"Twenty men," I say. My voice doesn't waver. "Forty minutes. We breach from three entry points simultaneously. Valentino takes the north entrance with Dante's crew. Nico takes the east with our soldiers. Pietro coordinates from the command vehicle."
I look at each of them in turn.
My brothers. My family. The men who watched me break and never stopped believing I could put myself back together.
"I take the south entrance. The one closest to where they're holding her."
"Bruno—" Pietro starts.
"I'm going to walk into that building." I cut him off. "I'm going to find the man who took my wife. And I'm going to kill him with my own hands."
Silence.
Then Valentino nods.
"Forty minutes," he says, pulling out his phone. "I'll have Dante's crew here in thirty."
Antonella
I wake to darkness.
Not the complete darkness of unconsciousness, but the dim grey of a room with no windows. My head throbs where the water bottle connected with my temple, a dull ache that pulses with every heartbeat.
I'm lying down.
The realization hits me like ice water. I'm lying down on something soft. A mattress.
Panic claws up my throat.
My hands fly to my body, searching for pain, for damage, for evidence of what they might have done while I was unconscious. My dress is still on. Dirty, torn at the hem, but still covering me. My legs are free of the zip ties. My wrists too.
I don't feel anything else. No new pain. No soreness. Nothing except the throbbing in my head and the raw ache where they cut off my ring.
But that doesn't mean?—
"You're awake."
I jerk upright so fast my vision swims. The room tilts sideways, and I have to press my palms against the thin mattress to keep from falling over.
The scar-faced man sits in a metal chair three feet away. Watching me. His legs are crossed at the ankle, his posture relaxed, like he's been waiting for me to wake up for hours.
Maybe he has.
"What did you do to me?"
My voice comes out hoarse. Cracked. I don't recognize it.
He tilts his head. The scar that runs from his eyebrow to his jaw catches the dim light, twisting his face into something inhuman.
"Nothing." He sounds almost disappointed. "Yet."
I press my hand against my stomach. Against the baby growing inside me. The baby Bruno doesn't even know is in danger.
"What do you want?"
"What the Sartoris owe us." He uncrosses his legs, leaning forward in the chair. "Something very important. Something your husband's family took from mine."
"They'll give you what you want." I keep my voice steady. "Bruno will give you whatever you want. Just let me go."