DeLuca (Mafia Romance)

“Okay,” she nodded again and turned back to her computer, put on her headset and started frantically typing as she searched for an answer to my question.

“Sal, anything yet?”

“No, just some garbled chatter. Whoever it is, their transmitter must have gotten damaged in the blast.”

“Okay, I need you to get the rest of the men up to speed. I’ll stay here with Mouse and Frankie.”

“Sure thing,” he said and hurried out of the room.

“I’ve got something,” Frankie called out, “Looks like there was a bank robbery twenty minutes ago and a five-alarm fire thirty minutes ago. Police and Fire have been contacted about the blast and they’ve been dispatched but they’re still fifteen minutes out.”

“Pull up the satellite and track their progress. Mouse, what do you have for me?”

“Nothing yet. Kashnikov’s men haven’t come back out of the building.”

That got my attention. Why the fuck would they willingly spend any amount of time in a fucking burning building? “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I said as understanding hit me, “They’re going after whoever is inside. Keep an eye on the back entrance of the building where our guys came in. There is at least one of them alive in there and I want to know immediately if he makes it out.”

“Okay.”

“And pull up a second feed over where the SUVs are on the service road. Someone might have made it out and we didn’t catch it.”

I paced behind both of them, my eyes bouncing between all three satellite feeds. I played with the ring on my left hand. It had been mine for less than a day and already I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to lose it, and I didn’t want to find out.

Come on, baby, show me you’re still alive.

“They’re coming out the front!” Mouse announced.

I moved quickly to stand behind him, watching as three of Kashnikov’s men dragged a motionless body to the back of one of their SUVs. The man was wearing bulky tactical gear which meant he was one of ours. Even though I couldn’t make out a face from the image I knew in my gut who it was.

“Carlo,” I breathed.

“Shit,” Mouse muttered. “I’m sorry, Mia.”

The look of pity on his face pissed me off, “He’s not dead.” I said harshly, probably a little too harshly since even Frankie flinched at my tone.

“I guess we don’t know for sure. You’re right, we should hope for the best.”

“Jesus, Mouse. He’s not dead because Ivan doesn’t want him dead. He needs him alive.”

“Why?” This time it was Frankie who spoke up.

“Because he’s going to use Carlo to get to me,” I gritted out, my jaw was clenched so tight the muscle was starting to spasm. I watched as they loaded him into the back of the vehicle and took off. “Follow them. I want to see where they’re taking him.”

“Shit, okay. You know, Boss-Lady this is a lot more difficult than I make it look. I can’t control the satellite like that. I’m going to have to hack into the traffic cameras and fucking bunny hop to keep up with them.”

“I don’t care what you have to do, just get it done and don’t lose them.”

“Someone’s coming out of the building. There are two, no wait they’re carrying someone. There’s three of them. Looks like they’re headed to the service road,” Mouse called out.From NôvelDrama.Org.

“Thank God,” Sal said from the doorway.

“Two more just walked out, looks like one of them is limping.”

“As soon as they get to the service road you start blowing up everyone’s phone. I want to know who made it out,” I said. “Frankie, where are we on Kashnikov?”

“I’m still following them. They’re flying down I-5 right now.” She said breathlessly, her eyes ping ponging from one screen to the next.

“Good. Stay on them and tell me if anything changes.”

“What did I miss?” Sal asked.

“Ivan has Carlo, he’s alive but we don’t know for how long. Frankie is following his convoy now so we can figure out where they are taking him. From what we can tell five of our men made it out and it looks like they’re headed to the service road. That’s all we know right now.”

“Police and Fire just arrived,” Mouse said, “The first group of three made it to the SUVs. I’m calling their phones now.”

“Let me know when you have someone on the line,” Turning back to Sal, I asked, “Did you brief the rest of the men?”

“I did. They’re ready to go when you are.”

I nodded, “Go give them an update. Once we find out where Ivan is going and assess the injuries of the men that were in the fire, I’ll come down and brief everyone.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said heading for the door. “And Mia,” he called out, causing me to turn and look at him, “You’re good at this. We’re going to get him back.”

I gave him a nod and went back over to Mouse, “Do you have anyone on the line?”

“Yeah, I’ve got Antonio,” he said handing the headset over to me.

“Antonio?”