Mafia love

Saul started laughing.

“This is real interesting,” Saul commented. “Cops and mobsters. It’s like a game.”

“Can we just keep quiet, so Cora can focus?” I offered.

Again, she looked at me, nervously, but she faced me.

“I’m screwing with their firewalls.”

“They have firewalls on a phone number?” Never heard of anyone doing that.

“Yeah, big time. They hired the best to do this. It basically stops any trace from being made on them. Very clever.”

“This is what you call resourceful,” Sinclaire intoned, still with that taunting.

“We have resources too,” I informed him.

“Looks like they did fuck all to me.”

“Right, you know what, Sinclaire, you can go fuck yourself.” I’d had enough, and this pissing contest was breaking my cool.

“Easy, guys.” Max put out his hands to both of us.

“Yes, easy, I need to concentrate,” Cora said, tapping away at her keyboard. She was purely focused on whatever it was she was doing.

On her screen were a bunch of codes that looked like something from The Matrix.

They all ran down in lines. I didn’t understand what any of it meant, but I had to hope that her belief in what she was doing would work.

I needed something to work. Something more than the nothing we had going for us.

If it worked, we’d have the upper hand. We’d have a mission to plan. I was certain Victor would know by now that we made it out of the facility, but maybe we had a little bit of time and leeway. It was a wild guess, and me hoping we did.

Cora straightened suddenly, and the code started unscrambling.

“Eureka.” She beamed.

“Eureka, as in you found them?” I stood up and moved closer.

“Yes.” She nodded her purple head excitedly.

“How did you find them?”

“Virus. I just hacked their system with a virus, and they actually won’t know.” She tapped away at the keyboard again and instantly, I saw a locator triangle hovering over the map.

She zoomed in.

“Peyton Prison,” I said before she could.

Why was I surprised? The place was abandoned. It had been for years, but damn, it was a secure prison for the worst criminals. The ones with severe psychotic tendencies. The kind of place Victor would go apart from hell.

It was almost déjà vu. With Henry, Victor had taken him and his family to an abandoned psychiatric hospital of the worst kind. It had been closed down for its inhumane practices. Peyton Prison was basically the same.

“Peyton Prison,” Cora confirmed.

“Alright, let’s go.” I crackled my knuckles.

“Wait, not so fast.” She held up a hand.

“What?”

I was very impressed with her skills so far, and I’d be putting it mildly if I said I was simply eager to get going. However, the woman impressed me further by zooming right into the room the phone was located. She hovered around the screen, tapped her keyboard, and the inside of the facility came into view.

“What did you just do?” I asked.

“I tapped into their CCTV, so I can see what’s happening inside.”

I moved closer to her. “Can you see Amelia?”

Raphael stood up now and made his way over.

Cora clicked on a series of codes and stopped when we saw Amelia. My heart jumped in my throat. She was in a hall like room tied to a chair, looking around.

Maurice gripped my arm as we looked at Gigi, who was also tied to a chair.

She looked pretty bad with her bruises, and she hung her head down, looking limp. Her eyes were closed. She looked like she was in a bad way, but alive. Thank God she was alive. As long as she was alive, I’d save her.

Cora looked at both of us.

“God. Sorry to move from this screen, but I saw something a few screens back.”

As she switched the screens, my heart ached. My Amelia. I let those bastards take her.

Cora switched to a screen that brought up the foyer, and I saw instantly what she meant as she zoomed closer.

The floor had little devices all over it. Little balls that looked like Christmas decorations.

“I don’t know what those are, but you might want to be careful of them, and that.” She tilted the camera, so that it showed the ceiling.

“Holy shit,” Max breathed.

There was a big axe-looking blade the size of a man hanging from the ceiling. It looked like it was co

“Victor said we’d be going into an arena,” I stated.

“Well, these look like traps to me. All of it.” Cora bit the inside of her lip.

“How will we get in?” Raphael asked.

“I’ll check something out.” Cora switched the cameras to outside the facility near the lake. There was a tu

“The surveillance stops past a certain point in the prison. Looks like the old section has nothing. If you can get in through there and work your way across to where they are, you could go u

“Okay, rally up the best men we have. They’re team B, and we are A,”

Raphael declared.

I looked to him and cleared my throat.

“We?” I cocked my head to the side and arched a brow.

“Yes, we.”

“Look, sir,” Sinclaire cut in. “I don’t know if Amelia would like it very much if you put yourself in danger.”

“I appreciate your concern and you both coming here, but she’s my daughter. I’m going to get my child back.”

“Raphael.” I wrinkled my nose. It was insane. He couldn’t come.

“Lucian, don’t… don’t.” He held up his hands and stared me down.

“Give me five minutes. You guys get prepped.”

All I could do was stare at him. He sounded more like the man I was used to.

It was just a shame he looked so frail, and that just might get him killed.

CHAPTER 13

Don Raphael

10 years and 11 months ago…

“Make sure you get it done just the way I said. You need to be there at the right time to get them, catch them in the act.” I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice, or the hurt.

How was I supposed to?

Four nights ago, I caught my wife cheating on me. I actually saw her. I actually fucking saw her with my own two eyes.

Millicent had warned me. She said she saw Tag and Eloise in the park and they looked really friendly. Too friendly for her liking. Suspiciously friendly. Millicent hardly wanted to tell me, because the accusation was so serious.

She warned me, but I wouldn’t listen. I wouldn’t hear of it because there was no way that I would have believed that Eloise would do this to me. To hurt me and our family like this.

Things were bad between us, but damn. Damn it, I didn’t think they were so bad that the problems couldn’t be fixed. I didn’t think they were so bad that she took refuge in the arms of another man. One of my best friends.

Tag… I couldn’t begin to express the disappointment I felt about him.

And the hurt to my heart was unbearable.

“I have everyone ready,” Agent Peterson replied with a sigh.

He was my contact with the feds. He’d helped me out a number of times and was a good associate to the business. Of course, I paid him well for his services, so he couldn’t exactly complain. He had the best of both worlds.