Chapter 72: We Bring the Boom

[Caterina’s POV]

My eyes burn from staring at screens all night. How many nights now? Three? Four? Time has no meaning anymore. The command center beneath La Reale hums with electronic equipment, the blue glow of monitors casting ghostly shadows across my haggard face.

The door opens behind me, and I don’t need to turn to know it’s Maddy and Lara. Their footsteps have become as familiar as my own heartbeat during these endless days of searching.

“Boss,” Maddy’s voice is carefully neutral, but I hear the exhaustion in it. “We’ve checked every warehouse in South Boston. Nothing.”

“Drones swept the harbor area too,” Lara adds, her usually manic energy subdued. “No sign of Luna’s operation.”

I don’t respond immediately. My fingers trace the outline of Adam’s face on one of the monitors, a still from security footage taken the day before he was kidnapped in Italy. He was smiling at something I’d said, his eyes crinkling at the corners in that way that always made my chest ache with unexpected tenderness.

I close my eyes, trying to hold back tears. The weight of it all crashes over me like a tsunami, Adam in Luna’s hands, Valentina’s death, my entire world crumbling.

“Boss, you need to sleep. Let us run things for a few hours,” Lara says, her voice uncharacteristically gentle.

“I need to find him, Lara,” I whisper, my voice raw from disuse and emotion.

“Boss, I know,” Lara insists, stepping closer. “But you won’t be able to do anything without a little sleep.”

Maddy’s phone buzzes suddenly. She glances at the screen, her eyebrow shooting up in surprise.

“Boss, it’s Claire,” she says, holding up the phone. There’s a note of disbelief in her voice.

I feel surprised. We haven’t seen Claire in days. I just assumed she was involved somehow in this nightmare.

“Put it on speaker,” I command, straightening in my chair.

Maddy taps the screen, and Claire’s voice fills the room, breathless and panicked.

“Hello, Claire? I have you on speaker,” Maddy says, her voice carefully neutral.

Claire’s voice comes through breathless and frantic, the sound of an engine roaring in the background. “I just escaped Luna’s hideout. Luna has Adam.”

“WHERE IS ADAM?” I scream, lunging forward and grabbing the phone from Maddy’s hand. My voice is raw, desperate, barely recognizable even to my own ears.

“Holy fuck, Caterina?” Claire gasps, clearly startled by my sudden intrusion.

“WHERE IS HE?” I yell again, knuckles white as I grip the phone, my entire body trembling with desperation.

“In a warehouse in Dorchester,” Claire says nervously, her words tumbling out in a rush. “I’m sending a picture and the address to Maddy right now.”

Maddy’s phone pings with an incoming message as I hand it back to her. She checks it quickly, her eyes widening. “Got it, boss. It’s an old storage facility near the harbor.”

I’m already moving, grabbing my gun from the table and checking the clip with practiced efficiency. My mind races with calculations, how many women I’ll need, the quickest route, what weapons to bring.

“How many guards?” I demand, my voice razor-sharp as I signal Lara to start making calls.

“Over a dozen women,” Claire responds, the sound of her car accelerating coming through the speaker. “Maybe more. Mia’s dead, she just... died right in front of me. Something made her bleed out from everywhere.”

“Who the fuck is Mia?” I snap, impatient with details that don’t help me get to Adam.

“Luna’s second-in-command,” Claire explains hurriedly. “The one who... who was keeping Adam. Look, he’s in bad shape, Caterina. They hurt him. Bad.”

My heart constricts painfully in my chest, but I push the emotion down, locking it away where it can’t interfere with what needs to be done.

“Claire,” I say, my voice suddenly deadly calm, “I need you to tell me everything you know about the building layout. Every entrance, every guard position, every place Adam might be held.”

Claire’s breathing hitches on the other end of the line. “I don’t really remember. When I went to get Adam, they knocked me out and shoved me in a cell.”

I freeze, my finger hovering over the map Maddy just pulled up. “What do you mean when you went to get Adam?”

There’s a long pause, just the sound of tires on asphalt and Claire’s suddenly shallow breathing.

“Ahh fuck,” she finally says, her voice small.

“Claire.” My voice is eerily calm now, a stillness that has made grown men wet themselves. “What exactly did you do?”

