by Soraya Naomi
“Take your Capo crimine,” Medlov spits at Luca, swiping a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth.
Luca moves to me and bends to place his shoulder under my arm to help me stand, whispering, “This is our one chance to get out of here alive. We’ll be of no use to Cam if we’re dead. We need to regroup.”
His words puncture my soul because my instinct is blaring that she’s here, but I also recognize that I don’t have a choice, and that tears me apart. Still, I let Luca guide me outside.
Right before Medlov’s soldier closes the door, Medlov yells from inside, “We don’t have Cam yet, but we’re having a lot of fun hunting her.”
And they bolt the door just as my fury explodes, and I fire a round, letting bullets ricochet off the bulletproof windows.
“I will come for you, Medlov!” I declare, biting through the ache in my shoulder.
Soldiers duck down, and Luca knocks my gun from my grip. “Adriano, calmati.” Calm down. “We need to go now, and you need that wound tended to. Fuck, we can’t afford to lose any more time by going out on our own like this.”
“I don’t think we should leave. She has to be here,” I reply, swaying on my legs from the loss of blood, but my temper keeps me upright.
“We don’t have a choice, Adriano. And I don’t think she’s here. There’s something going on, and we’re in the dark; that’s not a position I enjoy.” Luca snaps his fingers, and the soldiers jump into action. “You ride with me. A soldier will take your car back.”
For a second, I’m frozen, incapable of making a decision, but Luca forces me into his vehicle.
“Rally up all of the soldiers, Luca. No one sleeps until she’s found,” I say while I’m experiencing an emotion wholly unknown to me – complete and utter panic.
CHAPTER 25
Camilla
I groan as consciousness pulls at me. My eyelids flutter open. I’m lying on a soft mattress. Lifting my hand, I flinch from the soreness on my palms, which are covered in scratches and dirt, and my head is pounding. As I look around, trying to figure out where I am, I notice something moving along the lapel of my coat. I bolt up, scrubbing my hair like a madwoman and rubbing my neck violently to get rid of the insects.
Unexpectedly, I hear a familiar voice yelling, “Medlov!”
It sounds like someone switched on an intercom, because although I can clearly hear Adriano’s voice, there’s no one in the room with me. Across from the bed is a window, so I edge closer and look out into a white foyer with curving stairways, one of which Medlov’s descending. The front entrance is just being opened, and Adriano’s harried face appears.
Thank goodness he’s found me!
“Adriano?!” I slam my hands against the glass, ignoring the pain in my palms, but no one seems to hear or see me. The window must be mirrored and soundproof.
“Don’t play games with me. Where. Is. Cam?” Adriano demands and points his weapon at Medlov.
Is Adriano alone?
At that moment, soldiers barge in too, and Medlov and Adriano speak, but the sound is muted.
What are they talking about?
A horrifying scene plays out as I have to watch Adriano losing control. Brutally, he attacks Medlov, who remains calm, probably expecting this.
I scream and pound against the glass when the soldiers start to fight as well, and I see one shooting Adriano in the shoulder as he’s struggling with Medlov on the staircase.
“No!” Panicked, I turn around and spot a chair in the corner.
Grabbing the back of the chair, I beat its legs against the window until they splinter. However, the glass won’t break, so I throw the chair aside and press my palms against the window, silently praying that Adriano doesn’t get murdered due to his lethal and uncontrolled madness about not being able to find me.
But suddenly, Luca’s there and helping Adriano outside. It occurs so fast that Adriano’s gone before I realize what’s happening.
“No! Where are you going?” I shout as I bang on the window, even though I know they can’t hear me.
Why are they leaving? Is Adriano lethally wounded?
“Adriano! Luca!” I continue to scream to no purpose, and the burst of hope that flared up when Adriano arrived, dissolves just as quickly.
