Page 36 of The Italian Reckoning (A New York Criminal Empire #3)

ROCKY

D esperation hangs over me like a cloud. There’s an entire fucking city out there and Sarah could be anywhere, if she’s even still alive.

I know next to nothing about this bastard killer and all the power I have at my fingertips as a Mafia heir is getting me nowhere.

The city stretches out at my feet as I stand on the roof of Sarah’s apartment building.

Each twinkling light taunts me with the possibility that she could be there, or she could be lost in the darkness in between.

Across the street, an elderly couple dance arm in arm on their balcony to music that drifts over briefly with a gust of wind. The way they look deep into each other’s eyes as they shuffle back and forth makes my heart ache, but I can’t look away.

Why didn’t I do something sooner? Why wasn’t I more insistent on protecting her? Why didn’t I stand up to my father sooner?

So many questions flood my mind with noise I can’t control.

Each breath is tight against the pressure in my chest threatening to suffocate me.

My stomach churns constantly and there’s a tremble in my leg that won’t go away.

My body’s trying to expel the nervous energy, but it’s not enough. I’ll never know peace again.

A soft chirrup rises from the wall where Iris sits with her gigantic fluffy tail wrapped around her paws.

I found her up here when combing through Sarah’s apartment for clues grew overwhelming and I desperately needed air.

My attempts to catch her and bring her back inside to safety failed spectacularly, but she came to sit next to me when I gave up and she hasn’t moved since.

She refuses to let me touch her, though.

Heavy footsteps rise from the door behind me and Cormac appears a second later with two beers in one hand dangling by their plastic connector. “Hey.”

“Any news?” I have no patience for pleasantries.

Cormac shakes his head. “After we found your bike a few miles from here burnt to a crisp, I had my people scout the city’s traffic cams, but the result is as you can expect.”

“He drove her there and then hurt her, right?” The words taste like acid.

Cormac nods, stopping next to me. He snaps one of the beers out of plastic and offers it to me. “Evelyn’s been studying the note, but it’s fucking generic.”

A single crisp white paper note was attached to the burnt out shell of my bike with five simple words.

Sarah is where she belongs .

“He doesn’t get points for creativity,” I mutter.

The couple across the street sway and dance deeper into their apartment, and when I can no longer see them, I accept the beer from Cormac.

Not that I drink it. I just fiddle with the ring pull and stare out across the city.

“Domenico has his picture running through every database we have access to. What are the chances we get a hit?”

“Pretty high,” Cormac says with a grunt as he eases down next to me. “We have a lot of eyes in a lot of places.”

“What use is that, though?” I glance sideways at him.

“I wasn’t able to get any decent information on him.

I wasn’t able to help her, or Belle. Or any of the other people he hurt.

And now he has her and I’m just fucking sitting on a fucking roof hoping some computer somewhere will ping his face because I have no clue where to look!

” My voice rises with each word. “How is it possible that we are the most powerful people in this fucking city and one single cunt from Montana can saunter in here and take my…”

My girl.

Mine .

The word catches in my throat like a hiccup and a surge of emotion swells in my chest. It feels like I’m about to crack open and all my grief will pour out and flood the streets below.

“Believe it or not, I know how you feel.” Cormac cracks open his beer with one hand. “There was a time when Evelyn was taken from me and I felt like someone had ripped out this essential part of me that I didn’t know was there until it was gone.”

“What did you do?”

Cormac grunts while he drinks, then licks his lips. “I did what you’re doing. Because it’s what men like us do.”

The ring pull catches on my nail and a flicker of pain lances up my finger. “This is my fault.” The words tear out of me, barely a whisper. “I never should have let her come back here after that note. I should have done more to stay with her.”

“Rocky.” Cormac leans forward and balances his elbows on his knees with the beer can dangling loosely from one hand. “Doing this won’t help her. Beating yourself up won’t help her.”

“Well, what the fuck else am I supposed to do?” I snap, rising from my seat as a surge of anxious energy washes through me. “I can’t just sit here on my fucking ass!”

“Go on, then.” Cormac jerks his head toward the city. “Go out there and look for her. Fuck knows where to start or how, but sure. Go knocking door to door and see what happens.”

“It’s gotta be better than just sitting here and?—”

A ding rises from my phone. I nearly drop my beer in my desperation to reach it. One message displays on the screen from Domenico.

“We’ve got something!”

“This is his place?” Cormac steps over the threshold after me. “Smells like shit.”

Thanks to Domenico, the sketch provided by Mary got a hit on an insurance database for a rental agreement on an apartment not far from Sarah’s with a name attached.

Bobby. I’ve never heard Sarah mention a Bobby, nor come across him in any of our interactions.

By all accounts, this guy is a stranger and yet somehow, he’s the most important fucker in my life right now.

“What are we even looking for?” Cormac stops near a wooden table by the door and picks up a handful of envelopes. “Dude needs to pay his bills.”

“I don’t know.” My hand drags through my hair for the umpteenth time as I hurry into the living room. “An address of some kind, maybe a lock up or a car. Something this bastard owns so we have some way of tracking him down.”

Cormac takes the kitchen and the TV room while I tear apart the lounge. Cushions are dragged from couches, drawers emptied, tables flipped over, cabinets are raided, and every magazine and piece of paper torn apart in search of anything that has an address. There’s nothing.

Absolutely fucking nothing of use until Cormac stumbles back into the room with a large binder in hand along with a work apron. “Rocky.”

“What?”

“You’re gonna wanna see this.”

“What is it?” I stumble slightly under the weight of the binder and a cold shiver shoots down my spine. “Wait, I know that place. That apron, it’s from the coffee place a few blocks from here.”

“You know it?”

“Yeah, I fucking know it.” I snatch the apron to me with my other hand. “Sarah drinks there. Back when I was keeping tabs on her because my father was trying to kill her, that’s where I would see her.”

“On it.” Cormac flips out his phone then points to the binder as he stalks away. “Look in there.”

Flipping through the binder is like some cold, terrifying trip down memory lane.

Page after page is filled with pictures of Sarah.

Her coming out of the station. Her in the station.

Her at the park. In front of her building.

And more than I could ever count of her in that fucking coffee shop. Page after page after page.

Those that weren’t of Sarah were of Belle and Kara. Seeing them all together hits me like a punch in the chest. They’re both blonde.

Even Mary is blonde.

Is that why he targeted them? Was he building up to something with Sarah and wanted those three poor girls as some sort of precursor to the main event? Only Mary got away. I can’t stomach the thought of what that means for Sarah.

I keep flipping until my fingers grow numb from the sickeningly smooth plastic covering each photo, and an uncomfortable itch grows across my burning skin. This psychopath was stalking her all this fucking time. Why didn’t I see him? Why did I let him get so fucking close?

“Rocky.” Cormac reappears in the corner of my eyes. “We have something.”

My head snaps up like a bullet. “What?”

“Here.” He tosses his phone onto the binder and I catch it with two fingers as an address flashes on my screen.

“I sent his name and the picture from the rental agreement to everyone we know and Anastasia got back pretty quickly with a match,” Cormac explains.

“Bobby’s listed on their books as a night watchman at one of their construction sites.

Security flagged a movement alert four hours ago, but he called it in as a stray dog. ”

Cormac’s barely finished speaking before I’m flying out of the apartment like hellhounds are nipping at my ankles.

I’m going to kill that fucker with my bare hands.