He wasn’t wrong. That was part of why I’d gone into medicine in the first place. “Fine. I’ll go along with Allen’s bribe.”
Marco observed me for a minute longer than what made me comfortable. Whatever he saw, he decided to keep it to himself. “Nico and I’ll go with you to get the girl.”
“No.” I couldn’t explain it, but I knew it was something I had to do alone. “As far as we know, it’s one guy holding her. There’s no reason for either of you to go with me.”
“We don’t know if there are others involved,” Marco reasoned. “There’s also Guido Amato. His whereabouts are unaccounted for, and he’s gunning for you and Luc.”
Luc Brambilla was one of the Five Family bosses and had recently married Summer. The longer I debated with my brothers, the more time went by where I could be rescuing Hailey. I needed to appease them somehow and get out of there. “If anything, Guido will go after Luc. And he’s on his honeymoon with Summer in Italy. I doubt he’s a factor.”
“I don’t want you going in there alone. If you don’t take both of us, then at least have Nico go with.”
I met Marco’s steady gaze with a determined one of my own. “It’s a quiet neighborhood.” Nico’s footage had only shown one car in the driveway. “Nico can hack the security cameras on the exits of the house and see how many people have entered the house.”
“You’re being weird about this.” Marco cocked his head, and I didn’t like the gleam in his eyes. “Nico can do that, but you’ll take security.”
“I planned on it.” I had to get out of there.
“Wait.” Nico opened a desk drawer. “I got this from… someone. Use this if they open a door, or since there aren’t any cameras on the side of the house, then get it in through a window.”
He handed me a small device that resembled a fly and a controller with a screen that connected to a camera in the fly’s eyes. “You’re being cagey. Who is the someone you got this from?” I needed the focus off of me, and he was being strange.
Nico shrugged. “A friend in security. No big deal. Anyway, it’s a camera, but there isn’t audio.”
“A fly in January.” I grinned. “Should be interesting.” It was smart. Flies had ommatidia, made up of thousands of visual receptors. Each one acted as a functioning eye that provided a 360-degree view in its entirety. I wondered if the drone had a 360 camera in it.
“I want security in there with you,” Marco insisted.
I held up the tiny drone. “I’ll scope out the inside first. They can wait in the car while I do that. If I need them, they’ll know. I’ll relay what I find out.”
“I’ll keep digging here. But so far, nothing is coming up on this Justin guy. No excessive debt or anything usual that would be a red flag. And the cameras on the house aren’t connected to the internet. I can’t hack them.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll be careful.” I held up the fly again. “Thanks for this and to whoever gave it to you.” I winked at Nico as Marco narrowed his gaze on him. There would be no avoiding answering Marco. We could ignore our older brother but not our boss, and a question specific to the equipment fell into the boss category.
I was quickly losing daylight. After we said our goodbyes, I hurried from the house. My car would stick out like a sore thumb. I borrowed keys from one of the guys on our staff. On the way to the loaner car, I grabbed two guards and told them to follow me, adding that they were to be discreet and remain in their vehicle when we got there. They would know if I needed them—they would hear gunshots.
CHAPTER FOUR
TREY
In a nondescript sedan, I headed in the direction Nico had indicated. Forty minutes later, I’d arrived in a low-income subdivision downtown just outside of the city, where each residence looked like a carbon copy of the next. I drove at a moderate pace, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Vehicles lined the streets, some with enough snow on the roofs that I knew they hadn’t moved during the day, and others without. All were in front of uniform brick bungalows. I dismissed the homes with the blinds open, searching the area for a white van and a house with all the windows covered.
It wasn’t until the middle of the neighborhood that I found the house that matched the address Nico gave me. The blinds were drawn on every window facing the street. Most had at least the second story ones open to let in the fading light. I pulled through the alley, parked two garages away, then got out of the car. The black SUV that had followed pulled behind me as I peeked into the one-car garage’s dirty window for the bungalow in question for signs of the van. And there it was.Got you.
I motioned for the guards to stay where they were while I grabbed the tiny drone, its controller, and a hacksaw blade. To avoid the backyard camera above the door, I went in from one house over and approached from the side. Dusk was settling in, which worked in my favor.
I crunched through the thin layer of pristine snow, aware I was leaving a clear trail as I closed in on the house from the side. White paint peeled and flaked from the trim. The dark-red brick appeared tired, same as most houses on the street. It was freezing out, and most people were inside or on their way home from work. A few evergreen bushes lined the side of the house, and I stepped close to a nearby window. The shrubs helped to obscure me as I listened.
When no sounds filtered through my chosen entry point, I put a thin hacksaw blade near the sash lock. When the teeth caught, I pushed then popped it open. After removing the tool, I pried the glass pane up a sliver and set the tiny drone on the sill. A few commands of the control panel launched the pseudoinsect, and I watched on the screen that fed from the fly’s eyes, pleased when I saw that it was a 360-degree camera.
The fly flew through what looked like a living room that didn’t have any furniture in it then to the dated kitchen. No one was in either of the rooms. I made a sweep of the first floor, noting the coats hanging on hooks on the wall adjacent to the back entrance, one of which looked like it could be Hailey’s.Interesting. A quick check over the shoes piled below revealed a lone stiletto that looked like the one she’d worn that morning.
Encouraged, I continued the exploration, deciding on the basement rather than the second floor, as the door that led downstairs was open, and a light shone from below. With the fly near the ceiling, I was able to keep it relatively hidden. The stairwell was closed until the bottom quarter, where it opened up without walls and only the railings bracketing the steps.
A few more centimeters, and the view of the lower level was displayed crystal clear on the screen before me. My eyebrows rose at the sight of a man and woman sitting at a small table, a pizza box in front of them, and a video game paused on the TV situated before a large leather sectional. I recognized the woman as Hailey. The man was new to me, but he had to have been Justin—and he fit the visual form of the masked attacker.
Reversing the fly’s direction, I did another sweep of the first floor then upstairs. The house was empty except for those two. I returned the fly to the windowsill, shut off the monitor, and pocketed the tiny drone. I set the controller on the hedge, eased the pane up as far as it would go, then climbed inside and pointed my gun in the direction of the basement.
My steps were slow and measured—I didn’t want to alert them to any noise from the floor above. It probably wouldn’t have mattered, as I could hear the gun noise from the video game they played. In the time it took me to get into position, they must have finished their dinner.