Page 57 of Daddies of the Underworld

“Russo. Rosso. What does it matter?”

My hand closed around the front of his shirt, and his feet skidded when I stood, pulling him up with me. He scrambled for purchase, but I held him off the ground with one hand. “It matters.” The guttural growl that had taken up permanent residence in my throat caused him to pale.

“Right. Russo. You’re right.” He nodded quickly, blood dripping onto his collar. “She used a different name, but I had to see her original paperwork to get everything. I’m sorry. I swear that was the name.” His jaw shook hard enough to make his teeth click. “Dark hair. Italian. Maybe thirty years old. She paid cash.”

“Show me.” I dropped him to the floor, and he crumpled into a heap. I didn’t dare trust that I’d finally found a lead without proof. Luca would demand it. And I’d done enough interrogations to know that at a certain point, people would confess anything to get the pain to stop.

Mine never stopped. I lived with it every fucking second of every fucking day. It never lessened. Every heartbeat was for Nina.

The man scrambled for a tablet sitting on top of the crates and swiped. “Here. This is her.” He spun the tablet around.

Damn it. A fresh, ugly pressure built behind my ribs and spread until I couldn’t breathe.

The man’s face fell. “Not her?”

“No.” Wrong hair. Wrong face. Wrong fucking everything. Five years of tracking every scrap of information. I’d gone after informants, traffickers, doctors, passport thieves. Hell, I’d interviewed every single person I could think to over the years. Every trail ended like this.

Nina had not wanted to be found. I took the tablet from him. “I’ll take this.” He might have the wrong Nina on the screen, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t seen her at some point, under some other name.

“But–”

He stopped at my glare, his bloodied face paling. Three steps toward the door, and I motioned at my driver waiting under the broken awning before sliding into the back seat.

Rain streaked the window as we pulled away, blurring Naples into muted lights and wet pavement.

I caught my reflection in the glass and almost didn’t recognize the older, leaner, and much meaner version of myself that stared back. There was more gray in my beard than I liked.

A new scar cut through my left eyebrow from a trafficker who took it personally when I released his most recent victims. He was taking a permanent nap at the bottom of a very deep cavern.

My trip to Bucharest had ended in three dead men and no Nina. My right shoulder burned from a stabbing I’d taken in Athens.

My phone buzzed, and I swiped to answer Matteo’s call. “It wasn’t her.” I tossed the tablet onto the seat beside me.

Silence filled the line.

Matteo never sighed, it gave too much away, but his stillness had become so much worse.

Almost as though if he moved beyond what was absolutely necessary for survival, he might shatter. “You’re coming back.”

It was an order, but we all knew how well I obeyed those nowadays. “I have two more names in Naples.”

“Her birthday is tomorrow. Come home. Now.”

I hadn’t forgotten, but I also hadn’t let myself think about it.

“Come home, Dante.”

Home.

He meant Villa Belladonna, which had not been home since Nina walked out, taking every soft part of me with her. But I had to go back for her birthday. “I’ll be there by morning.”

“No. Now. I’ve already communicated the order to your driver. Do not take your anger out on him for sidelining your quest.” The call ended, and it took way more effort than it should to keep the phone in my hand instead of hurling it at the seat.

I slept the rest of the drive, only waking when the engine shut off and the back door opened.

Villa Belladonna stretched into the distance, the buildings backlit by a midnight sky.

A storm had covered her escape that night, and all three of us had cursed our lack of attention when her room was too silent.