The Woman with the Scar (Costa Family)

But people were just milling in and out like nothing was off.

“Next right,” I told him, saying a silent prayer that I was just going to find Ezmeray hanging out with her ma and sister, having the reunion I knew she wanted so badly.

Then I would get all three of them to safety, go out, collect up Berat and Deniz, then bleed them fucking dry and put an end to all this shit.

“Fucking wait, man,” Cesare said with a sigh as I flew out of the door before he was even fully stopped.

I didn’t have time to wait.

I had to find her.

I had to make sure she was okay.

Cesare caught up when I was down the hallway and trying the knob on Ezzy’s mother’s apartment.

Cesare reached up to knock.

But nothing.

Not a sound from inside.

“Tell her it’s you, man,” Cesare suggested.

“Ezzy, it’s me. Open up,” I demanded.

When we heard nothing, Cesare started to reach into his pocket. Presumably for a lock pick set.

But I was already slamming my shoulder into the door.

“Or we can do that,” he said, shaking his head as he followed me inside.

My first thought as I stepped inside—aside from noticing there was no blood—was that I was pretty sure the Polats hadn’t kept up their end of the deal in making Ezmeray marry Eren.

Because the apartment was down to its bare bones. Like her ma had needed to hock her shit to pay her bills. Which shouldn’t have been the situation if Eren had been an honest man.

Suddenly, I wished I could resurrect him to go a couple more rounds on his body before taking him out.

Cutting out his lying tongue would have been poetic.

“Ezzy?” I called, moving through the minuscule living and kitchen space and down the hall.

There was one bedroom to the right.

First glance said empty, so I kept moving toward the one further back.

A younger woman’s room for sure. It was decorated in white and a barely-there pink color.

But I didn’t give a shit about the decor.

Because there was blood on the wall. And the comforter that was half-pulled off the bed.

“Brio, little help here,” Cesare called, making me turn back, some naive, hopeful part of me thinking that maybe he found Ezmeray.

But no.

When I charged back into the first bedroom, I found Cesare behind the bed, trying to help a bound and duct-taped woman to her feet.

She was a tiny slip of a woman with gray slicing through her dark hair and bloodshot hazel eyes.

Ezmeray’s mom.

“This is going to hurt a little bit, okay?” Cesare asked, reaching to snag the corner of the duct tape. He waited to get a nod from the woman before he pulled it off.

“Ezmeray?” I asked, watching as her head snapped to me.

“Who are you?”

“Brio. I’m Brio Costa. I’m helping Ezzy with her Polat problem.”

“Costa,” she repeated, brows raised.

“Yes. As in those Costas,” Cesare confirmed.

“Are you the ones to take off his hands?” she asked, her keen eyes on me.

“I am,” I confirmed.

“Good man,” she said to me as Cesare produced a pocketknife to cut the duct tape from her ankles, then wrists.

“What happened here? There’s blood,” I added, watching as she winced.

“I opened the door,” she said, shaking her head. “I opened the door for that man. And he came in… and…” she waved toward herself. “And this,” she added, touching her head where, I imagined, she meant she’d been hit. Maybe knocked out. “My girl,” she added, clutching a hand over her heart.

“Girls,” I clarified. “I think Ezzy came here to warn you two. You didn’t see her?”

“No. No. My girls,” she cried.

“Ma’am,” Cesare said, pressing a comforting hand to her shoulder. “We know this is hard, but we need to know anything you can tell us. Which man? One of the Polat brothers?”

“No. No. Not them. I never would have opened my door for them.”

“Who then?” I demanded.

“I’ve been to his shop so many times,” she said, gesturing around her room, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. “I didn’t think…”

“Ma’am…” Cesare said.

“The man from the pawnshop.”

I saw fucking red.

I thought I knew rage. I certainly felt a shitton of it while I sliced pieces of my father off his body.

But this?

This was something new entirely.

It burned through my system, reckless, out of control, devouring everything in its path.

“Ma’am, one of our men is going to come and take you somewhere safe, okay? His name will be Emilio Costa. Do not open the door for anyone else,” Cesare was saying as I turned to rush out of the room. “But we need to go find your daughters now,” he added.

“Yes. Go. Save them. I’m fine,” she insisted.

Cesare was at my heels by the time I made it to the car.

“That motherfucker,” I growled, slamming my fist into the dashboard as Cesare whipped away from the curb.