Page 15 of Savior

“Have fun with that one. I look forward to your future business once you’ve buried her. Knowing she’s six feet under will be a blessing,” Giani spouts.

Matteo’s face changes as he reaches inside his jacket and pulls a gun from a holster that looks much like what the old-school cops wore.

He points it at Giani, eyes going lifeless. “Watch how you speak about my property.”

Giani throws his hands in the air. “I was just saying.”

As we enter the hall, Matteo shoves me toward two other men in all black. “Blindfold and bind her. Gag her smartass mouth and get her into the van.”

“Yes, Boss,” they both say in unison.

Emotion is coiling in my throat, but I don’t breathe life into it. I walk with them, chin in the air, I plaster fake pride on my face as I move with the two henchmen out of the building toward a blacked-out van.

“Don’t make this harder on yourself than it has to be,” one tells me.

Something drifts in his eyes, but I can’t grasp it.

“You won’t be here for long,” he whispers, and I narrow my eyes at him.

What the hell does that mean?

CHAPTER FIVE

LUCA

“How do you know this girl?” Ardesia asks me.

I scrub my hands over my face as I rub out some tension. “She’s the daughter of my deceased friend, Ray.”

Ardesia looks over her picture on his phone screen again. He’d come over first thing this morning, willing to help me. At least, I think he’s willing to help me.

“Father Russo, you’ve helped my cause more than words can convey. So, I’m going to help. But I need you to prepare for the worst. You’ve seen just as much death as I have in the last couple of years. You know the outcome of the shit some of these girls get sold into.”

“You think someone has her, then?” I ask him, looking up at him with my hands still clasped, as if I’m going to pray at any moment.

Ardesia’s unblinking eyes weigh his following words as he sighs. Setting down his phone on his lap, he licks his lips and leans forward. “You’re already looking away from that which is before you, Father.”

“Luca, please. I’ve asked you multiple times to call me Luca.”

Ardesia smiles. “No can do, Father.”

“How am I looking away from anything?” I say, ignoring his respectful antics.

“Because she was stolen from the same block that the last ten girls to be reported missing got kidnapped from.”

I know he’s right. That part of the Bronx lately has been a hotbed of girls going missing and nefarious deeds done down dark alleys. We’ve been monitoring the situation and trying to find a way forward.

We have a couple of contacts inside the precinct, but we haven’t gotten far. They’re only collecting profiles, as women are reported missing—I should say, girls.

The oldest girl to have been reported missing was twenty.

“You need to treat her like any other girl, Father. Don’t get too involved emotionally.”

I scoff, sitting back in my chair. “I don’t know the girl. I know she’s my friend’s daughter, and I owe it to him to look for her. To at least try.”

Do I owe it to him?

I haven’t seen him in years. Not since I took my vows and moved up in the church. He’d come by now and again. His heroine-laced voice would filter through the latticed screen separating us and confess everything he’d been up to. Half of me always thought it was his way of connecting with me, without seeing the disappointment on my face when I heard his stories or his gaunt features.

---