AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Rafe
Iwoke to complete silence and was immediately on guard. The apartment hadn’t been completely still like this since before the fateful night I’d met Elena at the ballet and taken her home with me. The certainty of her absence filled my chest as I sat up in bed. This was my room. I hadn’t wanted her sleeping anywhere but my bed, and now I saw signs of her everywhere. Her clothes tossed across the back of a chair, her brush on the dressing table. I could see all the signs of her, but not her.
She wasn’t here. I already knew it.
I shot out of bed and grabbed my phone, quickly dialing my security team.
“Where is she?” I demanded from the first poor bastard to answer the phone.
“Where is who, sir? Miss Morova? You sent us away last night—" the man started, but I’d already hung up.
Curses fell from my lips as I headed straight for my home office and opened the laptop there. Yes, that was right. I’d sent them away because the thought that they might hear Elena sobbing my name, coming again and again, made me jealous. Jealous and stupid.
I clicked open the security feeds from the common areas and rewound. She came into view. I went back until the camera paused on the moment she’d stepped out of our room into the hall. She walked unerringly down the corridor toward the console table just inside the door. What could she have been looking for?
As soon as I thought about it, I knew. The phone. Hugh’s fucking phone. I watched with heavy resignation as she fumbled around with the drawer and easily opened it. Invisible catch, my ass. She looked at the phone and froze. The camera didn’t catch her face, but the hunching of her shoulders and stiffening of her spine spoke volumes. My angel knew what I’d been up to and was pissed.
I watched her dress; her face was still and emotionless, and then I watched her leave. She paused before she stepped out into the hall and looked back toward the bedroom where I was sleeping. I’d never slept as soundly as I had last night, and now I was paying the price for it. In the video feed, I watched Elena leave. Without a note or message of any kind. She left.
I pulled my phone out again and called her. The phone rang briefly and then disconnected. She was mad and didn’t want to talk to me. She would have to, in person, if not over the phone. I dialed my team.
“I need the location of Elena’s phone, now,” I bit out and paced impatiently while they tracked it. I had, of course, had Elena’s phone fitted with a tracking device, and now, my team read out her location. My face folded into a deep frown as I mapped out the area in my head.
“Isn’t that near the river? What would she be doing there?” At that moment, dread seized me.
That bend of the river, and the dock area nearby, was where Luciano family business was often conducted. It was where I’d taken Hugh to carry out my punishment.
“Get a team down there now. Get everyone down there,” I bit out and hung up, already going for my gun. I strapped myself up, arming to the teeth. I didn’t know what to expect. Another thought occurred as I let myself out of my penthouse and headed downstairs.
I called my father.“Do you have anyone at the warehouse right now?” I asked as soon as he answered. There was a long pause.
“Good morning to you too, Rafaelle,” Mauro said, his deep voice scratchy with sleep. He didn’t beat about the bush too much, however. “No one at present. It’s empty. Why?”
“Someone I visited last week has gone there and taken someone very important to me,” I told my father as I jogged out to the parking lot and unlocked my car.
“Someone very important? Don’t tell me after all this time you’ve decided to date… just when I considered finding you an advantageous match,” Mauro said.
“I’m not interested in an advantageous to the family business marriage, and I won’t have one,” I told him flatly. I hadn’t protested at the prospect before because, frankly, I hadn’t given two shits about it. I hadn’t even pictured myself marrying before meeting Elena, and now, it was all I could think about.
“Well, thank you for informing me at this late date. Who is she?” Mauro asked.
I paused, surprised by that question.“Her name is Elena,” I said softly. This conversation suddenly felt very important.
My father was quiet for a long moment. He knew me well, and he knew how I felt about the family. After everything I’d been through as a child and seen my mother go through, he knew how far he could push me. I wasn’t the heir, after all. That fell to Vincezo, the eldest Luciano. He was just the cold-hearted bastard to excel at it. I wasn’t even next in line after that. I was well and truly the spare, and pushing me about marriage wouldn’t work out well for him.
“Elena Luciano. It has a nice ring to it,” Mauro said finally.
I nodded, and satisfaction curled through me. Yes, it did indeed.
First, though, I had to save her life.