Another pause, longer this time. When she speaks again, her words come out in a rush. “Luna contacted me weeks ago. Said she knew I wanted Adam back, that she could help make that happen if I gave her information on your movements.”

The rage that floods through me is so intense I nearly black out. My vision narrows to a pinpoint, the edges turning crimson like my eyes.

“You’re the reason they kidnapped Adam,” I whisper, each word dripping with lethal promise. “You’re the reason Valentina is dead.”

“I didn’t know they were going to kill anyone!” Claire protests, panic evident in her voice. “I just wanted my husband back!”

“HE’S NOT YOUR HUSBAND!” I scream, the sound tearing from my throat like something feral and wounded. “HE’S MINE!”

There’s a long silence on the other end of the line. When Claire finally speaks, her voice wavers like a candle flame in a draft.

“I’ve changed, Caterina. I really have.” Her words come out desperate, pleading. “I never wanted any of this to happen. I just wanted…”

“Claire,” I cut her off, my voice dropping to a deadly whisper, “if I ever see you again, I will kill you. That’s not a threat. It’s a promise.”

The line goes dead. Claire hung up.

I stand there for a moment, phone still clutched in my white-knuckled grip, rage pulsing through me in waves so intense I can barely breathe.

Maddy clears her throat cautiously. “Do you want me to reach out to our connection at Verizon? See what towers she was pinging? We could track her location.”

My eyes dart back and forth, mind racing through possibilities, calculations, scenarios. Every second wasted is another second Adam suffers.

“No time,” I snap, tossing the phone onto the table. “Prepare for war. Call everyone. I want fucking every woman we know geared up. Bring out fucking everything.”

Lara straightens, her manic energy returning as she pulls out her own phone. “We can get around fifty women in an hour. If you wait, we can get a lot more probably.”

“Start with fifty and have someone else prepare the rest,” I order, already moving toward the armory. “I want grenades, assault rifles, body armor, the works. And get the medical team ready. Adam will need immediate attention.”

The command center erupts into frenzied activity, phones ringing, orders being shouted, equipment being dragged out of storage. I stride through it all like the eye of a hurricane, my focus narrowed to a single point. Adam.

*****

The armored truck rumbles beneath me, the vibration traveling up through my combat boots and into my bones. Every jolt sends a fresh wave of murderous determination through my veins. My fingers grip my assault rifle, the metal warm against my skin from how tightly I’ve been holding it for the past twenty minutes.

Fifty of my best fighters are spread across three eighteen-wheeler trucks, a mobile arsenal heading straight for Luna’s warehouse. They’re all hardened criminals, women who’ve killed before and will kill again without hesitation. But even they seem on edge, stealing glances at me like I’m a bomb about to detonate.

They’re not wrong.

Maddy sits across from me, methodically checking her weapons for the third time. Her movements are precise, economical, betraying none of the tension I know she must be feeling. Lara paces the limited space of the truck, her red hair pulled back in a tight braid, eyes gleaming with barely contained bloodlust.

“Ten minutes to target,” the driver calls back.

I rise from my seat, steadying myself against the truck’s motion. “When we breach, I go in first,” I announce, my voice cutting through the tense silence. “Anyone who tries to stop me will regret it.”

Lara pauses her pacing, a frown creasing her usually manic features. “Boss, this isn’t something the leader should do. You’re too valuable to be first through the door. Let me…”

“Shut the fuck up,” I snap, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper that makes everyone in the truck freeze. “He’s mine. I’m getting him back. I’m going in first.”

Lara blinks, then nods slowly, a wild grin spreading across her face. “Yes, boss. Sorry, boss.”

Maddy sighs, holstering her pistol. “At least wear the face mask,” she says.

I ignore her, checking my rifle one last time. The weight of it feels good in my hands, solid and reassuring. Luna will die today. So will anyone else who stands between me and Adam.

The truck lurches as the driver takes a sharp turn. My phone buzzes in my pocket, drawing my attention away from my rifle. I pull it out, expecting an update from our advance team. The screen displays a surprising name.

Isabella Moretti.

“Everyone quiet,” I snap, hitting the accept button and putting the phone to my ear.

“Isabella.”

The non canon picture: