Page 74 of Savage Little Secret

We’re going to storm every single property on the list we made.

“We should split up,” Andrei says as he, Luca, Sean, and me stand outside the warehouse where all our men are gathered. “We’ll cover more ground that way.”

I don’t like the thought of being at a different location if someone else finds the right one. “We stick together. We don’t know how many enemies we’re going to face. We just need to move fast.”

“Time’s running out,” Sean reminds me.

“We have enough,” I say firmly, my eyes darting to each of them. “But we can have some men stay in the cars and immediately head to the next location once one location is cleared. We’ll constantly keep on the go until we find the right one. We just don’t need to be more than twenty miles away from each other at a time.”

“Sounds good to me,” Luca replies as he crosses his arms over his chest. “So, who am I riding with? I don’t have a team.”

“Sounds like an unfortunate consequence of being a traitor to your own family,” Andrei comments as he eyes Luca suspiciously. He’s not a very trusting guy.

Luca smirks at Andrei. “Spoken like a good little lapdog. I hope you get an extra cookie for being such a loyal pup.”

Anger lights up Andrei’s eyes. “You⁠—”

“Okay!” I bite out as I wedge myself between them. “We can kill each other later. We need to focus right now! Cara’s life depends on it.”

Andrei huffs but nods. “Let’s get started then. We have a bunch of properties to hit, and we need to be fast before word spreads.”

“My men and I are ready,” Sean tells me. “We’ll follow you.”

With a nod, I head into the warehouse and gather my men, splitting them up between three different black vans before hopping into the passenger’s seat of the first one. Sean follows with two SUVS, Andrei has two as well, and Luca rides in the back of my van with some of my other men.

The first location is a laundromat with a whole back section where their other business is run. We kick down the back door and storm the place, checking every single room and tying up every Italian and worker in the entire establishment.

“She’s not here,” Isaak reports to me once we all meet in the alleyway again.

“On to the next,” I say before rushing back to the van.

We do that over and over again, going all across the city and knocking down door after door. We suffer a few injuries on the way, including a bullet wound to one of my men’s shoulders, but we’re so quick and determined that no one sees us coming. Not until we’re already on top of them and around them.

As the hours fly by and every building comes up empty, my frustration rises while my hope dwindles to an all-time low.

“Where the hell could she be?” I snap as we drive away from yet another empty location.

“We still have one more place to check,” Luca tells me as my driver takes us outside of the city limits.

“So many of these locations made sense for them to keep her at.” I sigh as I drag my hand over my head, exhaustion and frustration weighing down on me.

“Don’t give up hope yet,” Luca urges me. “This last location makes sense too.”

“It’s in the middle of damn nowhere,” I mutter as I glance in the side mirror, watching the city get farther and farther away.

“But getting there requires taking the same highway that you told me about. Where she was taken,” Luca points out.

My brow furrows in thought as I glance around, realizing where we are and where we’re heading to. We’re going in the same direction that Cara was when she fled town.

“She could be there, amico,” Luca tells me.

“Maybe.” That’s all I can muster.

It takes more than an hour to even get close to the property, and by the time that we turn off the highway and find the road that leads to it, darkness has fallen.

“Shut off the headlights,” I tell Mark.

Mark does so, making all the other vehicles behind us follow suit as we slowly drive down the back road that leads to the property. Eventually, the full moon illuminates a field up ahead, along with an old farmhouse surrounded by long grass and a handful of vehicles parked in front.