I know something’s wrong when Ricco calls me at nine o’clock to tell me she’s still not there. He’s been waiting at Natalie’s house and she should have been home hours ago. The driver hasn’t picked up a single call and I feel like a fucking idiot for letting her go alone.

“Relax. We’ll find her,” Salvatore says. He’s sitting beside me as we take the exit where the tracker equipped in the car that took Natalie says it’s parked. Two soldiers ride in the car behind ours.

“I’m a fucking idiot.”

“No. You’re not. She wants space. You’re trying to give it to her. Considering what she overheard—”

“No, she doesn’t get to have space. Not anymore. Fuck!” I slam my fist on the steering wheel for the hundredth time. “I shouldn’t have brought her to that house.” I shake my head at myself as I speed down the deserted street.

“There,” Salvatore says, pointing to the fencing around the abandoned cluster of buildings.

I slow as I pull up, stop at the closed gates. The place has been vandalized but a heavy lock keeps the lot sealed off so I can’t drive any farther.

“We’ll go on foot,” I say, killing the engine, getting out of the car.

Salvatore is beside me and I hear the cocking of his weapon as we walk through a narrow opening that someone made by cutting the wire.

I spot the sedan in a far corner. It’s out of place here where the windows of the buildings are broken or gone and even squatters won’t occupy. The place is eerie. Haunted by the wretchedness of the people who lived and died here.

There isn’t a single sound around us. If it’s an ambush, they’ll have us tonight. We should have brought more men. A fucking army. I’ve not only put Natalie in harm’s way, but my brother too.

There’s a low sound as we near the vehicle. I take my pistol out of its holster and exchange a look with Salvatore. While he goes around the back of the car, I move around the front to the driver’s side. I hear the soft hum of music, I think it’s country. The radio’s on.

The driver’s side window is open a crack. Although the windows are tinted, I should be able to see a form if anyone’s in there and I don’t. Still, I have my gun ready when I open the door. But the car’s empty.

I reach in and pull out the keys, which are still in the ignition, killing the sound.

“Pop the trunk,” Salvatore says, just as I peek into the backseat to find Natalie’s purse on the floor, her belongings scattered. There’s no blood at least. Nothing like that inside the car.

“Sergio. Pop the fucking trunk.”

I glance at Salvatore whose eyes are locked on the closed trunk. I reach around, pop it and walk back at the same moment he decocks his gun.

“Fuck.”

Fuck is right. The driver’s body is inside. His face is bruised and there’s a bullet hole between his still open eyes. On the lapel of his jacket is a note.

Keep your friends close.

Your enemies closer.

A name underneath the cryptic message. An address.

“What the—” Salvatore starts, taking it from me.

“Let’s go. The address is Atlantic City.”

We move quickly, driving the hour and a half to Atlantic City at breakneck speed. Salvatore is beside me. He’s still studying the note, but there’s nothing to learn from it.

“What the fuck does this mean?”

“It means someone’s fucking with us.”

“Vitelli?”

I shake my head. “No. No way. He’d be fucking stupid to after what happened with Joe.”

“Then who?”

“Pick a number. We have enough enemies to choose from.”

“DeMarco?”

“I don’t fucking know.”

Keep your friends close. Your enemies closer. It sounds like a warning.

We drive in silence, both of us thinking. If this is a warning, they won’t hurt her. The plan was to take her. To show me they could. If it was to kill her, she’d be lying in that trunk with the driver.

It’s almost five in the morning by the time we near the cheap motel outside Atlantic City limits. It’s not operational and was probably looted months ago. I park the car a block away and we walk. This part of town is nearly empty. Any streetlights that once illuminated these dark streets were busted long ago. There’s a traffic light flashing red about two blocks down and just past it is the motel. Twelve rooms from what I can see. The building looks like it’s going to cave in any second and at the very last room, a truck is parked outside.

“She’s got to be in there. You three go around back.”

Salvatore nods and disappears behind the building and I walk to the last door, fury making me fist the pistol hard.

As I approach the second to last room, I know from the lights flashing through the split in the curtain that someone’s watching TV in there. But they know I’m coming. Whoever took her left the fucking address. This is too easy. It reeks.

Salvatore and the two soldiers turn the corner. I signal for them to listen at the door of the room next to the one where the TV’s on. A moment later, he nods. I put up three fingers and count down: three-two-one.

Both doors splinter as they’re kicked in. Natalie screams. For a moment, I’m caught. I see her lying on the bed, arms over her head, cuffed to the headboard. A huge man moves much faster than I think he should be able to considering his girth and he’s got his gun pointed at me before I know it. I’m still faster though and the bullet he shoots ricochets off the wall behind my head when mine catches his gun arm. He stumbles backward, his pistol flying through the air, landing three feet from him.

More gunshots go off next door and Natalie’s screaming again, climbing to her knees.

“Stay down!” I call to her as I stalk to the giant who’s fallen to his knees to retrieve his weapon. It’s stupid. He could take me—or try to. We’d be matched.

“Close your eyes, Natalie.” Déjà vu. I’ve told her exactly this before. The past is repeating itself.

