Chapter 26
DOMINIC
Chiara calls me while I’m still on the street outside the safe house.
I almost don’t answer. Rafe is standing in front of me with blood on his shirt and three different phones going off between us.
My men are trying to pull camera footage from buildings with dead feeds. Tomasso is pacing near his car.
Chiara wouldn’t call now unless something was seriously wrong.
“What?” I snap.
“Sofia’s gone,” she says in a panicked voice.
The whole world narrows to those two words. I go still. Rafe notices immediately.
“What do you mean she’s gone?” I shout.
There’s a breath on the other end of the line.
“I thought she was upstairs,” she says quickly. “She wanted to be alone, and I thought it was okay to give her space. But when I went up to check on her, she was gone.”
For a second, I can’t process it. She can’t be gone. There’s no way out of that place without setting off at least a dozen alarms to alert me.
“Sound the alarm,” I tell her. “The building needs to go into lockdown.”
“I already did.”
“Where did you see her last?”
“I told you, I saw her go to her room. She took the elevator up, there’s no way she slipped past me then. It must have happened later.”
“You were supposed to keep an eye on her.”
“I know that!” she snaps, and her voice breaks just enough to stop me from saying something worse. “I’m sorry, Dom. I’m trying. I didn’t know she would run.”
Sofia did not wander out. She did not get lost in a building she has lived in for weeks. She ran. Or someone made her run.
Fear almost swallows me whole. Sofia is gone. She’s probably done something incredibly stupid, too. Whoever took Marco could have lured her out easily, and she was just angry enough to go.
Then the fury takes over. How could she do this? How could she be so reckless?
“Stay where you are,” I tell Chiara. “Do not leave the penthouse. Do not let anyone else leave the penthouse.”
“Dominic.”
“I’m coming.”
I hang up before she can say anything else.
Rafe is already watching me. “What happened?”
“Sofia’s gone.”
“How?”
“I’m about to find out.”
Tomasso stops pacing a few feet away. “What do you mean Sofia’s gone?”
I look at him. For half a second, suspicion moves through me so sharply I nearly act on it. He called her earlier. He put her on edge. He overstepped in a way I still haven’t dealt with. But suspicion is not proof. Not yet.
“I mean she’s gone,” I say.
He looks genuinely stunned. That means nothing.
“We need to go back to the penthouse,” I tell Rafe. “Now.”
No one speaks on the ride. Rafe works the phones beside me, issuing orders too low for Tomasso to catch from the front passenger seat.
Tomasso keeps turning around, asking if we’ve heard anything, if there’s been any movement, if Chiara has checked the roof or the other floors or any of the guest rooms.
He sounds concerned. I don’t trust it.
By the time we reach the penthouse, the building is locked down tight. There are guards in the lobby, guards by the elevators, guards near the service doors. Every man I pass has the good sense to look terrified of my rage.
Smart men.
The elevator ride up is silent. When the doors open, Chiara is waiting in the entryway, her face pale, her arms wrapped around herself.
She looks smaller than usual. Younger. Like the little girl who used to pretend she wasn’t scared during storms because she thought I needed her to be brave. The sight of it nearly cracks me open.
“I’m so sorry, Dom,” she says.
“This isn’t on you,” I tell her.
Her mouth trembles once before she presses it flat. “She was so upset.”
“I know.”
I move past her toward the security room, Rafe and Tomasso behind me. It sits on the lower level of the penthouse, behind a locked door past the service hallway. The monitors show every angle of the building. Lobby. Elevators. Private drive. Garage levels. Service entrances. Hallway feeds.
I stand over the security tech’s shoulder. “Pull her floor.”
His fingers shake on the keyboard.
Rafe moves closer to him. “Breathe, Luca. Pull the feed.”
The hallway outside Sofia’s room appears on the main monitor.
Empty. The timestamp rolls forward. One minute. Two. Ten. Then the door opens. Sofia slips out wearing leggings and a sweatshirt, purse in one hand, hair pulled back messily. She looks both ways before closing the door softly behind her.
There is nothing frantic in the way she moves. She is scared, but she is not panicking. She has already decided.
“She’s going to the stairs,” Rafe says.
“No,” Chiara says from behind us.
I turn.
She is staring at the screen, horrified. “She’s going to the service elevator.”
I look back at the monitor.
Sofia moves down the hallway, takes the side stairs to the second floor, then slips behind the pantry.
“How does she know about the service elevator?” I ask.
Chiara closes her eyes.
I don’t need the answer after that.
My jaw tightens, but I say nothing. I cannot waste anger on the wrong person.
“Service level,” I tell Luca.
The feed changes. My hand closes around the back of his chair.
“Why is there no feed?”
Luca types fast enough that the keys sound like rain.
“Camera three went down.”
“When?”
He pulls the log. Rafe leans in. The timestamp appears. Three minutes before Sofia reaches the elevator. The room goes very quiet.
“Someone killed the camera,” Rafe says.
“Yes.”
“She found the exit herself,” Chiara says softly. “But someone made sure she could use it.”
I look at the blank feed. The timing is so precise. Someone was watching her the whole time, guiding her.
“Pull service door exterior,” I say.
That feed works just fine, like whoever messed with the feed wanted to make sure we could see this.
Sofia steps into the alley behind the building.
She hesitates beneath the security light, looking back once toward the door.
