Entangled with the Mafia Don novel Chapter 67

67 /70

Ezra's POV

I was back at the safe house, the air vibrating with the frantic energy of a war room. Every screen was a blur of traffic cams and facial recognition hits that led nowhere. I was a hair-trigger away from executing the tech lead when my encrypted phone shrieked on the glass table.

The caller ID was a string of scrambled zeros. I snatched it up.

"Speak," I commanded, my voice a low, jagged rasp.

"Ezra. It’s Victor." The informant’s voice was thin, shaking with the weight of the news. "I found the transport. But you aren't going to a warehouse, and you aren't going to a Sokolov estate."

"Where is she, Victor? Give me a location before I come over there and pull it out of your throat."

"The Midnight Exchange," Victor whispered, the name carrying a sickening weight. "Tatiana didn't just take her for leverage. She’s liquidating the 'Volkov assets.' They’ve listed Davina as the 'Special Lot' for tonight’s auction. High-value sex slave, Ezra. They're selling her to the highest bidder on the Ivory Queen—that converted freighter anchored twelve miles out in the Black Zone."

The world tilted. The blood in my veins turned to liquid fire, searing through my chest. They weren't just holding her; they were putting a price on her soul, inviting the world’s most depraved monsters to bid on her dignity.

"Andrea," I barked, not looking away from the wall. "You stay here. You don't leave Lexi’s side. If a single soul even looks at this floor the wrong way, you burn the building down with them in it."

"Ezra, wait—" Andrea started, but I was already moving.

"No waiting. They are selling her like meat, Andrea. I am going to remind the Sokolovs why people fear the name De Luca."

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The Ivory Queen was a floating cathedral of sin. To the Coast Guard, it was a decommissioned freighter; to the elite of the underworld, it was the most exclusive auction house on the planet.

I didn't go in as Ezra De Luca. That would have been a death sentence for Davina before I even cleared the gangplank. Instead, I went in as 'Alexei Sokolov's' worst nightmare: a ghost. I wore a tailored charcoal suit, heavy-rimmed glasses, and used a temporary dye to darken my hair. I carried the arrogant, bored slouch of a billionaire hedonist.