Page 35 of The Queen's Vow (Ruthless Games 2)

SEVENTEEN

GIANCARLO

Sick to my stomach, I marched through the lobby of the Warwick, mostly to be seen by whoever might be watching since I’d been MIA for two goddamn hours.

At my lobby bar, I caught the attention of my server. “Scotch. Now.”

He stopped shaking up some pretty girl’s martini. Her head turned at the sound of my voice and her dark lashes batted, taking me in. My stomach churned again. I only wanted Becca. I was franticly missing her. If something happened to her...

I downed the scotch and grabbed the bottle to pour another.

“What the fuck are you doing back here?” Anthony pushed my shoulder.

“Messina... It’s his hotel,” Sebastien bit out. “The question is valid though, Gian. Why the fuck are you not looking for Becca?”

I turned around and glared at these two in tuxedos. “Upstairs. Each of you. One by one.”

I pushed past them and headed for my private elevator. After not finding Becca and Vale on 167th Street, and not getting a message from her on room 2050’s voicemail, I’d driven around the Bronx looking for them. Finding nothing, I knew I had had to get back to my computers. There was only so much I could do on my phone. And drive. And look around. I’d nearly ran someone over.

Inside my penthouse, my command center behind a false wall hummed. I had all the IP addresses and usernames from that solicitation page and needed to start hacking into shit.

“We’re worried sick.” Sebastien’s voice found me first.

“Giancarlo, you fucked up.” Anthony followed.

I turned around. “What part of one at a time do you Neanderthals not understand?” I did all kinds of business with Anthony and Sebastien. Us being together wouldn’t have looked unusual, but now someone was watching us with the intent to get intel to hurt Becca.

Game changer.

“She never left me a message. I had no way to get in touch with her to find out where she was. I drove around. And around.”

“Has anyone heard from Vale?” Bastien said.

Anthony shook his head and paced, “Do you think that fucker took her to his mother’s house after all?”

“That’s always a possibility,” I said, hating my worst fear voiced out loud.

“Where’s the car I gave you?” Bastien asked, folding his arms.

“In the fucking East River.”

“Are you serious?” Daria dropped his hands, his face losing a shade from its normal golden color.

“No. It’s in the garage downstairs. Get it out of here, okay?”

Bastien narrowed his eyes at me. “Yes, boss.” Glaring at me, he took out his phone and walked away.

“This is bad, Gian.” Messina hovered over me.

“Let me do my work here, Anthony. Just shut the fuck up for two minutes. Grab a chair if you want to watch. Just stay quiet. I need to focus.”

“He’s right,” Bastien called out. “This is what Gian does best.”

Sending Vale and Becca off without a phone or anything I could trace put me at a serious disadvantage. “I have to assume for the moment, he’s with her and she’s safe.” If I didn’t believe that, I’d be useless. “So let me look at something else for a minute.”

I brought up my secure VPN line with all the IP addresses I emailed to myself and the usernames for the hitman’s contract. In ten minutes, I scanned the users who signed onto the page.

My brain twitched, noticing one particular profile. Something scraped at my insides. The pattern of the link address looked damn off compared to the others. It also hadn’t bid on the contract or posted any comments.

I dissected the link and sent my crawlers out into cyberspace to get a match. Sitting back, I cupped my hands over my mouth.

“What is that?” Bastien said quietly from behind me.

“Something is pinching me about this particular username from the solicitation site earlier. I’m convinced whoever won the contract doesn’t have her yet. It would be posted online somewhere. Whoever wants her dead made the contract public, they’d make the hit, the score...” I leaned over and vomited into my trashcan, imagining someone killing Rebecca.

The only woman I ever loved.

Messina rubbed my back. “Hold it together, Gian. We need you.”

“I know.” A buzzing sound made me look up. “Oh God. Shit.”

“What?”

My crawler unmasked the username. “That’s a decoy for the FBI. I’ve seen them before.”

“The fucking FBI again?” Messina shook his head.

“Did we ever find out who went to Becca in the first place about the drug deal?” Bastien asked.

I knew...

And kept that information in my back pocket. Tracked the guy. We were all so on edge a few weeks ago. I worried Messina would just stab the G-man. Although, he might have thought twice since he’d gone to school with Julian Russo.

Fucking Russo. Of all the old-world family names from this city’s organized crime history.

Russo.

I exhaled. “Give me a moment.”

I hacked into the FBI, even though I knew it was a risk. All the hops I took to get to that site would slow the detection process down. They wouldn’t know it was me right away. It gave me a few minutes to get in. I’d crept into the FBI databases enough times to know my way around their system.

I entered the decoy username and got a hit. “Yes!” I pounded my desk.

“What?” Bastien asked, crouching down beside me.

“The FBI is also tracking the page where the contract was posted.” I exhaled, considering how I felt about that. “I’m good. But the FBI is beyond powerful. No need to reinvent any wheels. All I have to do is peek in here every couple of hours and check on their progress.” I swallowed. “Or days.”

“What if they find it and take it offline before you can get any intel?” Messina asked.

Bastien and I stared at him. “Good question,” I admitted and leaned forward. “I’ll put a silent tracer on it. Hopefully, this code will let me follow the username to a local server somewhere on their network where I’ll be able to see more.”

“Jesus.” Bastien brushed a hand through his hair. “You’re incredible.”

“My brother was better,” I choked up, still wondering where the hell Salvatore was. Or was he even alive?

“I really can’t see that, Gian.” Messina cupped my shoulder.

“Wait. You dropped my question about which agent went to Becca...” The light in Bastien’s eyes went dim, the answer coming to him. “Julian Russo.”

I nodded and grabbed my mouse.

“Russo?” Messina spit out. “He’s a fucking Fed? Since when?”

“A couple of years.” Bastien paced.

“So Russo’s been sniffing around our Becca?” Messina sawed off.

“And I bet he knows someone put a hit on her,” I said.

“Where is he?” Bastien asked, anger in his voice.

I stared at the FBI username and all the characters flying across my screen searching, like I could feel the guy’s hands all over it. Like I knew he wanted his hands all over Becca. I’d seen her kiss him on the street a couple of weeks ago. But said nothing.

“I’m gonna find him right now.”

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