AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter One
Mia
The call from my father comes late at night, waking me from a dead sleep.
“I need you to come to the house. Quickly.” That was all he said before hanging up on me and leaving me wondering just what the hell was going on.
Arriving at my childhood home—if a giant castle-sized estate could be called that—I was left with a strange feeling of foreboding.
My father’s meeting was being held in what I liked to call as a kid the ‘situation room’ with not only himself and my mother, but his inner circle consisting of his underboss, consigliere and caporegime.
“What’s going on?” I asked as soon as the door was closed behind me.
“We have a situation,” Ian, my father’s caporegime, said.
“Yeah, I gathered that.” Grabbing a seat at the table, I lowered myself slowly into it.
There wasn’t much that could rattle my family like this. Most of the other syndicates within the city respected the O’Neil family, as our reputation had been built over the decades of my father being at the helm.
So whatever was going on had to be bad. Really bad.
“I need you to step in for your sister’s wedding.” My father leaned over the table, his brows pulled together tightly.
What?
Instantly, my palms began to sweat. “What happened to Amanda? Where is she?”
“She’s…” He trailed off.
She’d been at her bachelorette party in Cancun for the past two days with an entire crew of soldiers there to make sure she was safe. What the hell could’ve happened in less than a weekend?
“Abraham,” my mother said. “Tell her. She needs to know.”
My gaze darted between them, fear striking deep inside my heart.
While I didn’t necessarily see eye to eye with my twin sister, who is a mere 43 minutes older than me, that didn’t mean I didn’t care about her safety. If something happened to her while she was away, on the one vacation I’d decided not to go on, then I was never going to forgive myself.
“She’s missing.” It was the most dreaded sentence my father could’ve uttered. “She managed to slip past our soldiers and sneak out last night at some point. She hasn’t been seen since.”
Oh god.
I leaned over the table to blink a few times, willing my tears not to fall.
“She’s been using her credit cards, so we know she’s safe. She’s just been one step in front of her guards. All of her friends have been cooperating in helping us track her down.”
“Why would she do this?” I lifted my head back up to ask. “This—”
My words died instantly on my tongue. I couldn’t exactly say this wasn’t like her, because based on her track record, it absolutely was. My sister was a flight risk and always had been.
No amount of responsibility given to her from our parents was ever going to be enough to stop her from doing stupid shit.
That was why I was so surprised when she agreed to this arranged marriage our parents had set up. I couldn’t for the life of me imagine her settling down and popping out a few kids. Not when her party days were clearly long from being behind her.
“Her friends admitted to encouraging her to meet up with a local college boy,” my mother went on, sighing. “They helped her give our soldiers the slip.”
Of course they did.
“So, what does that mean for the wedding?” I asked.
