in a light stretch.

“Rocco told me, obviously.” She arched a brow at him in challenge, then stepped past him and up to the electronic lockbox beside the door to the single-story building.

“Be as suspicious of me as you want, Marzio. In this life, that’s a healthy reflex, but in this specific situation, it’s not going to get you anywhere.

” The box chirped as a series of green lights flashed and the door made a sound of decompression.

Her guard followed her inside, the heavy security door locking shut behind them.

Alessa walked down the short hall in near total darkness, stretched her arm out to the left when pitch black gave way to something lighter, and flipped up the switch. Industrial lighting powered on immediately, flooding the space in bright off-white light with a low, obnoxious hum.

She looked around, pointedly ignoring the pair of figures who reacted to the flood of light with groans and muffled cries.

There was nothing remarkable about the visible space, not until her eyes went up, and she saw that the walls defining the room did not meet the warehouse-style ceiling.

Steel beams and structure joists ran in crisscrossing directions overhead, just above the hanging fluorescent light.

Rocco had called the building an old film set. She hadn’t quite known what to expect, so she couldn’t decide if she was disappointed or satisfied with the reality. It was effective, though. Of that there could be no doubt.

Alessa released a quieter breath, made a mental note of her friend Marzio standing stoically at the opening of the hall that led to the outside, and turned her attention to their literally captive audience. To her non-surprise, Carla was glaring at her already. “Hey, Carla. Miss me?”

Carla—bound, gagged, makeup smeared down her face and hair a mess—surged in her chair and made a sound that was undoubtedly not friendly in nature.

Beside her was a man bound and gagged in an identical chair. He had short-cropped hair just a shade darker than Carla’s, and though his expression was darkening quickly, the actual resemblance between the two was weak. Still, he had to be Carla’s cousin, given his presence in the room.

Alessa set down the bag she’d had over her shoulder, walked in a wide arc around the pair, and pulled Cousin’s gag free first. She held herself just beyond his shoulder, at too sharp an angle for him to turn given his restrained nature. “Carla’s cousin, I presume?”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m the bitch whose belongings you stole out of Don Cavallo’s office a few days ago, at your dear cousin’s behest. Sound familiar?”

Both went briefly still and the male cleared his throat roughly. “Fuck no. I didn’t go near the don’s office.”

“He wasn’t Don yet.”

Cousin tried to turn his head toward her and grunted when he found himself unable. “You’re lying. You’re fuckin’ lying!”

Alessa pulled the fancy utility knife she’d pilfered from the tool kit out of her pocket and extended her arm into his line of sight, letting him watch as she flicked the blade open.

“There is absolutely no point to my lying here,” she said calmly.

“Rocco Cavallo Senior is no longer the don. So when I say Don Cavallo, I am referring to his son, the man for whom your jealous, thirsting cousin recently worked.” She lowered the point of the blade until it pressed onto the top of his thigh, just shy of the inner curve. “Clear?”

His chest heaved. “Clear.”

“Good.” She lifted the blade slightly. “Now. Let’s start at the top.

” She stepped around, then, into his line of sight, making sure to keep the blade visible.

“My name is Alessa Adimari. I don’t work for the Cavallo family.

I work for the man who kept your family fucking swimming when the tide got too rough a while back—I work for the De Salvo family. ”

To his credit, Cousin’s eyes widened with a glimmer of something like recognition. He was an idiot, but perhaps not a full ignorant one.

Alessa continued. “That case of mysterious toys that gave Miss Carla the heebie-jeebies? That was my toolbox. Those were tools I was planning to use on an enemy of my family’s, who happened to be nestled in your backyard.

” She pointed the blade at Cousin. “And you oh-so-helpfully threw it in the fucking trash. That was a pretty big inconvenience for me, and for Mr. De Salvo by extension. You understand?”

Cousin swallowed hard. “Shit,” he grunted. “I-I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Uh-huh.” Alessa dropped into a crouch, giving him height over her but keeping the blade between them.

It made no difference, after all, since he still couldn’t move.

“And in your job description, is there some fine print that states how you’re entitled to know all the details of a situation, or otherwise you’re exempt from the consequences? ”

He swallowed again. This time, he didn’t answer.

Alessa frowned. “I asked a question, Cousin.”

His brow twitched. “It’s Al.”

The breath froze in her lungs. She nearly dropped the knife, her fingers instantly numb. Why … why had he said her brother’s name? “What?” If she could think clearly, she would never have let herself speak to her captive in such a weak, vulnerable tone.

He didn’t miss it, of course. Nor did it soften his building rage. “My fucking name,” he snapped. “It’s not ‘Cousin’, it’s Al . Alberto, but no one calls me that. ”

His name. This man’s name was Al. Rather, it was the shortened nickname he went by.

Alessa rocked back and stepped away, her composure shattering by the second. Her vision blurred and the knife finally slipped to the floor as her throat constricted. Her father’s words echoed through her memory.

“There’s been a … an accident. Alfonso, your brother, he’s … he’s gone. He’s gone.”

She couldn’t kill this man.

She couldn’t force someone else to make that same phone call.

She didn’t know whether or not this Al had living parents, whether or not he had siblings, but it didn’t matter. The possibility of forcing that call to repeat itself in history made her want to vomit. She couldn’t do it.

It was her job. Arguably, these loose ends had potentially jeopardized her original mission and were now a part of her job. She was expected to deal with that. She couldn’t. She didn’t even know if she could ask someone else to.

A rough hand took hold of her shoulder, making her wince.

It was the shoulder with the still healing bullet wound, which itself was covered by her sleeve.

Marzio’s agitated, clipped voice cut through her panicking haze.

“Hey. What the hell’s going on with you?

Are you having a stroke or something? Aren’t you kinda young for that? ”

Something like irritation flared beneath the pain and the panic, just high enough, just long enough, for Alessa to shove Marzio off. “Just— You do it.” Her throat constricted again and she collapsed against the wall .

Marzio scoffed. “Not my job.”

“Hey! What the fuck’s going on?” Al shouted over to them. The Al who still lived.

Tears and pain fogged Alessa’s brain. She couldn’t see this one through. It needed doing, but she couldn’t see it through. So she fumbled in her pocket until she found her phone, she ignored Marzio barking at her to leave it off, and as soon as it powered on, she dialed Rocco.

It wasn’t Rocco’s job, either. He had so many other jobs on his plate. He had every reason to refuse, or to send some random gun in his stead. She nearly hung up as the option flitted through her mind, but then it was too late. The line connected.

“Miss me already, beautiful?”

Alessa opened her mouth to speak and found she could only gasp. She had no voice, her lungs too constricted and her sinuses too congested. He was already calling her name by the time she managed to stutter a word. “I-I c-can’t…”

“Shit. Are you at the site?”

She did her best to hum an affirmative.

“I’m on my way. Just shoot anyone who tries to touch you. And I mean fucking anyone.” He disconnected, but her phone was barely back in her lap before it buzzed with a text from him.

And keep breathing.

Keep breathing.

She gasped again, as if reminded she hadn’t taken a deep breath in minutes .

“What the hell did you just do?” Marzio asked, his tone incredulous and annoyed.

Alessa held tighter to her phone and ducked her head.

“Sh-shut up.” She had no answer for him.

She didn’t know what she was doing. She was abstractly aware of what she was supposed to be doing, and the fact that she could not do it.

Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she even suspected she was not having a rational reaction to the situation. But it made no difference.

So she sat, head bowed, phone clasped in her hand, and tried only to breathe through the pain in her chest and the tears dripping off her chin. Her only goal was to stay conscious until Rocco arrived.

His heart could not handle another crisis call so soon.

It didn’t matter that his father hadn’t called to report a problem, let alone for help.

It didn’t matter that no gunshots echoed in the air behind the devastating sound of Alessa’s broken, tearful voice.

What mattered was that something had gone fucking wrong, again, and again , Rocco had to race to the scene.

He had no idea what had happened. He’d sent her with a guard so that she should at least have had time to escape, but he feared she would have stubbornly planted herself beside the man instead and fought back. If it was even some kind of attack. What if it was something else?

Em had told him about her request for in-house names. And how he’d finished compiling the list only minutes before her desperate call.

Rocco hated the idea, but he respected her insistence on investigating it.

Objectively, he knew the point was valid.

Too much so to be ignored, at least. And if it turned out one of his people had followed her and hurt her—was responsible for putting that sound in her voice—he would bleed them.

Slowly. Their whole fucking bloodline would pay.

But first he needed to get to her.

He looked down at his phone, though he knew she hadn’t sent anything. Stay alive, beautiful.

“Huh.”

Em’s odd, mumbled declaration drew Rocco’s attention. “What?”

The SUV swung in a wide turn even as it slowed. Dirt from similarly sharp turns kicking up gravel immediately behind them assured the three vehicles following in his wake hadn’t been lost in traffic.

Em spoke as he threw the SUV into park, but already Rocco suspected his answer. “Looks quiet out here.”

He was right. It did. Only Marzio’s vehicle was in sight, off to the side, less notable from the road.

But this was where Alessa had confirmed she was, so Rocco threw his door open as soon as they came to a stop and jumped out.

“Looks can be deceiving.” He tucked his phone away and extracted his pistol .

Around him, men fell into position, armed with guns of varying caliber. He probably should have let several of his men step ahead, kept himself shielded in the center. It was the wiser move of a leader sparing some thought to his family’s future.

The only men he allowed to stand ahead of him were the ones quick enough to get there.

Em didn’t surprise him—the man had learned to move like a ninja to anticipate him years ago—but another, Gio, did.

Em punched in the security code and everyone raised their weapons as if expecting the enemy to burst through the door.

The door clicked open as it was supposed to, no drama, no mess.

Em and Gio moved forward before Rocco could overtake them. Rocco kept at their heels down the hall. It was barely wide enough for the men to stand two-wide, but at least they could see. And what they could see only made Rocco’s insides twist tighter.

The main interior space was fully lit, and it looked like Carla and Cousin were still bound in their chairs. Carla was even still gagged. Cousin was grumbling, his gag removed.

Marzio came into sight as soon as they cleared the corridor. Marzio spun toward them, gun half lifted, but he lowered it so quickly he may as well have dropped it when he registered who they were. By then, Cousin and Carla had gone silent as the dead.

Rocco didn’t care. He paid none of them more than passing attention, swept his gaze around the room, and spotted Alessa curled in on herself against the wall several feet further down. There was a knife on the floor, closer to Cousin’s feet than hers, and she clutched her phone tightly in her hand.

He tucked his gun away and shouldered past Marzio, striding straight to her.

He had no fucking clue what had happened—Gwathney and his crony had to have been more challenging than Carla and her fuckup cousin—but he would figure it out.

Just as soon as he ascertained whether or not she was injured.

Physical health, then psychological, and sometime after that, he’d determine everything else.

“Alessa,” he called as he dropped to his knees in front of her, “beautiful, it’s me. I’m here.” He reached out as she lifted her head and his heart cracked at the tears he hadn’t wanted to see staining her cheeks. He pulled her into his chest, kissing her head as she seemed to melt into him.

She didn’t speak, but he distinctly heard a sob over the thud of her phone hitting the floor.

Rocco tightened his arms around her. “Shh, it’s all right, beautiful. I’ve got you.”