Page 103 of King of the Cage

“Without her, I’m dead anyway,” I murmured, trying to keep awake. I should be awake for my last moments, shouldn’t I?

“So be it,” Elio murmured, and then, there was only darkness.

29

GIADA

Itore through my apartment and switched my computers on. Multiple screens blinked to life at once. Throwing myself into my chair, I poised my hands over my keyboard.

I could do this. I could find where my brother had taken Bran. This was my realm of expertise. I had this.

I took a few deep breaths and got started.

I opted for the CCTV I could find around The Tartarus Hotel. There wasn’t much, unsurprisingly. I was sure The Enclave didn’t want an easy record of people coming and going from their secret little headquarters. There seemed no doubt at this point that the hotel was a front for the secret society. It was where they held their meetings, did their ceremonies, and conducted their horrifying and highly illegal human drug testing. I’d looked up the hotel before. On every website I’d found, all the rooms were sold out. Their next availability was sometime next year. I had a feeling that when that date rolled around, they’d be sold out again.

However, there was a small electronics shop on the street corner, far from the hotel entrance. Luckily, it captured the top of the road and all the traffic that came and went. The shop had only opened a few weeks ago and had set up a camera to watch their storefront. I had to hack into their system to see the feed. In the very corner of the image, I could just make out the back wheel of the medical transport car, but not much else.Damn it.

Next, I went to social media. I could only locate people who’d had their location on when they’d posted, but it turned out to be enough.

Twenty minutes ago, some user had tagged a photo of themselves holding an expensive smoothie, and in the background was The Tartarus Hotel.

#smoothiesatsuicidehotel #spooky #youcouldntpaymetostayhere

The medical car was there, and right behind it, a black SUV. It was armored, easy to tell from the way it sat low to the ground. I zoomed in on the license plate and moved over to my traffic cam feed.

I knew all the haunts of the De Sanctis family. I just needed a general direction.

It took me precious minutes to locate the car in traffic. I followed it over the river into New Jersey, switching between systems as I went.

Finally, I saw it turn off on a road along the river.

There was only one place that Elio liked to use along there. An old slaughterhouse.

As I reached for my jacket, I noticed the feeling.

A certain looseness on my finger. The ring. All the movement of the last few days had finally loosened the superglued ring. I slid it off my finger and held it up to the light.

This was it.

My chance to be free.

I slid the ring back onto my finger, slipped my jacket on and rushed out the door.

It took nearlyan hour longer than it should have to get there. There was an accident on the bridge, and my taxi had to reroute. I could barely think the entire way, and of course, Elio wasn’t answering his goddamn phone. I’d left him at least five voicemails, cussing him out angrily in Italian and drawing more than a few looks from the cab driver. Elio would be furious. I’d known he would be, but would he really kill an O’Connor and risk a war? Sure, he hated Bran, the two were polar opposites, but Elio was known for his control.

There was a much more dangerous possibility that Elio wouldn’t realize how badly Bran was already injured, and he’d bleed out.

The taxi finally pulled up at the old slaughterhouse. The cabbie peered out of the windows distrustfully.

“I don’t think this is where you want to go,” he said.

I tossed a few hundred-dollar bills at him, not even checking how much I was over, and jumped out of the cab.

I took off at a run toward the building. When I got closer, I saw the black SUV. Just one of them. That was good. It meant mybrother only had a few other men with him. He didn’t want to start a war, if he could avoid it.

I banged through the metal doors at the front and ran down the corridor. I’d only been here once before, and it was as awful as I remembered it. It was still connected to power and owned by the De Sanctis family, despite not being used for its actual purpose for nearly a decade. Despite the length of time it had sat unused, the old stench of blood and bones still permeated the air.

I reached the doors of the main killing floor and rushed through. If I knew Elio, and I did, they’d be in the fridge.

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