Page 110 of Filthy Little Games

“Tell me what part Ferraro had in my son’s death. I know he was involved. Why else would he have come after your daughter and hid you both in his penthouse?”

“It was...it was all me. I shot Izaiah. In the head. Then threw him down the trash chute.”

His knife drives into my skin again, this time carving the letter Z without lifting the blade even once until he’s done. The burning pain is like nothing I’ve felt before. I can’t lift my head enough to see it clearly, but I feel my blood drip down my torso.

“You’re lying. Admit it was Creed Ferraro who killed my son, and I’ll stop.”

I don’t respond at all, which earns me a big capital A.

I close my eyes and clench my teeth for the next half hour or five minutes — however long it takes for him to carve Izaiah’s name into my flesh.

After he finishes the H, I’m shaking so badly, it’s hard to even take a breath. Emilio returns above me with a different tool. I’m not sure what it is until he shoves it into the I shape, and it sizzles.

Smoke rises into the air with the scent of my burning flesh right before the icy sting has me slipping into darkness.

Creed

“He has her. Emilio has her!” I tell Dre and Tristan while clenching my fists and staring out the view of the busy, crowded city from my office window. Zara could be anywhere.

“We don’t know that yet,” Dre says.

“Then where the fuck else could she be?” I shout. “Gideon’s boat left the harbor an hour ago, and she wasn’t on it!”

“There are still plenty of places —”

“Shut the fuck up! I don’t want you to give me a list of places Zaracouldbe. I want to know which of Emilio’s properties he took her to.”

I don’t have weeks like before to stake out each building and wait. Zara and my men don’t have that kind of time. Emilio is going to kill them and her for Izaiah’s death. He’s spent weeks searching for her, plotting his revenge.

I feel so fucking helpless, even more so than I did when Carmine bled out on the club floor. That night...at least I knew what had happened to him and why. But this...I can’t stand not knowing where Zara is or what he’s doing to her, wondering if I’m going to be too late.

No, I can’t let myself think like that. I have to believe that she’s still alive, that she may be in agony, but she’ll be able to hold on until I find her.

We may not have spent much time together, but I love her and can’t bear the thought of losing her. Especially not to that son of a bitch.

Zara took a piece of me I can’t live without, a heart that I never knew I possessed because she’s had it this whole time.

The night she came to the club, it was fate. Carmine recognized it right then and there. I know now that I’m meant to be with Zara. My brother likely saved my life that night by giving me shit, convincing me to go talk to her.

And I’m glad I did, even though that decision meant Carmine dying alone instead of with me by his side.

That night in her apartment, I waited outside Zara’s window for her to turn on the shower before slipping inside. And like a pervert, I watched her as she threw her head back, washing her long hair and scrubbing her beautiful body clean.

Maybe Tristan was right, and it was love at first sight.

All I could think about in that moment was I’d give anything to be in the tub with her. When she got out of the shower wearing nothing but a towel and found me sitting on her sofa, well, it was hard to hold on to my anger instead of telling her whatever she wanted to hear to convince her to let me kiss her.

And then Izaiah put his knife to her throat and ripped that towel away when he didn’t deserve to be in the same room with her, much less be that close to her body, touching her.

Trying to push aside my emotions and think rationally, logically, I tell Tristan and Dre, “Get the list of Emilio’s properties. Send at least three of our men to every single one of them. They don’t leave until I give the order. Tell them to take listening devices, binoculars, whatever spy shit they have to look for Zara and the others.”

It may be impossible for me to be in twenty places at once, but I have the manpower to cover every property. If I asked them to sit on them for days, these men would because they’re loyal to me.

Pulling out my cell phone, I call Roscoe.

“What do you need?” the NYPD Commissioner asks, skipping the bullshit so we can get right to the point.

“I need you to trace a phone.”

---