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Aly’s face sears into my mind like a freight train. I will kill everyone who is associated with the person who took her. If they hurt one hair on her head, their family will pay for their defiance. When Aly bleeds, it will be because of me. I would much rather her die from my hands than someone else’s; that is how messed up my heart is.
“How do we know she’s not just hiding out?” one of my uncles questions.
It’s like her blood flows through mine.
It always has.
I can still feel it right now.
Ever since I met her, I felt this intense connection. I always had an internal response when something was wrong. It’s why I ended up seeing her so often. My body wouldn’t allow me to ignore its pestering compulsion to save her.
My chest constricts like someone is compressing it. She’s not hiding out.
“Get the surveillance video before someone else gets their hands on it.” Standing, I walk to my father, picking up his hand to kiss it.
I can no longer sit idle in this room. I need to do something to feel useful. I will not let my wife’s blood spill because I sat back and did nothing.
Aly
Sittinginadarkroom, my arms and legs are bound. The hard rope cuts into my soft skin. I’m parched. My lips are dry and pinch like they’re cracking. Time has slipped away from me. I haven’t seen anyone’s face. They must have already started to plot their demands. If they were going to kill me for no reason, I would already be dead.
For the first time since I was sixteen, Luca isn’t here to save me. Even if there was no threat and I was just nervous, he always showed up throughout the years. I never had a reason to be afraid, I learned. But now, the unfamiliar feeling of being terrified ripples through me. I sit here long enough to worry that I’ll never get a chance to make everything right.
Luca will go on living and thinking that I betrayed him. He will use the hatred of believing that I used him, to drive his ambition. It frightens me to think what that will do to him. Men like Luca need a woman’s love. It keeps the demons that prey on men who have nothing else to live for, away in the deep darkness of their souls. Turning them into monsters that even the devil doesn’t want to keep.
I try to stay awake, but every so often, sleep takes me under. I lose track if it’s day or night—if it has been one day or ten. Occasionally, I will wake with bread on my shoulder. The only way to eat it is by lifting my shoulder and hoping my mouth can latch onto it. The first time, it dropped to the floor, and I had to go without.
Chapter 31
Luca
Isearcheverywhereandinterrogate each man on duty. I search her computer, home, and yoga studio for any clues. Three threatening emails are found, but it all came from entitled street shits who think they’re gangsters, because the school has suspended them a couple of times. When that becomes pointless, I begin investigating her father once again.
Pierre Mancini is crying too loudly, using his hierarchy to pull more allies to him. He’s complaining that I’ve disrespected him by having his daughter disappear. Calling the truce we never had “broken.” He’s trying to place shame on our family, hoping our alliances won’t stay faithful to us. He’s smart to use this to his advantage if he knows his daughter is safe. But if he doesn’t have her, he leaves no room for anyone to keep her alive. They could easily frame our family for it. Her death will cause gunfire in the streets. Either way, he has the advantage right now.
Everyone, including Mancini, comes up clean. My teeth grit across each other painfully, the tension in my shoulders rolling down my body in waves. I haven’t slept in days. My eyes are sore but refuse to close with my mind continually working. I keep circling back to when the cops swarmed in and I lost my focus. The cameras mysteriously not working adds to all my problems. No one has reached out, asking for money. This is personal. Whoever took her wants something other than cash.
A week has passed with no news. I’m losing my mind, feeling her terror deep inside me. I’m so desperate that I’ve agreed to meet the one man I hate. Her father, the man I despise so much it hurts. I’m on edge, not trusting him, ready for a trap.
My father and his bodyguards are behind me, while I have a car of men in front of me, and Vinny and the driver in the middle with me.
“Did you read over the information on Jonny?” Vinny asks. Jonny was dirtier than I thought. He never stopped trying to advance himself, even if that meant ratting on the men higher than him. He had no honor. His ambition to rule would have been his downfall in the end, if he hadn’t decided to go after Aly.
I nod, making an effort not to allow my leg to tap up and down. “I did. It will come in handy.”
I’m back to watching out the window, searching for snipers who may want to take us out. The meeting is too easy. My father believes the reality of Mancini losing his daughter has him ready to cooperate. I don’t trust him to be that man. My father is placing his personal values onto him. But if neither of us took her, who would unite the two strongest families, instead of pitting us against each other?
Tensionishighasthe Mancini and Rossi dons and I meet. Everyone else is left to sit outside, since this is a family meeting. The smug smile is hard to keep off my face when not even Coy and his father can attend. Those feelings are momentarily fleeting until the door is closed.
“First, you steal my daughter, and then you lose her!” Mancini barks, baring his teeth. His hand slams down on the table, shaking it. His mouth is pinched, his hair wild like he hasn’t combed it in days. No one flinches at his outburst.
My eyes narrow on him, trying to read his body language, searching for a flaw. He plays it expertly well. My heart almost believes him. When comparing our features, we’re not that different.
“Would Coy take her as retaliation?” I ask, biding my time until I break his heart with the news of his son. Then we will see how good of an actor he is.
“Not without my permission.He’sloyal,” he says with disdain, as if implying that I’m not loyal.
“Was your son loyal?”
