I squeezed his shoulder, offering him comfort even as my mind was pure chaos with thoughts of what could be happening to the three girls. From my other side, Garret was tapping his head against the window, cursing himself over and over again, feral rage in his green eyes that were so like his sister’s.
They were going to be okay. All of them. They had to be.
It felt as if it took forever to get to where the tracker said Ciana was located. By the time the pilot landed, we were all so on edge, we feared brushing against each other in case it sent us into a violent rage. Men I didn’t know but Pop said were friends met us, and I was pleased to see the cases of guns they brought with them.
By the time we were all armed, another helicopter was landing. The thing was barely on the ground before the door opened and Mom jumped out, running toward us with her head down low. Her brother Adrian was right behind her, along with Theo and Dante.
She ran right to me and hugged me hard. “We’ll get her back,” she promised, and I wrapped my arms around her tight. “I promise, l’venok.”
Too choked up to speak, I nodded and handed her a gun.
It was a ten-mile drive to get to Ciana’s location, and the closer we got, the denser the trees became until we reached a gate. The headlights of the lead car showed a sign proclaiming the area private property, while another one read NO TRESPASSING. Fresh tracks led up the dirt road beyond the gate.
One of Pop’s friends jumped out and used bolt cutters on the chains locking the gate in place. Once the gate was open, we all slammed on the gas of our vehicles and hauled ass, going in hot. I had no idea how many men would be waiting on us, but there was no doubt they would expect us. How could they not when they had three of the most important females in the world to my family? Those idiots knew what they were getting into when they took Nova, Ciana, and Cali. Now they would have to face the consequences.
Bullets rained down on us just as a huge cabin came into view in the distance. The place was massive, two stories, and looked more like a small hotel rather than someone’s home. It was lit up, shining like a beacon in the dark night, but the surrounding area was still pitch dark, making it impossible to see where the shots were coming from.
“Anyone have any night vision?” Mom grumbled, taking a rifle from the guy sitting beside her and looking through the scope. “Aww, perfect,” she said with an evil grin. “This is mine now. Get out of the way.”
The guy scrambled to the middle as she maneuvered her small body over and rolled the window down enough to stick out the barrel of the gun. “Get ready for some shouting,” she warned just as she pulled the trigger.
It was a symphony of pained screams all the way up to the cabin. She’d thinned out the herd a good bit, but there was no way we could just jump out and run inside. Instead, the driver floored it and took us right into the first floor of the cabin.
“Motherfuck!” Mom shouted. “Warn a bitch before you do shit like that.”
“You okay?” I asked, but my gaze was on the dust and debris falling outside the SUV.
“I’m good,” Mom assured me, tossing the rifle aside and checking the magazine of the other gun I’d given her earlier. “Let’s get the girls back, shall we?”
All four doors opened, and the six of us got out, guns drawn, our bullets flying just as five men appeared near the stairs we’d stopped short of when we came through the living room area. Garret was the first to start shooting, hitting all five of them before any of us could even squeeze our triggers.
“Up or down?” he snarled, his chest rapidly rising and falling as he scanned for more enemies.
“They were coming from upstairs, so I’m going to take a wild guess and assume they were protecting something up there,” one of Pop’s friends called out. “You three take the second floor.” He indicated Garret, one of his own men, and me. “Anya, you’re with us. A place like this must have a basement.”
Garret was already halfway up the stairs before I could move. Cursing, I ran after him, the other guy whose name I didn’t know right behind me, our guns at the ready. At the top of the stairs, he started kicking in doors. Knowing he was going to get himself shot if he wasn’t more careful, I took point behind him.
The number of rooms upstairs seemed endless. Bedroom after bedroom was found empty. Other than the five men Garret had taken out when we first entered the house, no one else was up there.
“Sonofabitch!” Garret bellowed and stormed down the stairs.
In the kitchen, we found a door and a set of stairs that led to the basement. As we started down them, I realized that the sound of bullets flying was now eerily absent. I could hear voices coming from downstairs, some of them I recognized—Zio, Pop, Adrian, Dante—others were only vaguely familiar and those of Pop’s friends.
With each step I descended, my heart started racing more and more until I felt like it was going to explode. My hands began to sweat, and my stomach started to roil. Nova wasn’t down there. I knew she wasn’t. I couldn’t feel her or the magnetic draw that always—fucking always—pulled me to her. The smell of blood hit me before we reached the last step, and the guy behind me started to gag, letting us all know he wasn’t used to gore.
The sound of gut-wrenching sobs hit my ears as we walked deeper into the basement. It was obvious this was a torture room. There were drains in the floor for easy cleanup, and tools I was all too familiar with hung from the walls, having used them myself over the years. Pop had started my training in my teens, and Mom hadn’t objected since he’d started my education into the darker side of our world before I’d even hit puberty.
“Don’t let him through,” Mom called out, setting me even more on edge. “Don’t let him see this!”
Suddenly Theo and Pop were standing in front of me, but my gaze stayed on where I could just barely see Mom’s head over the top of everyone else. Bright lights hung over several metal tables. The heart-shattering crying grew louder, and I realized why it hurt to hear.
Ciana.
“I-I just want to g-go home, Papa,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry. So sorry. I didn’t mean for any of this to ha-happen.”
“Shh, shh. Don’t cry, bambina.” The tears I could hear in Zio’s voice bothered me even more than my cousin’s. I’d never seen or heard the huge man cry before. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”