For one second, I think she might come back.
Then a car appears at the end of the alley.
Sofia’s phone lights up in her hand. She looks at it, then at the car. The back door opens.
Rafe curses under his breath.
Sofia walks toward it. The car pulls away.
“Find the car,” I say.
Luca starts typing.
“No,” I correct, voice low. “Find the person who killed that camera.”
Rafe’s phone buzzes. He looks at it, then at me. His expression changes.
“What?” I ask.
He hesitates.
That is unlike him.
“What?” I repeat.
He looks at Chiara first. “You should go upstairs.”
“No,” she says immediately.
“Chiara.”
“If this is about Sofia, I’m staying.”
I do not have time to argue with my sister. “Say it.”
Rafe turns his phone toward me. It’s displaying a system log. Service security access for one Tomasso Vieri.
My body goes still.
Behind me, Tomasso says nothing. That is almost enough to give him away.
I want to turn around. I want to put my hand around his throat and drive his head through the nearest monitor.
I want him bleeding on the floor before he has time to explain himself.
Then I see Sofia stepping into that car again.
I see the door opening. I see her getting inside because grief made her reckless.
Killing Tomasso won’t bring her back. Keeping him alive and pretending nothing’s wrong might.
I take Rafe’s phone from his hand and keep my face still.
“Security dispatch,” I say.
Rafe’s eyes flick to mine.
He understands in half a second.
“Looks that way,” he says.
“Then we start there,” I say. “Every man on that shift gets pulled. Phones, cars, bank accounts, everything.”
Luca swallows hard. “Yes, sir.”
“Now.”
He turns back to the keyboard with shaking hands.
Chiara looks between Rafe and me. She knows me too well. She knows when I’m angry, but more than that, she knows when I’m hiding it. Her eyes narrow slightly, but she says nothing.
Tomasso steps closer. “Security dispatch had access?”
I turn toward him slowly. He looks concerned.
“It appears so,” I tell him.
“That explains the safe house too.”
I stare at him until he looks away first.
“Find the car,” I tell Rafe. “Every street camera within eight blocks. Private feeds. Traffic feeds. ATMs. Doorbells. If it has a lens, I want it.”
Rafe nods and moves toward the table, phone already in hand. I follow him out of the security room. Tomasso moves with us.
“Stay here,” I tell him.
He stops. “Why?”
I step closer. Not enough to touch him. Enough to remind him who I am.
“The mother of my child just got into a stranger’s car after her father was kidnapped. If I tell you to stand in a corner and count the fucking lights, you will ask me what number to stop at. Do we understand each other?”
For the first time all night, his mask slips. There is resentment underneath. Old. Bitter. Familiar. Then it’s gone.
“Understood,” he says.
“Good.”
I leave him there with Chiara, Luca, and two guards I trust. Rafe follows me into the hall. The second the door closes behind us, his expression changes.
His mouth tightens. “Dom.”
“Do not tell me what I should have done.”
“I was going to say that was the right move.”
I keep walking. Rafe falls into step beside me. We reach the dining room table, where maps and phones have already taken over the polished wood. I stop at the head of it and force myself to think.
I have built a life around control. Every route planned. Every debt tracked. Every enemy watched. Every person I care about kept behind walls thick enough to survive the worst this city can send at us. Tonight, the walls cracked open from the inside.
“I’ve just gotten confirmation that the car drove to Brooklyn.”
“That barely helps,” I mutter.
I look toward the security room door.
“We need him to lead us to her,” I say quietly. “I’m going to tell him to go home. He’ll rush to Calderone’s side.”
“You don’t think he’ll run?” Rafe asks seriously.
“He has nowhere to go but to Calderone,” I say. “It’s the only shot we’ve got.”
He nods once. “I’ll put a tracker on his car.”
I walk back into the security room.
Tomasso turns from the monitors. “Anything?”
“Yes,” I say. “The car went toward Brooklyn.”
His face gives me almost nothing. “Brooklyn is a big place.”
“That’s what I said,” I answer, staring at him coldly.
Rafe comes in behind me and drops a map on the table.
“Withers Street,” he says. “Calderone used to run a club there. I bet that’s where he took her.”
Tomasso steps closer. His face gives away nothing. “What do you want me to do?”
I watch him carefully.
“I think we’ve got it covered. Why don’t you head out? I’ll call you if there are any developments.”
“I’m not leaving you now,” he protests.
“You’ve been a great help,” I tell him. The words feel like poison coming out of my mouth. “We’ll take it from here.”
Rafe catches my eye across the room, then glances once toward Tomasso. A message comes through on my phone a second later.
Tracker is live.
I delete the message and slide the phone back into my pocket. Tomasso notices.
“News?” he asks.
“Nothing useful,” I tell him. “We’re going to the club.”
He nods. “Call me if you need me, I guess,” he says, before leaving.
Five minutes later, Rafe and I watch on his phone as Tomasso’s car starts moving.
“Let’s go,” I tell Rafe. “If Bradley drives fast enough, we should get there just a couple minutes after Tomasso.”
He smiles wryly, and we head for the elevator. Maybe it’s a stupid plan, but it’s all I’ve got. Tomasso is just prideful enough to think he’s gotten away with something. When the time is right, I’ll deal with him.
For now, I can only focus on getting Sofia back.