Page 77 of Fastest Kill

Athena collected the pot without comment and began shuffling for the next hand, a knowing smirk firmly in place.

She nodded towards Frederica and waggled her eyebrows. Dario rolled his eyes at her and made a bring it on gesture. Athena only laughed and dealt again.

33

Rainbow in the Dark, cut through the library just after midnight. It had been her father's contact tone since Frederica was sixteen, and she had assigned it herself because Tore had once described his life choices as demons that never let him go. She had never changed it and picked up before the first chorus. The breathing hit her first, wet and struggling.

"Baba?" she demanded.

"They came for her." His voice was fractured in a way she had never heard from her father. It was barely there from pain.

She heard something breaking, a door, raised voices in a language she didn't recognize.

"They came for your mother. I couldn't stop—" The line went dead.

Frederica was already on her feet. "They hit the house."

"Who?" Dario asked, tossing his cards down.

"I don't know! It has to be Agrippa, right? He knows we are onto him, and Tore helped us." Frederica was fighting to get all the anxiety down and find that calm place she reserved for stressful jobs.

"How bad?"

"I don't know. The line dropped out, but he sounds hurt." She was already dialing Tore back. Ringing. Ringing. Voicemail.

"We need the plane. Now," Dario said to Rodrigo. He made a call, and they all scattered to get their gear.

The Colleoni jet was wheels-up out of Marco Polo inside forty minutes, which was, in Frederica's current state, forty minutes too long. They had to use a boat to get there faster, and she was still climbing out of her skin.

She stood in the forward section of the cabin as the aircraft climbed, calling Tore's number again and again, but getting no answer.

She called Despina's number and got six rings, then her mother's voice, pleasantly telling her to leave a message. Her chest clenched so tightly that it left her struggling to breathe. She paced the length of the cabin. Sat down. Called Tore again. Nothing.

Giana had suggested she call the police, and Frederica knew she couldn't. Her mother wouldn't have been taken without a fight, and God only knew the carnage she had left behind.

Dario didn't try to stop her pacing, didn't suggest she sit down, didn't offer her any reassurance because he wasn't that fucking stupid.

He was just there, solid and still. She could feel him tracking her without watching her, but she was too focused on the phone in her hand to think about what that meant.

Rodrigo was in the rear of the cabin on the phone with Leo, getting satellite footage of the Rhodes property. Giana was coordinating the island connection, transport, and the doctor-for-hire that Frederica hoped they didn't need.

Kon and Athena sat with a calm quiet because they were familiar with the long hold before a situation that hadn't resolved itself into something you could shoot yet.

Somewhere over the Adriatic, fifty minutes into the flight, Tore finally picked up.

Frederica sank to the floor as her knees gave out. "Baba, what the fuck?"

His voice crackled through, thin with pain. "I'm in the garden. I can't get up. I've twisted my leg, and something is wrong with my shoulder."

Frederica strained to hear anything suspicious in the background. "Are they still there?"

"No. They took her and left. She fought them. I need you to know that. She took three of them apart before they managed to get hold of her. They had numbers, not skill. They sent enough of them that skill didn't matter." A slow, ragged breath. "They took her alive. She was conscious when they put her in the vehicle, but they will drug her now because she killed so many."

"Can you move at all?" she asked, trying to stay calm.

"To sit up. Not further."

"Don't hang up. Don't move. We're less than an hour out."