Page 48 of Revenge on the Mafia

I’d failed him again.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

NICO

The end goal hadn’t changed. I still wanted her to kill me. She should do it. After I’d had my way with her.

Telling myself I couldn’t have her had only turned my infatuation into a deadly obsession. Now I was an animal who’d caught the scent of its prey. Nothing could keep me away from sinking my claws into her and tasting her again.

I’d set a deadline. The longer the better. Of course she’d be the one to make me lose control and come in my boxer briefs. Worse. I wanted to do it again. Preferably the next time with my dick buried inside her.

Six hours and twenty-four minutes later, I still couldn’t shake the idea off me. The screen displayed dashboards of money flow and risk levels. The risk analysis of consuming the woman I’d wanted for eleven fucking years seized my vision. She was nothing like the meaningless fucks I’d indulged in for more than a decade. The woman was my ultimate distraction. High probability of emotional compromise plus catastrophic consequences. That equaled an unacceptable risk. I was going to take it, anyway. What was the point of living a long life if I couldn’t have her? I didn’t need a tomorrow if I could have her for my today.

I’d done the decent thing the night before. Let her stab me in the neck. Draw a bit of blood. What was another bandage when I had her? I may have been distracted, but I’d refrained from watching her on screen afterward. But six hours and thirty-eight minutes later, I lost the battle with myself and switched on the screens.

The only movement came from the kitchen, where Magda and the other girl were busy cooking. Something was off. I shifted from room to room. Living room. Nothing. Dining. Nothing. Storeroom. Nothing. Her bedroom. Niente. Guest bedrooms, hallway, my bedroom. Niente. She must have been in one of the bathrooms. I watched the screen for movement. Sixty seconds. One minute. Another minute. Three.

Niente.

Niente.

Niente.

Where the fuck was she?

My body moved. Four thousand one hundred and eighty-one, six thousand seven hundred and sixty-five, ten thousand nine hundred and forty-six… three hundred seventeen thousand, eight hundred eleven.

“Where the fuck is she?”

Porcelain shattered onto the tiled floor, and the girl gaped at it as the red sauce smothered the floor.

“Well?” I glared at Magda. She stared back. Wasted time observing me crowding the doorway. When she finally opened her mouth, she didn’t do it justice by giving me an answer.

“Who?”

Fuck’s sake. “Let’s not play this game. You know who the fuck I mean.” My hands fisted into balls inside my pockets.

“We don’t know.”

I took a threatening step inside. “Explain.”

She spoke as if she dusted each word inside her mouth before it spilled from her lips. “I don’t know. She was here last night. This morning, she wasn’t.”

Fuck.

“Her belongings are gone, too,” the girl spoke up, a slight accusation in her tone that I ignored.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. My heart raced at double the speed. Of course she would run. On the one night that I was distracted enough to forget to set the alarm. I was the one to track patterns before anyone else. How the hell had I missed this? I hated that my fingers shook when I called my brother. It took him three agonizingly long rings before he picked up.

“Check the flights that took off for Spain.”

“What did you do?”

I wanted to smack Stefano’s teeth out of his jaw. I answered him through gritted teeth. “Check for Malaga, Barcelona, and Madrid.” Then I stormed into the living room. “Never mind. Check all the fucking airports.”

“Sì, Maestro.”

“Shut up and do it before I empty your funds from your bank accounts.”