Page 91 of Daddies of the Underworld

Nina turned toward him with the stuffed rabbit under her chin.

Fuck me. This was my fault. I’d taken Nina downstairs. I had trusted the walls and guards to keep my treasures safe. I’d failed them. While we were watching the gates, one of our very own had taken our little girl. My fist hit the wall with enough force my knuckles drove straight through the drywall and into the insulation beyond. I wished I’d turned and hit the stone wall instead. I deserved so much more than a broken hand.

33

NINA

I tore Sofia’s room apart with my bare hands.

I checked under the bed even though I could see the empty space from where I stood. I yanked open the wardrobe doors, shoved clothes aside, dropped to my knees, and looked behind the little reading chair she had dragged in there to create her very own reading nook. Books hit the carpet. A box of hair bows tipped over, scattering purple ribbon and glitter clips across the floor.

Her rabbit lay near the bed where I’d dropped him, one ear bent beneath his head.

I snatched him up and pressed him to my chest so hard the plastic eye dug through my shirt.

I’d left her. My baby had gone to sleep scared, and I had walked downstairs afterward like it was any other day.

“Nina.” Luca stood next to the hole he’d punched in the wall. His knuckles were a wreck, almost more so than the way his face twisted when he looked at the empty bed.

I couldn’t look at him long enough to care. “She’s here.” I checked the curtains, then the space between the dresser and wall. “She has to be here.”

Dante crouched beside the bed and lifted the blanket I had already thrown off. His gun stayed in his other hand. “We’ll find her. She can’t have gone far.”

We were not really working under the assumption that Sofia was hiding in her room. Maybe we thought it would help, but I tore into every corner, searching for some shred of evidence that would tell us where she’d gone.

Matteo stood just inside the room. He hadn’t spoken since he reached the doorway except to give the guards in the hallway a series of gruff orders. One hand gripped the doorframe, his knuckles white against dark wood. The rest of him had gone so still I wanted to scream at him just to make him move. His chest filled with air, forcing the material of his shirt to strain to contain him.

“She’s not here.” My voice cracked in half. “She’s not here.”

“Who accessed this corridor?” Dante had moved out of the room at some point and stood nose to nose with one of the guards. “A child vanished from a guarded room, and I want to know who the fuck is responsible.”

“Dante.” Luca moved between them when Dante grabbed the man by the collar. “We need him conscious, and he won’t be able to answer if you break his face.”

“Rosa.” I tried to trap her name behind my teeth, but it slipped out in a whisper. “She said she was bringing you something to drink.”

Matteo ground his jaw. “She did not.”

“I went downstairs.” My chest caved in, guilt crushing me. “You told me to stay with her. I left her sleeping because I thought the guards were enough.” A sob wrenched out with enough force to burn my throat. I crushed the rabbit to my chest. “I’m her mother. I was supposed to stay with her.”

“I told you to take a break.” Luca’s throat dipped in a hard swallow, his eyes red and shiny. “It’s my fault.”

“Enough.” The single word ripped through the air, the vehemence of it directed at us from Matteo snapping my jaw shut. He paced the room with an animalistic flair, his strides powerful but stilted amid the stuffed animals littering the floor. “We are not playing his game. It is no one’s fault but my own. This is my house. Anything that happens under the roof is my fault and mine alone. You will not play into Viktor’s hands by blaming one another.” He slapped a hand to his chest. “You blame me. You blame Rosa. You blame Viktor. If I hear one more person take on this blame…”

I wrapped my arms around his waist, and he stilled so completely it was like hugging a rock.

A shudder caused his entire body to tremble. “Every decision that put her in this room came from me.”

Dante laughed, the sound rough and ugly. “I approved the team. I cleared Rosa.”

I squeezed Matteo tight, burying my head in his chest. He cupped the back of my head, his body still trembling.

Luca picked up the notebook that held his and Sofia’s dragon bakery story. “I’ll go pull staff records and payments. If Rosa sold us out, there will be a money trail somewhere.”

The guard Dante confronted cleared his throat. “Sir, the video feed that was looped to cover the hallway has been corrected. Carlo says you might be able to pull the underlying feed.”

That was all Dante needed to move.

“Whoever is pulling Rosa’s leash knew exactly where and how to strike. We might be chasing a traitor. Then again, she might be a hostage as well.”