Page 102 of Lies like Rubies, Part Two (Savage Jewels)

As much asSofia hated the Russo clan for locking her up for the last decade, they were here for her and Patti today. Even Ginevra’s husbands were ready to leap right back into their lives of crime to save Lizzie. I wouldn’t stop Nico, I wanted Sofia’s claws deep into him, but I hoped to get out of this without any additional felonies for Rian, Liam, and Cormac. Maybe.

My fierce kitten vibrated with fury beside me as we tore through the streets of Yorkfield in Rian’s armored SUV.

“Any word from Sergio?”

She looked down at her phone and frowned. “Do you think we should call him?”

“I think we should find him and fucking gut him,” I answered. “Lorenzo?” Hostage retrieval was more his speed. I might command an army in Sicily, but we were in the arms trafficking racket, not the protection racket.

“Tony’s going to handle it, with Liam,” Lorenzo said. “Sofia’s his end game, so we’re going to keep her very far away from him, and that includes comms.”

The club was packed, with a line of scantily clad partiersleading around the block. Sofia grimaced as she finished touching up her makeup. I wasn’t going to tell my kitten that she was just as sexy in black leggings and a tank top as she was in a tight dress, especially when she let her bloodlust out.

Declan led us around to the back. I followed him into a utilitarian stairwell, looking up and down and listening before gesturing for Sofia to follow. The basement was a maze of concrete hallways.

“Fight club’s that way,” Declan muttered, shrugging his shoulder in the other direction. “Nobody’ll hear us down here, and it’s easy to clean.”

Someone in Yorkfield was making a fortune outfitting the mob with these easy-to-clean rooms — tile floors and walls, drains in the middle, hoses at the ready for waterboarding and for cleanup. My eyes flicked to the end of the room.

“A freezer,” Declan explained, grinning. He opened the cabinets along the wall, exposing weapons and a veritable buffet of instruments of torture.

While I was admiring the room, Sofia strode right up to the woman tied to a chair and tangled her fingers in the woman’s hair, yanking her head up to meet Sofia’s eyes. “Hello, Laura.”

“Sofia?” The woman said, her voice confused, her brow furrowed.

“Laura, I’m going to cut right to the chase,” Sofia said, a knife in her hand. How did it get there? “Sergio Accardi kidnapped my daughter and my mother tonight with the help of the Costas. I need you to tell me who might know where they are.”

The woman shook her head frantically. “I don’t know anything about that,” she gasped. Her face was bruised andbleeding. Declan’s men hadn’t gone easier on her because she was a woman.

Sofia yanked hard on the woman’s hair. “Do you see the men in the room?”

When Laura didn’t answer, Sofia chuckled and released her, stepping back. “Laura, you have two choices. You answer my questions, and they kill you quickly. Or they torture you for fun, and you die slowly.”

Laura’s eyes swept around the room. Nico stood at the door, wearing borrowed sweats and a T-shirt. Lorenzo was still in his tux, bloody from helping Tony Russo walk out of the gala. Declan grinned wildly. The head of the Irish in Yorkfield had a reputation for intense, focused violence.

“I don’t know where they are,” Laura said.

Lorenzo walked up behind Sofia, rolling up his shirt sleeves. “Do better than that, Laura. Surely you heard some inkling of what would go down tonight.”

Laura looked up at him, giving him doe eyes. “What went down tonight?”

Lorenzo backhanded her, so quickly and so casually that I didn’t see it coming. I’d seen Sofia stomach hard interrogations, and it shouldn’t have surprised me when she gripped Laura’s jaw, pressing her fingers into the fresh bruises on her cheek. “Don’t lie to me, Laura Bertola.”

“Sofia, what happened to you?”

Sofia jerked back, her body tense as she vibrated with anger. “Sergio Accardi kidnapped my daughter and my mother,” she shouted, her cheeks flushing with rage. “What the hell do you think happened to me?”

Laura shook her head. “They really took the kid?”

This was taking too long. I moved from my position leaning against the wall, only for Lorenzo to lean over andwhisper something in Sofia’s ear. She nodded and stepped away.

“Who would know, Laura?” Lorenzo asked, tracing his fingers over her collarbone. Laura began to shake, as if she were only now realizing how much trouble she was really in.

“Cosimo,” she breathed. “Cosimo Michetti might.”

Sofia’s eyes narrowed. “Who is that?”

“He’s new,” Laura breathed, her eyes wide and trembling, no longer the doe-like eyes of seduction, as she followed my movements through the room. Pilers, long needles, wire,hmmmm. What else might be useful?

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