Chapter 3
Lorenzo
My jet touches down in Chicago just as the sun crests the horizon, painting the tarmac in cold gold. I’d like to say I’m coming back with good news but I’m not. Every lead I chased dissolved into nothing. Dead ends stacked on dead ends, frustration gnawing at my spine.
The only thing keeping me upright is the thought of Elizabeth waiting for me at home.
I consider calling her. Hearing her voice. Letting her ground me. But no—I decide a surprise will be better. I want to see her face when I walk through the door. I want to feel that moment when the world makes sense again.
Cesaro is waiting in the parking garage when I arrive, hands clasped in front of him, expression carefully neutral.
“Updates?” I ask.
He hesitates.
It’s barely a second, but it’s enough. My pulse spikes, instinct screaming that something is wrong.
“What is it?” I demand.
“Fran moved in while you were gone.”
The words hit, and I still completely like the world has paused around me. But Cesaro isn’t finished. I can tell by the way his jaw tightens.
“Miss Miller was understandably upset, and—”
“And what?” My voice is low now.
“She left, Lorenzo.”
The garage seems to tilt. The air thickens, crushing my lungs. Left. My entire fucking world stills.
“What do you mean she left?”
The words scrape out of my throat, rough and disbelieving.
Cesaro meets my stare without flinching. That alone tells me how bad this is.
“She was hurt, Lorenzo. Said you’d made your choice and now she was making hers.”
“And you just let her walk out of my home?” I demand.
“I did.”
The calm in his voice nearly sends me over the edge. I’d give him credit for it if I didn’t want to rip his head off and mount it on the hood of my car.
“You let her leave,” I repeat, each word edged with steel. “You let a woman tied to me walk into the world alone.”
“She wasn’t a prisoner,” Cesaro says evenly. “And she made it very clear she didn’t want to be one.”
I turn away, dragging a hand through my hair, trying to breathe through the surge of rage clawing up my spine. Images flood my mind—Elizabeth curled in my bed, Elizabeth standing in the kitchen with fire in her eyes, Elizabeth telling me she couldn’t stay.
I should’ve listened. I should’ve stayed here with her instead of going to Kansas City. I should’ve never let things get this far.
“Where did she go?” I ask finally, my voice low and dangerous.
“She didn’t say. Packed light. Left quietly.”
Quietly. Of course she did. She was never one for drama—just truth. And I’d given her too much of it, too late.
“She won’t get far,” I mutter, more to myself than to him.
Cesaro’s jaw tightens. “You don’t know that.”
I turn back sharply. “I know me.”
I pull my phone from my pocket, already searching for her name like it might anchor me. Nothing. No missed calls. No messages. No trace.
A hollow opens in my chest.
“She thinks I chose Fran,” I say quietly.
Cesaro doesn’t correct me. That tells me everything.
The truth settles in slow and brutal. Elizabeth didn’t just leave my house. She walked away from me. And for the first time in a very long time, I don’t know where she is, who she’s with, or whether I’ll ever see her again.
All I know is that no one disappears from my world without consequences. And I will find her. No matter what it costs.
I come up with a plan as the lift carries me toward the penthouse. By the time the doors slide open, I’m ready to execute it.
Instead, the first thing that hits me is the scent.
Fran’s perfume coils through the space and turns my stomach sour. This doesn’t feel like home. It feels like an intrusion.
She’s in the kitchen saying something to Rosa, who’s standing stiffly by the counter, her mouth pressed into a thin line.
“What’s going on here?” I ask.
Rosa turns, relief flooding her face. “Mr. Conti. It’s so good to see you. Would you like something to drink? Perhaps some food?”
“No.” My attention never leaves Fran. “What did you say to Elizabeth?”
Rosa freezes. Then, without a word, she quietly backs out of the kitchen, leaving the two of us alone.
Fran exhales sharply, hand drifting to her stomach. “You might find this hard to believe, but I didn’t say anything to her. I came to take measurements of the closet, and she started yelling at me.”
My jaw tightens.
“I was worried,” she continues, eyes shining. “So I hid in the closet until she was gone.”
I inhale slowly through my nose.
Every instinct I have tells me she’s lying.
But I don’t press her. Not now. Not with her condition. No—I’ll get the truth another way.
Without another word, I turn and head for my study, shutting the door behind me. It takes a moment to log into the security system. When the feed comes up, my stomach sinks.
I see Fran in my bedroom just as she said.
Then someone else enters.
The camera angle catches only her back, her shoulder, the edge of her hair as she moves into the room. But I know it’s Elizabeth. I know it by the way her hands move like she’s trying to hold herself together.
Fran raises her palms, saying something I can’t hear.
She takes a step back, her posture defensive and a little calculated.
