Page 72 of Beautiful Savage
Adrian enters next, straight from the floor, already in his evening armor. Dark suit, no tie, the clothes that make him king of this underworld. He doesn't ask questions. Just sits, looks at me. Really looks. Sees the wreckage of the last five days written on my face. His expression does that Adrian thing. Warmth that somehow makes everything feel possible. He reaches across the table, grips my shoulder once.
Marisol bursts in, her golden hair wild, jeans and soft sweater instead of her usual designer everything. She's in full chaos-goblin mode. Eyes bright, alert, already calculating. Those eyes find me first. Lock on. Two seconds of assessment.
She sees everything. The sleepless face. The body that's been eating grief instead of food. The tremor in my hands that wasn't there two weeks ago.
She doesn't say anything. Just crosses to me with the determination that's kept the Delgado empire standing. Hand on my shoulder. Squeezes hard enough to hurt, hard enough to ground me. Then sits across from me, eyes never leaving my face.
The squeeze says everything:I'm here because you're here. No questions needed.
Isa enters wearing tailored pants and jacket, dark hair piled high, mouth set in that blade-sharp line. "Tell me what you need me to do."
Logan tells her: Run tonight normal. Floor open until eleven, Siren on schedule. Anyone asks about me, I'm out on Adrian's family business. Information cap holds. She nods once, sharp. "Got it." Then she's gone.
Nico arrives moments later, straight from the penthouse, his soldier's calm settling over the room like ballast. Logan briefs him in two minutes. When he finishes, Nico's response is immediate: "I'm in. The Rosetti family is at your disposal. Chicago soldiers, New York cousins, LA on standby.Famigliamobilizes tonight. Whatever you need, however many bodies, whatever it costs."
The family is assembled.
I run the briefing myself. Ten minutes, everything compressed. They know the name; tonight they learn the why: The colonel's history. Six women raped and killed. Nine years of building evidence. The planned release through my JAG contact, who has a journalist at the Atlantic ready. The Tuesday operation, stood down when the cottage was hit. Nicolas's call twenty-two minutes ago.
Logan assigns roles with military precision. Emilio Rosetti in New York is a hacker, so he takes the federal contractor records, shell companies, electrical grid anomalies. Adrian marshals surveillance feeds and aerial photos through his network of clients who owe favors, plus authorization for the Delgado covert teams. Logan handles strike coordination. Marisol arranges post-op logistics. Hospital, recovery, transport. Nico provides Rosetti family blessing for what's about to happen.
And me? I take the operational lead on getting her back.
Everyone moves. Then my phone vibrates. It's a video.
I set it face-up on the table. The family gathers close while I tap play.
The first three seconds stop my heart.
Daphne in the chair.
My fist closes on the table edge hard enough to crack wood. Can't breathe. Lean forward like I could reach through the screen. Every muscle in my body coils to attack something that isn't here.
The bruise on her jaw makes my vision blur red. Someone touched her. Hurt her. While I sat here drowning in my own stubborn pride. The chair bolted to concrete. Four anchor points. Wrists and ankles zip-tied like an animal. Single bulb hanging. The operator beside the camera with a burn-scarred jaw I'm memorizing, because I'm going to find him tonight and put him in the ground for touching what's mine.
But under the rage, something else. Her face holds that dry register. She's alive in there. Not broken. Still my Daphne, spine straight, chin up, eyes steady on the camera. She's doing her dancer's breathing even bound to a chair. That discipline she carries in her bones.
The woman who walked into my apartment all those days ago is still there. She may hate herself, and hate me even more, but underneath she's still the woman who painted herself withmy garden's flowers. Who danced for me. Who chose me even when she shouldn't have.
The video ends. Silence.
Marisol's hand covers my fist where it's still clenched on the table. Four seconds of her warmth over my violence. "You're buying the whole family dinner for a month after this," she mutters, the joke threadbare but present, the only sparkle she can spare right now. Then she lifts her hand, but the promise stays:We'll get her back.
"We hit tonight." My voice comes out raw. "I'm not waiting. We find where they're holding her and hit before midnight."
No one argues. Adrian nods. Logan nods. Marisol's chaos-goblin energy focuses into something lethal. Emilio's already typing. Nico says simply, "Sì."
The family is in.
But first, I buy us the night. I reply to the package with the one demand they can't rush: a dead-man switch isn't a button you press. Killing it clean means stand-down codes, verification windows, proof they can authenticate. I tell them I'll surrender with the dossier terminated — and that terminating it properly takes until morning. The answer comes back in under a minute:0600. No extensions.Hallstein wants the file dead more than he wants me fast. Five PM just became six AM. The deadline is ours now.
The hunt accelerates.
Emilio tears through federal databases I don't want to know how he's accessing. I hear him on speaker. IRS, Secretary of State, SEC filings, cross-referencing electrical anomalies, occupancy patterns that suggest black sites. Adrian works three phones at once, calling in every favor from nine years of running Miami's underworld playground.
Somewhere in the flood, Emilio confirms what I've suspected since March: the dock breach traces back to an AtlasSentinel contractor. Hallstein's counter-intelligence, sweeping the Delgado operation ahead of his appointment. That's how he found me. That's how all of this started.
I pull up my own Atlas Sentinel property list. The one I've been building since 2017. The hunting lodge twenty miles north of Everglades City is one of three candidates. I let Emilio's work converge from outside, see if he lands on the same target.
