Mobster's Gamble: Chicago Mob Series Book 1 by Amy Rachiele, Christine Leporte Page B

players on the floor, and some of the ideas I have for improving the location of the monitors. But no matter what skitters through it always swings back to the vision of Anya beaten and naked in a soiled blanket.
     
    *****
     
    My stomach rumbles, waking me. With a groggy head, I face my alarm clock. It’s almost seven p.m. Starving from missing lunch and dinner, I get up. I stretch out my heavy limbs. Whatever the doc gave me makes me feel like shit.  I should feel better having slept. I don’t. I scrub my hand through my hair and head to the shower. Anya pops into my mind and thoughts of her here with me right now make me hard.
    I dress in one of my suits I wear on the main casino floor while patrolling, all black. In the kitchen, I swipe my cell off the table where I dropped it, checking for missed calls. Nothing. That is good and kind of out of the ordinary. There aren’t any texts or voicemails. I get a bottle of water from my fridge and drink it all down. My thoughts immediately center on Anya. Is she sleeping? Did she eat dinner already? Julius will know. I call him.
    “Yo,” he answers.
    “Julius, how is she doing?” He doesn’t answer right away. “The girl… Anya.”
    Silence. I hate fucking silence. Nothing good ever comes after it.
    “I thought you knew.” My breathing picks up and a thousand bad things shift across my mind.
    “Knew what?” Oh my God! Dead is the first thing that I think of.
    “She left.”
    “Left? Why the fuck would she leave?” A haze of rip-shit mad seizes me. “Let me rephrase… who the fuck let her leave?” My skin is burning from the inside out.
    “Uh. The doc did.”
    What? He said another beating could kill her! Why the hell would he let her walk out the front door? I stab the end button, hanging up on Julius.
    I got to my room phone and tap number nine. Gilly picks up.
    “Carlo, what’s up?”
    “Get me the address of that fucking cult, now!” I boom and the receiver of the phone reverberates my own voice back to me.
    “Okay,” he croaks.
    “Text it to me!” I snap, slamming the phone down.
    My cell is lighting up with a call from Julius. “What!”
    “She, uh…”
    “Spit it the fuck out.”
    “We tried to take her wherever she wanted to go...but she wanted to walk.”
    “Walk?” My brows furrow. “Hurting and beat up, she walked?” This girl is fucking crazy. Maybe that is a good thing, I can catch up to her. I bet she never made it down the street. She probably passed out or something. Shit! With my phone pasted to my ear, I race for the elevator to take me to the basement garage. “How long ago?”
    He pauses. “About a half an hour.”
    “This is so fucking messed up. This entire place let a woman who looks like she went ten rounds with Mike Tyson just leave!”
    “It wasn’t my call.” Julius gets defensive. “I tried to convince her to stay.”
    “You couldn’t even convince her to let you give her a ride! Pathetic!”
    “Fuck you, Carlo! You weren’t there. You didn’t talk to her. Should I have strapped her down?” Julius argues.
    My temper flares to a point of menace and I hang up on him.
    The garage is lit with hanging industrial lights. I rush to the box with all of the keys for the vehicles and snatch the ones to my dad’s Mercedes.
    My phone buzzes in my pocket. I ignore it and smack the gas pedal to the floor, the car screeching out of the underground out to the street. I reach for the phone and a text from Gilly has the address. Lexington. I know exactly where that is. The Bluetooth in the car rings over the loudspeaker. I press it on.
    “What are you doing?” It’s Alex.
    “I’m going to get her.” I clip it off and keep driving while scanning the streets for any sign of her. It isn’t too far away. It’s probably how she was able to make it to the casino alley.
    The Bluetooth blares again with an incoming call.
    “Carlo.” It’s Doc Howie trying to sound like the voice of reason. “Are you planning on