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I was stupid to think I could protect her.
A real fucking piece of shit for assuming I’d do anything but fail her just like I failed Julissa and Sofia.
“I will fucking gut every motherfucker who stands in my way,” I grit out as I reach my father and slam my fist into the wall of the entryway.
I yank my hand free from the hole in the drywall, feeling nothing but fear.
“The cartel or the Amatos?” my father questions, and I shake my head, hooking my fingers behind my head and trying to get oxygen down into my constricting lungs.
Leo and Antonio burst through the door, wild expressions on their faces as they approach me. Antonio reaches me and places his hand on my shoulder, and I desperately want to shrug him off, but somehow a bit of clarity reaches through to my brain, and I don’t push my son away.
“I came as soon as I heard, Papà,” Antonio says. “We’re going to find her.”
He gives me a lukewarm smile just as Leo steps forward, cracking his knuckles as he focuses his intense gaze on me. “What are you thinking, Dante? Who’s behind this? We’ve got two options. Our enemies aren’t what they used to be, and the timing is perfect for either her father or those syndicate fucks.”
“Fuck!” I let out a guttural scream that shoots daggers in my throat.
It’s the first time I’ve felt anything but pure panic since I spoke with Kenneth. I squat down and place my hands in prayer position, resting my head on my fingertips. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I can’t think straight. Suddenly, I’m spinning into those first few moments after we found out Julissa and Sofia were targeted and kidnapped.
Beads of sweat roll down my temples and fall to my cheeks as I clench my jaw until the point of pain, until I feel anything other than what I felt then.
What I’m feeling now.
“Listen,” my father says, bending to my level as he takes my face in his hands and forces me to look him in the eyes. “You don’t get to fall apart. You’re Dante fucking DeSantis. My son. Strongestfuckin’man I know. You have killed men with your bare hands. You’ve tracked down top men in the Amato organization and forced them to give us answers about the girls.”
He refers to Julissa and Sofia, and I beat my already bruised and swollen hand against the cabinet to my left.
“You do not get to be weak now. Not when she needs you most. We need you to be levelheaded, as levelheaded as a man like you can be, and you need to help us figure out our next move.”
He shakes my shoulders as my hands start to tremble, my anger pulsating throughout my entire body.
“The more time we sit here trying to calm you down, the less we’ve spent finding her.”
And suddenly, it all makes sense.
My father’s words repeat over and over again in my mind as my mother walks into the room.
“Mom, where the fuck is your security?” I ask her as my father walks over to her. “You need to get to the house and set the secondary alarm system,” I tell her.
The blue necklace she’s wearing glints in the afternoon sun as it streams through the windows. For a moment, it reminds me so much of Giana’s necklace. I falter, my mind playing tricks on me.
But it’s in this very same moment that the pieces fall into place, and I feel a twinge of hope in my aching chest.
The fucking necklace.
I yank my phone from my back pocket and immediately scroll to the app for the tracking and recording software, shushing Antonio as he tries to ask what I’m doing.
Holy fuck.
The flashing signal on the screen shows me the exact route she’s taken from the moment she woke up today. I scroll on the map until I find when she left the house and traveled only three and a half miles before stopping for two minutes and continuing on.
I look up and tell my family, “The tracker,” before my eyes immediately zero back in on the app. “I put a tracker in Giana’s necklace when I was going to use her as payback. I needed to know where she’d be and what she’d be doing… The fucking why doesn’t matter anymore. It’ll show us her location, and it records audio, so we can listen to it in real time, too.”
“Damn!” Antonio cheers, pumping his fist in the air. “Papà sei un fottuto genio!”
I don’t know about being agenius, but I’ll accept the compliment.
Leo comes to my side and watches over my shoulder as I continue to scroll the app.
