The dial tone beeped once, a flat, digital screech, before the burner phone went completely silent.

Dominic stared at the device on the table, his fingers still hovering near the screen.

His face had gone completely pale, the skin around his jaw tight.

“Marco,” Dominic said, his voice dropping an octave.

“I’m tracking the signal now,” Marco replied, his fingers already flying across the laptop keyboard.

“But if they took her phone, it won’t give us much.”

My knees felt weak, and I reached out to grip the back of a wooden chair.

The smell of old paper and rain-dampened wood from the bookstore downstairs drifted up through the floorboards.

Lucia was sleeping in the back room, her small chest rising and falling beneath a faded quilt.

I could not let them bring this violence to her door.

“They have her,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt.

Dominic looked up at me, his dark Valenti eyes clouded with a sudden, sharp panic.

“We need to get you and Lucia out of Manhattan,” he said, taking a step toward me.

“Now.”

“No,” I said.