Gio made an awful sound that tore through Dante's chest. "I had the most important cameras up and zoomed in. I'm sorry, I just checked the front feed and she's gone. So is the car."

Oh, God no.

"I-"

"Let me in!" Lucian roared.

Gunfire sounded a blink before bullets ripped through the boxes beside Dante. "Fucking Christ!"

"Move!" Gio yelled.

Dante squeezed his eyes shut, decided to trust that his wife knew what she was doing even if listening to him might save her goddamn life, and started moving again. Panic saturated his insides as he weaved through the throng of storage and crates. Repeatedly, he checked over his shoulder for the two Gio mentioned, but not once did he see them.

Turning a corner in the makeshift aisles of crap, Dante could see the red flickers of light that signaled the loading docks and back exit where Lucian was waiting.

"Gun from the back turning the corner ten feet ahead and to your left in less than five," Gio warned. "The other two are still fucking around looking down aisles thirty feet or so back. You've got a bit before they catch up with the way they're going on."

"Thanks."

Dante lowered his Uzi and pulled the magnum from the holster at his back. No need to waste bullets. Flicking the safety off before he cocked the hammer back, Dante walked forward and raised the magnum. The moment the idiot popped around the corner, Dante's gun met his head.

The bullet lodged into the man's temple, killing him instantly. Blood sprayed as the corpse went flying into another wall of boxes. More packing peanuts spilled when the boxes fell. An assault weapon the man held clattered to the cement floor. Dante picked it up and slung the weapon over his shoulder by the strap. No need to give those fuckers any more ammo than they already had.

Shouts rang out from somewhere behind Dante. Angry, Italian shouts.

"Yeah, now they're coming," Gio said. "You're definitely clear for Lucian, though, just keep a watch on your back."

Dante jogged through the maze of crates and boxes. "Got it."

"And-" Gio's words cut off briefly before he muttered, "What is this shit?"

"Gio, what's up?" Dante asked as he finally came to the back exit. His foot landed to the bar across the exit, knocking it off and allowing the door to be opened.

Lucian slipped in wordlessly. His head snapped up, his gaze sweeping the ceiling at the sound of Johnathan's faint cries still reverberating above and around them.

"Gio?" Dante asked.

"I gotta shut the cameras off," Gio said quietly.

"What, why?" Lucian demanded.

Dante felt just as confused. Gio's skills with computers and hacking had gone a long way for them today and beyond that, they still had two fuckers coming at them and fast.

"I already shut them off, so you're on your own," Gio explained. "The coding program-"

"We're not the ones who understand that shit," Lucian interrupted sharply.

"My router is trying to bounce onto another hotspot, one so close it would have to be inside the building, too. All I can tell from the codes is that something is counting down, man. In order for me to figure out what it is, I need to get out of this hotspot, and jump into that one."

"Counting down," Dante echoed, giving Lucian a look. "Holy fu-"

Lucian tackled Dante from the side, knocking them both to the floor. Dante's shoulder bloomed in agony as his head cracked into cement. The whistling sound of bullets screamed in every direction. Both brothers scrambled for purchase against the slick cement under they finally found traction. As fast as lightning, they disappeared back into the maze of crates and boxes. A tipped over shipping crate became their shield, but Dante knew it would do little for them.

A burning sting ached in Dante's jaw, wetness dripped down to his hand as he touched the spot. Hissing, he pulled his hand away to see blood covering his fingertips.

"Ah, fuck," Dante breathed, patting his jaw again to guess how long the bullet graze was. At least three inches.

"Shit." Lucian grabbed his brother's face, tipping Dante's head up. "It's just a flesh wound, nothing serious."

"It's bleeding pretty fucking badly for it to be just a flesh wound."

"Because it's on your face," Lucian replied completely unbothered and letting Dante go. "Now shut up and let me listen."

Lucian turned away, popping up over the crate to look around. When he did, Dante flinched. Two bullets were lodged deep into the back of the Kevlar vest Lucian wore. That had to be hurting.

"Ouch, man."

"It's nothing." Lucian sat back down with a thump, but his heavy exhales said those bullets likely took his breath away.

"Right."

"Something's wrong," Lucian said, taking in a deep breath.

"I agree," Gio replied, reminding his two brothers he was still there.

"You first?" Lucian asked.

"It's a countdown," Gio said simply.

Dante gritted his teeth. "You already told us it was some kind of clock."

"Yeah, and it's got almost two and a half minutes left on the clock. Whatever this is must be inside that building, there's tight security around the coding so that if I even try to touch it, the clock with automatically turn to zero, and ..."

"And what?" Dane forced himself to ask.

"I think it's a bomb," Gio said. "You guys need to get out of there now."

"But, John-"

Lucian grabbed Dante's shirt, shutting him up. "Those cries are a recorded track. It's on a twenty second loop and it's being played through several speakers to confuse and bother me. The third time around, I started to pay attention. My son is not in this building."

Where the fuck was he, then?

Dante blinked, finally understanding. "But we are."

"Just got back into the camera WiFi," Gio said. "Oh, look at that. They're going to make it easy on you."

"What?" Lucian asked.

"Get down low, roll out, point, and shoot. Easy." Gio chuckled. "Then run as fast as you fucking can to the front of the building."

Dante's brow furrowed. "Why the front?"

"I still think there's a reason why they made that office look like it was blocked in. Like maybe because someone wanted you right in that area when it went boom. Plus, the front entrance won't block you in with the blast like the others will. Quit fucking dancing around and let's move. You're probably around a minute and fifty or less, now."

Lucian gave Dante a nod and slid down to his back; Dante did the same. "Find my wife, Gio. If she got in the car, maybe there was a good reason."

"On it."

Lucian reached out with a clenched fist. Dante bumped it with his own.

