on the end of the bed, mind racing. They—she, Luca and Oscar—been so consumed with the Bellator Dei, they hadn’t thought about or discussed what had happened in Pennsylvania.
“We can’t assume it was Bellator Dei,” she said.
Langston frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Less than a week ago, someone tried to kidnap Luca,” she replied. “Shouldn’t we assume that another kidnapping attempt might be from the same people? The Serbians?”
“The Bellator Dei have good reason to want to kidnap him too,” Jennika pointed out. “He’s one of them. And if they infiltrated Cohortes Praetorianae…”
“But if they know he’s here, with us, they know he’s not loyal,” Langston pointed out.
“No, they may think they rescued him,” Owen said slowly. “And they might have taken Oscar as either a hostage or out of necessity.”
“If they don’t need Oscar…” Langston sank onto the bed.
“But the Bellator Dei don’t kidnap people. They use bombs. You just said so yourself, Langston.” Selene jumped to her feet and started to pace. She didn’t know why she was so sure this wasn’t the Bellator Dei.
Owen considered that briefly. “The professionalism of this operation indicates that it wasn’t Bellator Dei members themselves who did it. If they’re responsible, they hired someone.”
“Maybe they hired the Serbian mercenaries to kidnap him back,” Selene said. “Or it’s just the Serbians attempting to get Luca again, this time closer to home.”
Owen nodded. He didn’t seem surprised, which indicated he’d probably already thought of that. “I’ve already called the Grand Master. Boston is sending over everything they have on the people who attacked you in Pennsylvania.”
“So, we’re going to Serbia?” Langston demanded. “Or do we think they have them here in Italy? A search party?”
Owen walked over and put one hand on Selene’s shoulder, stilling her pacing. With the other, he reached out and grabbed Langston’s shoulder in turn. “We will find them, but we have to take action, not just react.”
“Meaning?” Selene demanded.
“Meaning that for the next twenty minutes, I want you two to take showers, change into something comfortable—because this might be a long night—and then meet the team in the conference room.” Owen released them and followed Jennika, who headed for the door. “We’ll find them,” Owen assured them.
When the door closed behind him, Selene and Langston looked at each other, but neither spoke.
Their fears were too big for words.
Luca rolled over, vomited, and then gagged. His head was clearer than it had been, enough that he knew it wasn’t the first time he’d been sick, a fact made painfully clear, considering there was nothing left in his stomach for him to throw up. This was, however, the first time he’d been aware enough to then sit up and look around his surroundings.
The walls were dusty, uniformly gray concrete, with heavy plastic sheeting where there should have been doors. It was dusk, and the only light filtered in through plastic that covered what he assumed would be a window. He was in a construction site of some kind, though there were no useful tool boxes lying around he might use to free his hands from the cuffs. The cuffs were looped around some roughed-in plumbing sunk into the concrete. He wasn’t going anywhere.
He had a vague memory of men checking on him, and at some point, someone had thrown water on him, probably to wash away the vomit, because his hair was wet.
The last thing he could recall at the hotel was the man attacking Oscar, plunging the needle into him. He was gripped by terror as the image of Oscar falling flashed through his mind.
Where was Oscar? Was he okay?
His lovers had shared their fears with him last night, Selene and Oscar talking about the panic and unbearable fear they’d felt when he was on the compound, defusing the bombs, both of them far too aware that he could be killed at any moment.
Last night, he’d been touched by how much they cared for him, and the realization that there was someone in the world, besides just his sister, who would grieve for him.
But now that he found himself in the same position, uncertain if Oscar was alive or…no.
No.
Luca pushed that thought from his mind, unable to consider something so truly horrifying.
The sound of voices pulled him from his dark thoughts. A second later, light flashed over plastic. Then two men, speaking Serbian, pushed through a plastic-draped doorway. They had guns slung across their backs, and one of them held a flashlight. They held the plastic aside, and two more men