Elizabeth’s shoulders hitch. She turns away, pacing just out of frame, never once looking toward the camera.
Then abruptly she leaves. Another camera catches the back of her head as she enters her room.
The camera near the elevator shows her with a hoodie on, bag slung over her shoulder. And she doesn’t look back once.
I rewind it. Watch it again. And again. But I never see the moment where I might understand what finally broke her. Only the aftermath.
My chest tightens as the truth settles heavy and sharp in my gut. She didn’t just leave. She walked away without even letting me see her one last time. And for the first time since I became a Don, I don’t feel in control of anything at all.
My next step is simple in theory and infuriating in practice. To find out where she went when she left the penthouse.
The security feed outside shows her slipping into a waiting cab, head down, movements quick and determined.
I don’t see her face—only her posture, the way she holds herself like she’s bracing for impact.
The car pulls away before I can catch anything else, but I manage to freeze the frame long enough to get the plate number.
I start making calls, pulling on every thread I have. The cab company confirms the route, but the driver didn’t take her to an address. He dropped her at a bus terminal.
A fucking bus.
The information lands like an insult.
“She bought a one-way ticket,” my contact tells me. “Paid cash.”
I dig deeper, pushing harder, until the rest of it comes together and it only makes things worse. She boarded a bus headed for New York City. Which means she didn’t want to be found and that she knew exactly what she was doing.
I rake a hand through my hair, pacing the length of my office as frustration coils tighter in my chest. New York isn’t Chicago. It isn’t Kansas City. It’s a city layered with territory and history and men who don’t appreciate surprises.
I’ll have to make calls. Careful ones. The kind that come with favors owed and expectations attached.
By five, I’m back on my jet, the engines roaring to life beneath my feet as the city blurs outside the window. The skyline drops away, replaced by clouds and cold, empty sky.
Somewhere between here and New York, Elizabeth is disappearing one mile at a time. And I don’t know which thought unsettles me more. That she’s running from me. Or that I’m about to cross lines I can’t uncross to bring her back.
Days pass.
Then more.
New York gives me nothing but noise and shadows.
My contacts dig hard. Bus terminals, ticket stubs, security cameras that should’ve caught her face and somehow didn’t.
Grainy footage. Blurred angles. A scarf pulled low.
A woman who could be Elizabeth… or could be anyone.
Every lead fractures into another dead end.
I follow ghosts.
She vanishes somewhere between the Port Authority and a street that no longer has cameras. Cash transactions. No phone pings. No credit cards. No hotel check-ins under her name or any variation of it.
It’s like she stepped off the map.
By the third day, my patience is gone.
By the fourth, my temper is legend.
I sleep in snatches on the jet, in back rooms, in borrowed penthouses that don’t feel like mine. Every city smells wrong without her. Every bed feels too big. Empty.
Cesaro stops asking if I want updates and just gives them to me, his voice growing more cautious with each report.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
I expand the search. New Jersey. Boston. Philly. Las Vegas. Los Angeles. Seattle. Detroit. I send men west and south, pull favors I’ll regret later, lean on people who owe me and people who fear me.
Still nothing.
By the end of the week, even my enemies are quiet.
That’s when it hits me.
This isn’t panic. This isn’t a woman running blindly. This is someone who planned.
Someone helped her disappear.
The realization sits heavy and cold in my chest as I stare out over another unfamiliar skyline, the city lights blurring together like they all belong to the same nightmare.
Elizabeth vanished on purpose.
That truth settles into my bones with a cold certainty that won’t shake loose. No panic. No accident. No mistake. Someone planned this—and whoever made it possible knows exactly what they’re doing, because they’ve managed the one thing no one has ever accomplished before.
They took something from me. And they’re still breathing.
For now.
I’m standing on the tarmac, the hum of another jet warming behind me, Dallas blinking on the departure board like the next battlefield, when my phone rings.
“What is it?” I snap.
“It’s Fran, boss. She’s at the hospital.”
“What happened?”
“Her parents called. Said she was bleeding—thought she might be losing the baby.” A pause, heavy. “You should get here.”
The call ends, leaving nothing but the wind and the echo of his words.
Losing the baby.
I stare straight ahead, jaw locked, every instinct pulling me in two directions.
Do I keep hunting the woman who disappeared so completely she may as well have erased herself from the earth?
Or do I go back to the woman who is carrying my name, my future, my obligation—the woman who promised to be my wife?
Either choice costs me something.
I close my eyes for exactly one second, then flag down the flight attendant.
“We’re going to Chicago,” I say.
Duty wins.
But as the jet turns and the runway blurs beneath us, one truth burns hotter than the rest. Elizabeth may be gone.
But this isn’t over.