"Two more things," Gio said.

"Yeah?"

"I'm going to disconnect so I can call the guy we have scouting. Maybe he followed the car with Catrina."

"And?" Lucian asked.

"Yeah, stay alive because I love you, and I don't want to have to deal with Ma alone for the rest of my life. That kind of shit."

Dante muffled his laughter into his palm. Typical fucking Gio right there. "You, too, asshole."

The phone clicked off.

"On three," Dante told Lucian.

Holding his hand up, Dante flicked up his fingers one at a time. At three, the brothers rolled away from one another and out of their hiding spot behind the fallen crate. Uzi fire lit up the space in front of Dante's face, slicing through the air in quick succession. Then, his gun emptied its clip and as soon as it did, he could see the fucking fool poking his head around a crate to check on Dante's whereabouts and weapon.

Immediately, Dante reached behind him to grab the gun he'd taken off the guy from the back, but it wasn't there. It must have fallen from his shoulder when Lucian tackled him. Dante swore he could feel his heart in his throat when he couldn't find his magnum in the holster, either.

"Go!" Lucian shouted.

Dante did as his brother said, making it to his feet just as the man came out from behind the crate with a rifle pointed straight at him. Uzi fire from Lucian answered the asshole, the bullets pelting the guy's front, jerking him into the crate before he slammed to the floor. Dante didn't waste time looking for the last man. He just ran for the front of the building, hoping to hell Lucian wasn't far behind him.

The mess of crates and boxes wasn't nearly as bad on the other side of the warehouse. It was a heck of a lot easier to make his way through and it didn't feel like such a maze. Dante reached the open space where the car must have been parked in no time at all. In the back of his mind, he was still counting down. Maybe what, thirty seconds?

The sight of the heavy bars barricading the front entrance closed sent rage swelling in Dante. A hand landed to his shoulder, making him shout. "Jesus, Lucian!"

"Look," Lucian said, nodding up at the top of the metal garage door. Dante followed his direction, noticing the door was lifted and closed by a mechanical motor. There was no button anywhere in sight, though. "We can pry it up, but it's going to be hard."

"You got that last guy right?" Dante asked. Lucian nodded. "All right, let's open this fucker and get the hell out of here."

Lucian tossed his Uzi to the side, bending down with Dante to pry at the bottom of the metal door. Lifting the sheets of connected metal was anything but easy. Every muscle in Dante's body protested at the weight bearing down from the door. When the door was up to Dante's waste, he nodded for his brother to go under first. With Lucian on the other side, holding the bottom of the door again, Dante quickly slipped out, too.

The metal smashed down to the cement with a bang as soon as they let it go.

Standing straight, Dante took notice of two things immediately. His wife's coat, shoes, and the new knife was all tossed in a pile on the ground. Second, a familiar black car was parked, engine running and the back door open only feet away from the front of the warehouse. Lucian laughed at the sight of Gio's car, but it was strained. Dante could hear it and it shredded his heart to pieces.

They still didn't have John.

And God, where was Catrina?

"Come on!" Gio shouted from inside the car.

Dante and Lucian didn't need to be told again. They jumped into the back of Gio's car, landing one on top of the other. Gio pushed the gas pedal to the floor, forcing the backdoor to close and sending Lucian's elbow jabbing with damning force into Dante's rib. He kicked his brother off of him.

"Ow, you asshole!"

Lucian didn't say a thing as he pushed himself up in the seat. "Where is my son?"

"I think I know," Gio said. "Maybe ... Cristo, I hope so, anyway."

Gio didn't sound like he was excited about his idea of Johnathan's whereabouts, so that only worried Dante more.

"Wh-"

Lucian didn't get to finish his question. The impact of the bomb going off behind them was like a wave of pressure hitting the back of their car. The volcanic-like sound from before had nothing on this blast. Both Lucian and Dante ducked down instinctively, though they were too far away to get any hit from the bomb, now.

"Holy shit," Gio hissed, the car jerking to the side as he took a sharp right turn. "Well, that makes cleanup on our end easy."

"Where are we going?" Dante asked.

"To get your wife and John."

"He was in the car?" Lucian asked, his voice turning deadly.

Dante could see Gio's cringe as their younger brother said, "Uh ..."

Lucian slammed his hand into the back of Gio's shoulder. "What? Tell me!"

"When I first got the feed up, I watched who she said was Bruno put a large duffel bag into the trunk."

"A duffel bag?"

"That's what I saw, nothing else," Gio said quickly.

Lucian's eyes turned practically black with his fury. Dante sunk into the seat, the anxiety beating hard in his chest again. He refused to show his fear, but it was hard to ignore it completely.

Gio glanced into the rear-view mirror. "We're not far from the GPS location for Catrina. It only went maybe three or four blocks before it stopped."

Dante stayed silent as the car weaved through back streets, warehouses flying by. Gio seemed to know where he was going without even looking at the map sporting a single red dot on his laptop in the passenger seat. Dante wasn't surprised Gio knew the area. The shipping district has always been a specialty of his and Lucian's.

Gio slammed on the breaks and put the car in park, sending Lucian and Dante jerking forward. Dante didn't need to ask why his brother had stopped so suddenly. A white car had half-parked in a narrow alleyway between two buildings. Something was happening inside the vehicle, because it shuddered with movement.

Dante was pushing out of Gio's car before either of his brothers. Lucian was right on his heels. He reached for his gun as he approached the car, but again, realized he had lost it. Dante didn't give a shit if he had a gun or not.

Certainly not when he saw a man he didn't recognize choking the very life out of his wife in the front seat. Dante moved fast around the vehicle, rage simmering hot in his blood. His wife was one hell of a fighter because the man's-Bruno's-face was torn to shreds with scratches and claw marks.