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I know of only one duty, and that is to love.
ALBERT CAMUS
BASTIANO ROMANO
Days Missing: 14
“Asher.” I answered his call on the first ring, already running to my car from the run-down alleyway of the lead I was chasing. “Did you find him?”
“I need you at my place. We have something.”
The line went dead as I slid into the car and broke every vehicle law in the state to get to Asher’s place in under ten minutes.
That sinking feeling I’d felt before I'd found out Vince had gone missing had never left. Ariana De Luca had just distracted me from it, playing house with me like we were in a 90s sitcom or something.
When I left the elevator into Asher’s penthouse, dread was the only thing that pulsed through my body. We’d torn the city apart for fourteen days, each search fruitless, each day ending with dread and a drained soul.
It couldn’t be as easy as a sudden lead on day fourteen.
Lucy met my eyes when I entered. Nothing but apprehension and resignation in them. I cut my eyes to Asher.
Asher lived in a ten-bedroom “apartment” close to Lucy’s school Wilton, but in this moment, it felt like a tiny studio apartment with no air to breathe nor room to move.
The suitcases Asher and Lucy were supposed to take to their honeymoon remained abandoned in the foyer.
I stepped around them as I made my way to Asher and Lucy and sat on a bar stool.
“The line went dead.” Asher raked a hand through his haggard hair. “I was on the phone with Niccolaio. Sounded like he had something, and he wanted to meet."
Behind me, the door opened, and Niccolaio walked in with his red-headed girlfriend Minka, who reminded me a little too much of Elsa. Physically at least.
Asher sprung up at the sight of them and shot out questions without a greeting. “What is it? Why did you call this meeting? Did you find him?”
Niccolaio ran a hand through his hair, the movement so natural I suspected he’d been doing it a lot lately. “No, but we need to talk. Dex tracked down that lead we’ve been following.”
Dex was Niccolaio’s neighbor and a tech guru. The lead he referred to was a burner Vince had been calling twice daily for the past few months.
He’d had another burner, too, but that one had been thoroughly destroyed, so we’d focused on the one intact.
Niccolaio squeezed Minka’s hand before stepping away from her. “And… God, Vince didn’t want me to tell you guys this, but given the situation, I think I should.”
I held back my anger.
Fourteen days.
Vince had been missing for fourteen days, and Niccolaio held something back from us?
Asher grit his teeth. “Spit it the fuck out already.”
“Vincent has cancer. Late stage. The number belongs to his oncologist. God, Asher, he might even be dead already. I don’t know how bad it is, but don’t you see how he’s been looking lately?”
I bit back a curse.
I’d first noticed it when we were planning Asher’s wedding security the day I’d first trained Ariana, but I’d been distracted by a phone call from Everett.
I’d been so wrapped up in my own world, I hadn’t considered it again. But I’d seen it, and I’d ignored it. It was worse than not seeing it at all.
Sorrow. Rage. Guilt.
