Archie
Metal screeched as I drove the truck straight through the gates, the impact shuddering up the frame of the vehicle, something snapping loose behind me as I tore into the Cavalho estate like a bullet with no intention of slowing down.
I didn’t stop to think.
There was no room for it.
Breathing became something distant, something my body forgot how to do the second I heard the words—Tone is missing. Air scraped into my lungs in shallow, useless pulls, never enough, never steady. Like my chest had locked around the truth of it and refused to let anything else in.
Since that moment, oxygen had become a luxury.
As unreachable as she was.
By the time the car skidded to a stop, I was already out, the door still swinging open behind me as I crossed the distance to the house in long, violent strides.
No one stopped me. No one would dare.
The front doors slammed open under my hands, the sound cracking through the house like a cannon.
Every head turned as I barged into Raze’s office.
Atlas. Marcello. Gianni. Raze. All of them gathered, all of them talking, maps and phones and weapons spread across the table like they were solving a problem on any other day.
But Antonella Cavalho wasn’t just another problem.
Without speaking, I crossed the room in three strides and hit Raze hard enough to snap his head sideways.
The crack of bone against bone echoed.
Silence followed.
He staggered a half-step, then straightened slowly, blood already spilling from his mouth as he turned back to me.
I didn’t stop.
I grabbed his shirt, dragged him forward, slammed him into the nearest wall hard enough to rattle the frame.
“This is on you!”
The words tore out of me, raw, feral, barely recognisable.
His eyes flashed. “You don’t get to—”
“I get to do whatever the fuck I want,” I roared, shaking him once for emphasis. “Because you sent me away.”
The room tightened. Every man in it went still.
“You threw me out,” I continued, voice rising, breaking, rage clawing its way up my throat like it wanted out of my skin. “You told me to stay away from her.”
Raze shoved at my hands, but I didn’t release him.
“And now she’s gone,” I snarled. “Gone—because you couldn’t fucking protect her.”
Something flickered across his face. Something that looked and felt a lot like guilt.
“Where is she?” I demanded, dragging him forward again like I could shake the answer out of him. “Where the fuck is she, Raze?”
“We’re working on it—”
“That’s not good enough!”
The words ripped through the room.
I slammed him back into the wall again, harder this time, my control splintering.
“If anything happens to her,” I said, low now—deadly, final, “I won’t wait for anyone else to handle it.”
His jaw tightened.
“I’ll kill you myself.”
The silence that followed was absolute.The fact that I had come this far, walked into the Cavalho stronghold, and literally had my hands wrapped around Raze’s neck, spoke volumes.
Raze just… took it. Contrition sat there, ugly and unfamiliar on his face.
“Who told you?” he asked.
The question came out sharp, redirected, his gaze snapping past me.
Gianni didn’t hesitate.
“I did.”
Raze’s eyes cut to him, fury reigniting. “You had no right—”
“I had every right,” Gianni shot back, stepping forward. “Because our sister is missing.”
“That doesn’t mean you bring him into this—”
“It means I bring in every resource we have,” Gianni snapped. “Every contact. Every man. Every fucking advantage to find her.”
Raze’s fists clenched.
Gianni didn’t back down.
“The more people we have on this, the faster we find her,” he continued, voice steady, unflinching. “And no one—no one—is as invested in finding Tone as he is.”
Silence stretched. Raze’s gaze flicked back to me, then slowly moved away.
He didn’t argue.
I released him, shoving him off me hard enough to make my point, and turned toward the table.
“Tell me what you know.”
Atlas stepped in then, calm where the rest of us weren’t. Controlled. Dangerous in a different way.
“She left a doctor’s office,” he said. “Front was covered. Back wasn’t.”
My jaw tightened.
“They moved her fast,” Marcello added. “No cameras caught anything useful. Van’s untraceable.”
“Machado,” I said.
Every head turned my way.
“It has to be,” I continued, pacing once, already pulling my phone out, already dialing numbers. “He’s the only one with the reach, the motive—”
“He’s not on any Italian manifests,” Raze cut in.
I stilled.
“What?”
“No flights. No entries. Nothing.”
My pulse spiked.
“Then where the fuck is he?” I barked.
The minutes stretched, tense and ugly. Every second that passed felt like Tone was slipping further out of reach, and my sanity was quickly thinning.
We strategized well into the afternoon, working every contact between us. It was only when one of my men stepped forward, his breath tight, phone in hand, that I looked up from my phone.
“We’ve got something.”
I moved before he could finish, snatching the phone from him, scanning the screen.
“Malta,” he said.
My eyes sharpened.
“What’s in Malta?”
“Malta,” he repeated. “Machado flew in on a private jet two days ago.”
A slow, vicious smile pulled at my mouth.
“Currently, no one knows where he is,” the man added. “He’s off the grid.”
“What business does he have in Malta?” I demanded.
“None,” he said. “No ties. No operations. He has no valid reason to be there.”
“That’s where we look,” I said into the room. “That’s where she is.”
The words came out certain, absolute. Because if I were him, that’s exactly what I’d do. I’d move her off the mainland, create distance and buy myself some time. Before I flew her out of Malta, where no-one would be looking.
“Find out when that jet leaves,” I ordered.
I turned to Atlas as my men moved.
“We need to get to Malta before that plane takes off.”
His gaze held mine. Sharp. Assessing.
“I guarantee you,” I continued, stepping closer, every word carved from certainty, “she’ll be on that plane.”
I was met with silence.
“If she leaves Malta,” I said, voice dropping, violent darkness threading through it, “we will never see her again… And I would set fire to every kingdom I own before I let another man even think he could take my place.”
That was enough to get Atlas moving.
“Prep the jet.”
The room exploded into motion.
Men moved as orders flew. Weapons were gathered. Phones lit up like a war zone.
I stood there for half a second longer, the chaos unfolding around me, my pulse a violent, relentless thing in my chest.
All I could think about was Tone. Every second she was out there—every second Machado had her—something inside me sharpened. Twisted. Turned lethal.
I dragged a hand down my face, tasting blood, rage—something darker settling in behind it.
This was what desperation did to a man.
It stripped him.
Peeled away restraint, reason, everything that made him hesitate… until all that was left was instinct and violence. The kind that didn’t ask permission and didn’t care about consequence.
Desperate men didn’t think. They didn’t weigh outcomes or calculate risk. They acted.
They tore through anything in their way, burned bridges, broke bones, crossed lines they’d once sworn they never would—because when something that mattered was taken, nothing else held value.
Not alliances. Not territory. Not even survival.
And I was well past desperate. I was something worse.
Because there wasn’t a corner of this world I wouldn’t rip apart to get her back.
And God help anyone standing in my way when I did.