Page 88 of Ruthless Scar
“Wait.” Marco’s voice cuts through. Sharper. Urgent. “Wait, wait, wait.”
I look up. His fingers are moving again, faster now.
“Isabella’s phone. When she escaped, she took it with her. We tracked it until the signal died at the edge of Benedetti territory.”
“You said the signal cut out.”
“It did. But that doesn’t mean the phone is destroyed.” Marco pulls up a new screen. “If she still has it, if she hid it somewhere on her body, or they took it but didn’t destroy it, I might be able to ping it. The battery would need to be intact, and she’d have to be somewhere with minimal signal interference.”
“Can you find her?”
“I can try.” He’s already typing, pulling up triangulation software, cell tower maps. “If the phone is still active, even in low-power mode, it’ll respond to a carrier ping. Give me a few minutes.”
A few minutes. I’ll take it.
I force myself to breathe. Slide the barrel back into the frame. Click. The familiar weight settles in my hand.
“Nico. Everyone you can reach. I want people ready to move the second we have a location.”
“Already on it.”
“Dante.” My brother meets my gaze. The Don. The one who makes the final calls.
“Whatever it takes,” he says.
“Whatever it takes.”
We wait. Marco types. Nico’s phone buzzes with incoming confirmations. I finish the reassembly, holster the backup, and spread Nico’s safe house list across the table. Seven addresses. I eliminate three based on satellite footage. Too exposed, too residential, too far from the port routes Flavio uses. Four left.
Isabella is in one of them. Or she’s not, and we start again from nothing.
“Got something.” Marco leans forward, eyes locked on the screen. “Faint signal. Keeps dropping every few seconds, but it’s pinging the same two towers.”
“Where?”
“Still triangulating. The partial pings give me a radius, not a pinpoint. Every time I get a third tower lock, the signal dies.” He types faster. Pauses. Types again. Shakes his head. “East side. Industrial district. Half-mile grid, best I can do. That’s consistent with Benedetti territory.”
I look at the safe house list. Cross-reference. Two of my four remaining addresses sit in that grid.
“How long to get exact coordinates?”
“I don’t know. The signal keeps cutting in and out. Could be interference, could be the phone’s damaged, could be they’re moving her.” Marco’s jaw is tight. “I’m doing everything I can.”
I fold the list. Slide it into my jacket pocket.
“Dante. I need a team at staging point Charlie in forty minutes. Full tactical.”
My brother nods. Picks up his phone.
I stand at the center of the war room and stare at the two addresses circled on the map.
One of them holds her. I check the clip. Full.
25
ISABELLA
He waits until the silence has done its work.