Confused, I edge back to the bed. Feeling the soreness in my entire body, a tear streams down my cheek, not from physical pain, but from the devastation of my heart. Because not knowing if Adriano’s okay hurts far worse than any of my injuries. Now that the adrenaline rush has subsided, terror fills its place.
I’m alone with the enemy.
My rampant thoughts are interrupted when Medlov, accompanied by two of his guards, unlocks the door and settles his scowl on me.
“Well, you look wild,” he taunts. “I hope you like your accommodations? And that you saw your pretty boy crumble just now?”
Lunging up in anger, I’m held back by my arms by his men.
“Jeez, you Italians are very aggressive,” Medlov mocks and warns, “Don’t hurt her.”
“You’ll never get away with this. Adriano will hound you until he finds me.”
“Now you may hit her,” he comments.
I get smacked in the cheek and bite my lip against the pain.
Medlov inches closer to me. “I’m counting on that. Yet, he did just leave you behind.”
He’s trying to plant seeds of doubt within me.
“But without you, he’s much weaker. You’re his Achilles heel. And it’s time someone teaches the Chicago Syndicate a lesson, which is the only reason I let your man walk away.” The corner of his mouth slowly rises. “The games have just begun, Camilla.”
“What the hell do you want from us?” My voice is flat and hard.
“Calm down, and we can talk.” He waits for me to settle. “Do you want to talk?”
I stand, unmoving, between his soldiers as they let go of my arms, and that’s apparently enough of an answer for Medlov, because he continues, “What I want is for all of you to fucking treat me with the respect I deserve in this town.” His eyes narrow into impenetrable slits.
“Jesus Christ, we’ll never work with you,” I throw back, disbelieving that he’s still singing that same tune.
“Work with me?” His face twists as if there’s a bad taste in his mouth. “It’s not about working with me anymore. I only wanted to partner with the Syndicate in the very beginning. But not only did your organization ignore my offers, you fucking built the most successful sex club in the Loop, so now I’m losing all my clientele. Your Syndicate started this!”
“Do you even realize how big we are?” I insult, not recoiling under his imposing presence.
He cocks his head cheekily. “Hmm, that’s where the initial problems arose. It was quite difficult to discover information about your team. Well, almost impossible, and that’s the only reason why I had to wait so long and watch Adriano Montesi and Luca DeMiliano become more powerful with each passing month. And that doesn’t sit well with me, especially since they have a flourishing sex club that was intended to be mine. I was supposed to receive all holdings from Sal in case of his death, but to my complete surprise, the transfer to Montesi was airtight and legal. I still don’t know how Adriano arranged that.”
I stay quiet and absorb his words, finally able to piece this puzzle together.
“Italians are untrustworthy and only work with other Italians. I want you out of the sex club. I want Club 7. I asked them nicely to at least do business with me, but the Syndicate’s men are arrogant and think they’re untouchable. But now, I’ve proven them wrong, because I managed to take you.”
“If you wanted me, why did you take Rosalia and involve Fallon?” I don’t understand this.
“My interest was never in Rosalia or Fallon. Taking Rosalia and requesting the meet with Fallon were part of my plan to get to you. The only thing that seems to weaken Adriano is you, and I needed that fucking well-oiled team out of the Loop so that I’d get a chance to ta
ke you. Again, it was all to get to you because you are the key to getting what I want. I tried to observe you, but that’s practically impossible. You’re guarded better than the president, which told me you had to be someone very important to him. So I contacted Serena, the vindictive ex, who was easily persuaded. She’s not as ingenious as she lets on. I used her crazy infatuation with Adriano’s power to get her to provide me inside information.”
This is why Serena kept hanging around; she was being instructed by Medlov.
“But, unfortunately, you’re smarter than Serena and played the game a little better than she did, which led me to plan B.” He pauses, making sure I’m listening closely. “There’s a bounty on Adriano Montesi’s head, courtesy of our late friend, Fat Sal, who actually asked me to eliminate Adriano right before his own death and put me in charge of releasing the money. It’s one hundred thousand dollars in cash, which isn’t much to me but is a fortune for most hunters. I won’t offer the bounty, provided you convince Adriano to sell Club 7 to me.”
I snort as a response. “You think that scares me? Offer the bounty...”
A smile tilts his lips, a knowing smile that makes my insides twist into a knot. “Somehow, I knew that wouldn’t persuade you. Perhaps the threat of prison will?”
I frown, not knowing where he’s going with this.
“Interesting fact is that when we took Rosalia earlier tonight, Olek found a man named Santino in one of your cells.”
“So?”
His brows hit his hairline. “So you don’t know that Santino is FBI?”
I don’t flinch and calmly retort, “Yes, I do.”
“Oh, this is fun,” he jokes. “Well, meeting Santino led to plan C, which is the current plan – for your information. See, even the Syndicate is bound to make a mistake at one point. And your mistake was Santino because”—he flashes me a black, rectangular device that looks like a USB stick—“I have, here in my hands, the only piece of evidence available that ties someone to the Syndicate. And that someone is you. Santino had been recording your conversations for months on a nifty little gadget that your team never discovered on him, but we found some interesting things.”
Sweat forms on my palms.
“This is a recording of you talking to Santino. Of you admitting, on tape, that you’re part of the Chicago Syndicate. No one has ever obtained hard proof like that about any of the Syndicate’s members.”
I swallow through my dry throat as the situation becomes more problematic with every word he speaks.
“To sum it all up for you, since you have a really bewildered look on your face: I want you to tell Adriano to sell me that club. And you’ll make it happen or else this wonderful, incriminating tape I found will go to the DA, and not the DA that works for the Syndicate. No, the one that isn’t in the pocket of the mafia. So you see, Camilla, the Syndicate has met its match and must choose to sell me the club or you will go to prison. And I swear to god, I’ll kill you if Adriano double-crosses me. Your choice. I personally like to believe that Adriano Montesi would move heaven and earth to prevent you from being locked up.”
“So this was the plan all along? The commotion you caused at Club 7 earlier tonight, where your men died, was just a ruse to confuse us? You purposely let your men get killed?”
“Ah, well, you sacrifice a few for the greater good.”
Medlov’s plan is much bigger than what I anticipated. Starting with turning that recording over to the authorities, his plan sets in motion retaliation that could bring us down like a house of cards. I failed Adriano; this is what he warned me about. I should’ve never talked to Santino, because then, this wouldn’t be happening.
“So why am I still here if you need me to talk to Adriano?”
“Don’t play stupid. You know that I need him to be vulnerable. And without you, he’s just that. I only let him leave here tonight because I want him to suffer for a few hours. Then he’ll be more inclined to sell, just to have his precious Cam back.”
So I only have a few hours to get my hands on that device.
CHAPTER 26
Adriano
I grimace as Marc Calderone, the Syndicate’s doctor who’s also James’s brother, prods my shoulder to get the bullet out while I lie on my stomach on a stretcher in his house in the Loop. He has a surgery room prepped for incidents like this.
“Fuck!” I shout.
“Well, you didn’t want anesthesia,” Marc reprimands.
“Because I can’t be out at the moment. Hurry and give me some painkillers.”
“Got it.” He shows me tweezers holding the bloody bullet before clanking it onto the tray. Then he starts cleaning and dressing the wound.
It hurts like a motherfucker, but my thoughts are primarily with Cam.
“Luca, give me an update,” I request.
“No trace has been found of her in Wicker Park. All roads are being watched, and Wade even had road blocks set up, so Medlov can’t get out of the Ukrainian Village area with her.” Concern threads his words.
“We need to talk to Serena.”
“All done, Adriano,” Marc says, so I sit up.
“Thanks.”
“Take these painkillers.” He hands me two pills and a cup of water, which I down before he leaves and returns with a clean dress shirt for me to wear.
“Let’s go, Luca.”
“Adriano, come back tomorrow so I can check to see how you’re healing,” Marc states.
“Yeah, okay,” I answer absentmindedly and charge out.
***
Luca doesn’t lose sight of me for a second as I storm inside the cell holding Serena, who’s sitting on a bed.
She startles when she sees my thunderous expression and that I’m carrying my gun in hand.
“I’ve been lenient with you so far because we’re old friends, but now I have a big problem, so you will tell me what you and Medlov planned and for how long.”
Serena opens her mouth, but I press the barrel of my gun to her temple.
“And don’t even think about lying. I talked to Medlov, you bitch. And I know that you met with him this morning.” The secret meeting Cam and Wade followed Serena to in Chinatown.
Her eyes betray her guilt, and I have my confirmation.
“Speak! I’m not a patient man.” I push my piece into her forehead. “Cam is missing! So don’t think I won’t kill you. It was Medlov you talked to this morning in Chinatown, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” She sneers at me, realizing that her coy act isn’t going to work with me anymore, and she bares her teeth. “Why are you so enraged, Adriano? Because Cam’s missing or because a Ukrainian bested you? You and she have this so-called epic love, but it was so simple for me to stir up trouble between you two.”
“The bitch comes out to play,” I hiss.
“When all that lust is gone? What do you and she even have?”
I disregard her attempt to change the subject and refuse to answer, because Serena is not worthy of a response. She could never comprehend the tie I have to Cam. It’s something words can’t express. Something I’ve never had with another woman. It’s the most real thing I’ve ever felt in my entire life. She’s bleeding through my veins. She’s a part of my soul. She belongs to me.
“The only reason I’m not putting a bullet in your head right now is because that’s Cam’s prerogative. You’re fucking stupid. Medlov only used you to get into my system. What was your plan?”
“He wanted me to find a window of opportunity for him to capture Cam. And now, I don’t know what’s happened since you’ve kept me locked up.”
“Adriano, she’s of no use,” Luca interrupts. “James and the team are back in your office.”
I make a scoffing sound and stride out. Every passing second of this night makes me more restless, and I’m becoming increasingly high strung as different scenarios blaze across my brain.
Dove sei, amore mio? Where are you, my love?
***
Riled up like I’v
e never been before, I’m in my office, pacing in front of my desk. I press the button on my phone to check the time; it’s three a.m. now, and the Halloween party is dying down. Several Capi and guards, Carmine, James, and Luca are all victims of my stressed mood. For three hours, I’ve been in the dark regarding Cam’s whereabouts.
“So all of this was just to get Cam?” James asks Luca.
“We think so,” Luca replies. “At least, it appears that way.” Then he looks at me, encouraging me to address the men.
“The lack of communication in this group is fucking infuriating. Cam has been taken because of our stupidity. At least tell me you got me what I asked for?”
I ordered my team to capture Maxim’s family because I need leverage when I interrogate him. Medlov’s underboss, Maxim, who broke into my office earlier tonight, is my only chance to uncover information quickly since he’s the one Ukrainian I have in my custody.
“Yes. His wife and toddler are right outside the door,” James answers.
“Bring them in. And someone get Maxim from his cell downstairs.” I set my weapon on my desk as the door opens, and a black-haired woman with a pale complexion joins us, clutching her toddler with curls to her chest.
“Take the child,” I say to Luca.
“No! No! Who are you?” Two tiny pleats appear between her brows.
“Take the kid,” I repeat.
She scoots backward against a soldier, who grasps her shoulders while Luca calmly pries the child from her arms and disappears into the security room.
“If you hurt my child, my husband will kill you. I’ll kill you, Italian,” she yells with a meaningful undertone.
“Ah, so you do know who I am and what this is about. Then let me inform you that I have your husband. His little invasion of my club earlier tonight didn’t end well for him.”
She gasps and promptly ceases struggling. “What?!”
“I have your husband.”
She’s distracted by Luca, who returns alone.