The Pawn novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Four More by Morning

Shot and stitched, Cosimo burns his way to a location, and learns Nerina is being treated like family.

Cosimo's POV

The doctor wanted to put me under to dig the bullet out, and I told him to do it awake.

Sedation meant hours.

I did not have hours.

"Hold still, Mr. Ruvolo," he said, with his forceps in my shoulder.

I held still.

I stared at the wall of my own private clinic in Oak Brook and counted the minutes since they had taken her.

Four hours had gone.

I had said I was coming for her in front of three hundred witnesses.

Now I was lying on a steel table with my wedding shirt cut off me and my own blood drying on my cuff.

The bullet came out and hit the tray with a small clink.

Rocco stood by the door with his arms crossed and his jacket still stained.

He had not sat down since the church.

"Four dead on their side," he said. "Two of ours. The priest is fine. He's hiding in the rectory and won't come out."

"The men who took her?"

"Gone. A gray van with plates that don't exist." He looked at me. "Cosimo, I told you."

"I know what you told me."

"I told you three days ago that Pellegrino was moving. I said move the wedding, move it inside the walls at the estate."

"I know."

"You said no."

"I know, Rocco."

He shut his mouth.

He had every right to say it, and he knew I knew.

The doctor began to stitch, and I let him.

I had wanted the wedding on Taylor Street, in front of everybody.

I had wanted every man in Chicago to see her in white at my side.

That was my mistake, and I would pay for it later.

First I had to get her back.

"Where did the warehouses stand tonight?" I asked.

"Three burned." Rocco's voice went flat. "Your orders. The men did it before the church was even cleared."

"Good. Four more by morning."

"Cosimo."

"Four more."

He didn't argue again.

When the doctor tied off the last stitch I sat up, and the room moved.

I waited until it settled.

I put on a clean shirt and a black coat over the bandage.

"You can't," the doctor said. "You've lost a lot of blood."

"Then I'll be careful with what's left."

We took two cars to a counting house off Cermak Road.

It was a dry cleaner on the street and a Pellegrino bank in the back room.

Four of my men went in ahead of me.

When I walked in, there were two dead guards on the floor and a gray-haired bookkeeper sitting in a chair with a gun pointed at his chest.

He was shaking.

I pulled a stool over and sat down across from him.

"Where is she?"

"I don't know who you mean," he said, fast.

I let a moment pass.

Rocco, behind me, cocked a hammer.

"You do," I said quietly. "You know who I mean, and you know what happens to a man who says the wrong thing in this room."

His eyes went to the dead guards, and then to me.

"I only keep books," he said. "I don't know anything about the girl."

"You said girl."

He closed his eyes.

"Lake Geneva," he said. "The house on the water. Mr. Pellegrino's own house. That's all I know. I swear on my kids."

I looked at him.

I didn't think he was lying.

"Is it a prison?" I asked. "Cells, guards, a basement?"

He gave a short, frightened laugh.

"No, sir. It's not like that at all."

"Then what is it?"

"She's being treated like family," he said. "The room's been ready for a month. Mr. Pellegrino picked the curtains himself."

I stopped moving.

Behind me, Rocco went quiet.

I had spent six months learning one fact about Aurelio Pellegrino, and the bookkeeper's answer sat very close to it.

A man does not prepare a room for a hostage, and he does not pick curtains.

Not for a stranger.

Not unless he had known for a long time that she was coming home to him.

I stood and put my hand on the bookkeeper's shoulder, and he flinched.

"Take him to the estate," I told Rocco. "Keep him comfortable. He's the only one who has told me the truth tonight."

Then I walked out into the cold, with the stitches pulling at my shoulder.

Pellegrino had not taken a hostage.

He had taken something back, and the clock on that had just started running.

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