Page 110 of A New Days Don

“We need to find her. We need to warn her.” I tell him.

“Get in your car. Let’s go drive around and see what we can find.” Massimo tells me, slipping into the driver’s seat of the Jaguar.

“Mas! This isn’t my car–” I can’t finish the sentence before he’s winking at me and shutting the door. I begrudgingly walk around to the other side in time for Massimo to open the door and allow me to slide into the passenger side.

He shoots off a few texts before sliding his phone into one of the cup holders in the center console and picking up my hand in his large one.

Chapter 44

Mila

The tunnels are a whole lot creepier when nobody is lingering in them. Off in the distance, water drops and echoes through the concrete tube.

I shiver, wrapping my arms around myself as I continue to look through Jazzy’s meagre belongings. For someone living in the tunnels without a job that I know of, she has clean, well-kept clothes and plenty of food.

“She didn’t leave the city,” Massimo notes, as he shuffles through some notes.

“Why do you say that?” I ask as I carefully fold a new sweater with the tags still on it.

“All of her stuff is still here. Wouldn’t she have at least packed her backpack?” He nods to a worn brown bag sitting along the wall of the space Jazzy had declared was hers.

The knot in my stomach hasn’t dissipated since Daisy told me Jazzy wasn’t here. Confirming that she didn’t plan to leave the city makes my heart sink—not that I thought she did, given that I know she wouldn’t have left Daisy to take care of herself in the early stages of withdrawal.

We’re too late.

The intrusive voice cuts through my worry.

No.

She’s fine.

She doesn’t have to live here.

She could be…

“We need to canvas the shelters,” I stand, turning on my heel, but Massimo catches me before I can step out to the tunnels.

When I meet his dark eyes, there is something there that I refuse to acknowledge.

“No.” My voice comes out raw and grumbled.

“We need to at least exhaust it as an option,” Massimo murmurs gently.

“She can’t,” my voice cracks.

Not after she saved my life.

Not after she got sober and was helping others do the same.

As tears burn and blur my vision, Massimo pulls me close to him, “Don’t give up hope yet, Mila. She could be anywhere, but with him on the loose, it’s an option we would be foolish not to explore.”

I know he’s right. It is a fact I have to face. One that feels like losing something important. Someone who understood what I went through without having to say anything. She was willing to help me, even though she didn’t know me.

Massimo pulls me out of these tunnels as he lifts me back to the surface, to air far more breathable than the dank sewers, yet I still feel like I’m suffocating on the idea of Jazzy being killed.

“We told her to keep an eye out,” I tell him as he tucks me into the Jaguar.

“Let’s hope that warning was enough,” Massimo nods as he shuts the door.