*Jacopo’s POV*

I glanced at my watch – it was six forty-five. The sky had shifted in many shades of dark blue and black behind the warehouse. Lucia stood beside me with her hands bound in zip ties and her mouth covered in duct tape. Her mouth twitched in an arrogant smirk, and I clenched my fists against a rising rage.

Twenty men surrounded us - ten of them fanned out behind me while the other half remained hidden with rifles trained on the entrance. We had ...