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"Ahh, ahh, easy, easy," he cooed like I was some little child in front of a candy jar.
"Thirty million dollars transferred to an offshore account I'll be sending the details about. You'll have your daughter in the next forty-five minutes after the transfer is made. You have five days to convince your husband, pretty." With that, the call ended.
I didn't know what to do, whether to sympathize with him or pressure him right away.
"Someone we know is behind this," Alessandro says.
"It's the Colombo family," I say instead, and it ruins his reminisce, but he pauses to listen to it.
"In 1995, a certain woman, Denise Reynolds was held hostage by the very same family. The voice twister is a complete necessity in the family, for some reason I know nothing about."
He looks at me , stunned and impressed at the same time; both looks, I can understand because he didn't expect me to be so informed about an industry the general public knew so little about. "How did you know that?" he asked.
"You'd expect me to sit idle and wait for danger to come head on at me without resistance?" I answered his question with my own.
"Gather your men, Alessandro; we have an impostor to catch."
He nods vigorously and leaves the room. Thirty minutes later, we are in the kitchen interrogating Gretchen and her crew about how Artemis left their possession.
"Listen, I swear it to you, Sienna. Artemis was with me in the morning before she went off to see her grandma." Gretchen sounded convincing. Besides, I hardly paid much thought to the kitchen and began scouting mentally for the next place and set of people to ask.
We had interrogated everyone inside the house. They were the last set.
"I would suggest you ask everyone in the house between the hallways and towards the courtyard. You know, the normal route to the gardens and stuff."
"Huh," Alessandro huffed. "How could that girl have gone into the hands of someone malicious? Where could she have moved?" he slammed his fists on the table.
"Beats me, boss. We were here the entire morning, and we never moved an inch away from here. Someone could have been monitoring her, waiting for her to come out...people are sick."
That moment, Alessandro gave me a subtle glare, but I paid no more attention to it than all his other looks.
"You say you were here with Artemis till she decided she wanted to leave?" he asked her again. Repetitive bastard. This was unproductive. We needed to look for intel.
"Yes, Sir." Even Gretchen's answer was slightly irritating.
"You're very sure? Like one hundred percent? You guys didn't come outside at all...not even for a breath of fresh air or to play a little... nothing?" he pushed again. It was then I remembered. Shit.
I tried as much as possible to conceal my realization, thankfully she wasn't even looking in my direction. She would've noticed my change in expression.
"Not a step out of the door, Sir," she repeated with conviction.
The next moments came with full tension. Alessandro, in the speed of a blink, crossed the room and pinned Gretchen down into a cupboard by the throat.
"Traditrice," he seethed. I later learned from Paul that the word was Italian for 'Traitor'. Damn right she was.
Chapter 26
"Mommy?"
"Yes, baby?"
"Why do bunnies have really large ears?"
"I don't know, honey. Nature created them that way."
"Who's nature?"
"When you take another bite out of your sandwich, I'll tell you who nature is."
