From wondering if I’ve followed her.
If I’ll stop her.
If I’ll come down and finish what I started.
Then it picks up speed again. Through the gate, down the road. Going, going… gone.
A call flashes on the screen. Sighing impatiently, I pick up. “Yes, Phoenix?”
“This a bad time?”
“No,” I rumble quickly. “It’s fine. Got anything for me?”
“No news on Drago Lombardi or Rokiades.”
“You gotta be fucking kidding me.” I’d hoped that one of them would have crawled out of the woodwork by now. I’m getting impatient.
“Don’t worry,” Phoenix says. I can sense from his tone that he has something else to give me. Nothing else can account for the edge of excitement in his tone. “I managed to get my hands on this bookie who works for the Greeks.”
“And?”
“The play is marriage.”
“Excuse me?”
“Renata Lombardi,” Phoenix says quickly. “That tired old Greek fucker was trying to tap into the Lombardis’ dormant empire by marrying Renata. That way, he’d be able to unite the two mafias under his control. His main goal at the moment is to gain control of their old territories. That includes a container port facility in prime fucking real estate.”
I growl under my breath. “The son of a bitch is more desperate than I thought.”
“This is a good thing, though, right?” he asks.
“Desperate men do desperate things, Phoenix,” I tell him. “And they don’t give a fuck how many casualties there are along the way. Desperate men are dangerous men.”
“Fair point,” Phoenix says, refusing to lose his enthusiasm. “But you have Renata, don’t you? Without her, Rokiades can’t do shit.”
My blood runs cold. Seconds ago, I felt like this was the right thing to do. I didn’t need her. She was a pawn in a game I didn’t even need to exert myself to win.
But now I see the truth. The bigger play.
Renata isn’t the pawn. She’s the fucking queen. And I just let her stroll out my front door.
My hand clenches into a fist as I realize how badly this stupid, impulsive decision has backfired on me. Fate didn’t waste any time laughing in my face, it seems. “Things have changed,” I say ominously.
There’s a pause. “What does that mean?”
“Renata’s no longer on the premises.”
“What? She escaped?”
I close my eyes for a moment. “Not important. I’m heading out to get her back.”
“You’ve got a tracker on her?”
“Of course.”
“Okay. Let me know how things go.”
“And you keep me posted,” I fire back at him.