I cock my pistol and taking aim at the back of the big guy’s knee.

I pull the trigger and he screams, falling over onto his side, clutching his shattered kneecap. Although there’s a silencer on my gun, it’s still deafening. The sound of a gun firing is always that.

I stand over him, put my foot on the bloody crook of his arm and press. I know this idiot isn’t the one responsible for taking her. He’s a hired gun. Expendable.

“Who the fuck hired you?”

He screams, blubbers like a fucking girl. I hear footsteps behind me.

“There were two in the next room. Both down,” Salvatore says.

“I want to know who hired the fuckers,” I spit at the man without looking at my brother. When he doesn’t answer, I cock the pistol again.

Natalie’s crying. I hear her. She must know I’m readying to murder this guy.

“Watch him,” I say to Salvatore, going to her. I look her over. She’s messed up, a bruise at her temple, a cut that will scar. I’m getting more and more pissed off as I sit down, touch her. “Are you okay?” I say, trying to level my voice.

She shakes her head no, fresh tears starting.

“Physically. Are you okay?” I need to know. The other shit I’ll deal with later. Right now, I need to know she’s not physically hurt. But she just stares up at me, sobbing. “Natalie, look at me. Did he hurt you anywhere else?” I barely get the words out. “Did that fucker touch you?”

She stares at me, registers my meaning, shakes her head. “I want to go home.”

I nod. Look up at her binds. I need a key. “Close your eyes,” I say, cupping the back of her head and tucking it against my belly before shooting at the rung of the headboard through which her cuffs were woven. I hold her hands, cradle her.

“It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.” I turn to one of the soldiers. “Get the car.” He nods and runs out the door. “Find me the goddamned keys for these,” I tell the other one, gripping the cuffs that bind Natalie.

A few minutes later, one of the men hands me the key.

Natalie turns her gaze up to Salvatore, who’s standing nearby, watching. “You’re safe now,” he says to her.

She turns her attention to my hands which are undoing her cuffs and when they’re off, I rub her wrists.

“Sergio,” Salvatore says, eyeing the big guy on the floor.

I don’t want her to see what’s about to happen. “Give me a minute.”

The soldier I sent for the car returns.

“Put her in the backseat,” I say, standing, bringing Natalie with me. She’s shivering. In shock maybe. “And stay with her.”

“No,” she says clinging to me. “No. I just want to go home. I want you to take me home. You.”

“I need you to wait in the car for me. I need to take care of this before I can take you home.”

She shakes her head, her nails dig into the back of my neck. Her eyes are saucers, her terror palpable.

“Nat.” I know she hates being called that, but she doesn’t even acknowledge it. Her gaze keeps bouncing to the man I’m going to hurt and each time, more tears well inside her eyes. “I need to take care of this. I need you to wait for me out in—”

“Do it,” she says. She locks her eyes on the man and there’s a darkness inside them that wasn’t there before.

“You don’t want—”

She shifts her gaze to mine. “I want you to do it.”

I study her. She doesn’t even blink, but returns her gaze to the man. She knows what I’m going to do.

“Look away,” I say.

“No.”

“Natalie, there are things you can’t unsee.”

“Don’t you understand?” she asks, looking up at me. “I want to see. I need to.”

Her eyes are stone.

I nod. Salvatore’s watching us. I read what he’s thinking on his face. This is fucked up.

When I walk to the brute on the floor, I take out my pistol and cock it and, without a word, I shoot his other knee. As loud as his scream is, I still hear Natalie’s over it.

She wants to see.

She wants to see what I’m capable of.

What a monster I can be.

“Sergio,” Salvatore puts a hand on my shoulder. “I can finish this.”

I shrug it off. “No.” I crouch down next to the man. “You want to die slow or you want to die fast? Because you’re dying tonight. It’s just up to you how.”

“Please. Please. Mr. Suit. He hired me to watch the pretty girl. I didn’t touch her. I didn’t touch her. It’s the rules.”

I know he’s mentally not all there, but I don’t give a fuck. See, this is what makes me a monster. I have no compassion. Not when someone takes what’s mine. Not when someone hurts what’s mine.

“What’s his name?”

He shakes his head, confused. “Mr. Suit.”

I’m losing patience. I grip his filthy T-shirt. Drag him up by the collar of it. “What the fuck is Mr. Suit’s name, asshole?”

He starts crying, sobbing. “Mr. Suit,” he says over and over again.

“Fuck.” I stand up, turn to look at Natalie.

She’s immovable, sitting on the foul bed, fisting the filthy blanket. I don’t think she’s blinked or taken a breath.

I turn back to the guy, take my pistol and point it between his eyebrows.

I don’t hesitate.

She wants to see. She’ll see.

I pull the trigger—once, twice—twin holes in his forehead, between his eyes.

Overkill. but it’s quick. My form of mercy. He’s dead in an instant.

“Call a fucking cleaner.” I holster my gun and, with blood on my hands, gather Natalie up into my arms, and she doesn’t resist. I carry her to the car, cradle her in the backseat. Salvatore slides into the driver’s seat and a moment later, we’re driving away.