My blood heated at her confession. It sounded like an infatuation and would typically have shut me down to push the woman away. With Mia, everything was different. I had come alive. And a part of me had been more than intrigued with the very few pictures we had of her and how she’d risked so much to warn Summer when she was in danger. “Tell me. What else was there?”
Mia leaned in as we stopped for a light. “It doesn’t matter. Just notes he had. His inaccurate assessment. It’ll make him misjudge you in critical moments. I see you. He never has.”
Fuck.I threaded my fingers into her hair. Cupping the back of her neck, I drew her to me and crashed my mouth against hers, needing to taste her, consume her. There was nothing like Mia. She was in my blood, and I was never letting her go.
The cars honking pierced through the haze of desire, and I reluctantly broke the kiss. We sped through the streets as quickly as we could in the congested traffic. Her words played through my mind, further convincing me of how fate worked in strange ways. It was something I hadn’t fought and wouldn’t.
I think she might be the one.
Her confession sealed my train of thought about what we could be. But once Joey Tucci realized Mia was behind tonight’s bust, she would have a bounty on her head.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
NICO
The motel room was far from the route the van would have taken to drop the girls off, but it was perfect for what we had planned. The dated interior and lackluster staff gave us the anonymity we required. It wasn’t anywhere the Tucci or Amato family would guess us to be, either, which had its benefits. Mia and I would be seen entering an exclusive hotel in Manhattan shortly.
I glanced at Mia, who crouched and whispered to the terrified girls. Mia, Emiliana, El, and my sister would get as much information from them as possible while we worked on Tucci’s guards. Then Enzo, Sofia, Marco, and El would leave for the Tuccis’ nightclub, wearing disguises so they could search for where the girls were taken after the holding cells. Stefano and Em were the only ones who would remain in the shadows.
I blocked out what they were doing and focused on the two zip-tied men before me. One was tied to the desk chair, the other secured but sitting on the bed. He was the one Stefano would interrogate. Trey had injected them with his version of truth serum. It wasn’t a miracle drug—it wouldn’t make them tell the truth, but it would slow the neurological signals throughout their bodies, making it difficult to perform high-function tasks like formulating a lie.
Trey stood back, waiting for the drug to work through their blood. Stefano hovered, malice oozing from his frown and setting the tone for the captured men. Enzo, Tony, and Marco hung back, having agreed that Stefano and I would do the dirty work of bloodying them.
The problem was Emiliana, who had death in her eyes. Neither of us could deny her that right. The final shot would be from her. Just not here.
Trey clapped Stefano on the shoulder then went to a small table set up in the back corner of the room. That was our signal that the men were ready for questioning. I got started on the one secured to the chair.
We were all trained in torture, but Stefano had lived through it due to his father’s twisted methods of raising a son he found lacking, never able to view past the façade Stefano wore to see what lay beneath until it was too late.
I blocked most of what was going on around me, needing to focus on my task. The soldier looked to be in his thirties. There was no identification on him or the other guy. They wore dark clothes and were armed—foot soldiers operating on a need-to-know basis.
The sound of Stefano’s fist as he hit his guy filled the room. Quiet whimpers from the kidnapped victims vied with our girls’ reassurances. I positioned my foot on the front end of the chair’s seat, between the guy’s legs, and gave it a shove along the dark threadbare commercial-grade carpet until the back hit the desk.
I felt Mia’s gaze as I braced myself on the desk, boxing the guy in with my arms. Staring into the soldier’s beady brown eyes, I waited for a flicker of emotion. Intimidation was accomplished in many ways. Without the drug, words wouldn’t have been necessary at that stage—I would have begun breaking things, starting with his fingers. Then I would dislocate his shoulders and add a few stab wounds before asking the first question. But Trey had done the heavy lifting with the drug, and I wanted answers sooner rather than later.
Stefano preferred to have a little fun before questioning began. A lot of it was for Emiliana’s benefit, some kind of atonement for all she’d gone through. I understood and wouldn’t begrudge him his rage at the situation.
The stench of fear hung heavily in the air. Even if it was mainly from the abducted girls. I maintained eye contact with my guy, watching for any signs of a lie, which would have been hard but not impossible for him. We were conditioned to withstand such drugs, though I doubted the Tucci family trained their soldiers that well.
“Who do you report to?” I started with an easy one.
“Ricco Tucci.”
Interesting. I’d assumed it was Joey. I would get to that soon enough. “What does Ricco task you to do?”
“Find the girls he’s targeted, or easy prey, and bring them to the alley behind the club. Drop them off to the other soldiers at the back entrance.”
I already knew where and how often, but we needed to ensure there wasn’t anything we didn’t know. “How often do you pick up the girls?”
“Once a week.”
“Are there others who do the same thing as you?”
“Yes.” His eyelids were hooded, and he could barely hold my gaze.
We needed to find every arm of the operation. “When?”
“Dunno. We do what we’re told. This is the night we go out.”