Chapter 33
thirty-three
DIMITRI
I paced the length of my office like a caged animal, phone pressed to my ear as my father droned on about how we should handle the Moretti situation. My jaw clenched with each turn, that familiar weight of responsibility settling heavier across my shoulders. Something itched beneath my skin—restlessness, unease, the desire to be elsewhere. With Kit.
Her sadness had been leaking through our bond for the past fifteen minutes, ever since I’d excused myself to take this call. I could feel it—a soft, resigned ache that made my chest tight. Every instinct screamed at me to hang up and go to her, but duty anchored me in place. Always fucking duty.
“Their shipment is due next week,” my father continued, voice crisp and demanding my full attention. “I want our men in position by Tuesday. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” I checked my watch. Twenty minutes already. Kit had been understanding when I’d left her in the kitchen, all smiles as she prepared her cheesecake, but I’d felt her disappointment, nonetheless. She never complained, never made demands, but I could feel her needs as clearly as my own.
“Dimitri, are you listening to me?” My father’s sharp tone snapped my focus back.
“Always,” I replied automatically, running a hand over my short beard. “I’ll coordinate with Giovanni on the logistics.”
“Good. This is a delicate situation. The Morettis are—”
I stopped listening.
Something yanked hard inside me—the bond, that golden thread connecting me to Kit, suddenly went taut. Wrong . Her presence, usually soft and warm, twisted sideways. I stiffened, breath catching in my throat.
And then it hit me—fear. Not panic. Not nerves. Pure fucking terror sliced through me like a dagger to the heart, stealing the air from my lungs and setting every nerve ending on fire.
I lowered the phone, already moving, already ripping the goddamn door off its hinges and charging down the hallway. My heart thundered in my ears. The bond pulled me forward, screaming danger into every cell of my body.
Kitchen. She’d been in the kitchen.
I burst from the hallway and ran into the kitchen, rounding the island. But she wasn’t here. The oven was still on, the timer blinking away the minutes for her cheesecake. The air smelled of vanilla and sugar. But no Kit.
Her purse was gone. So was Beretta’s leash from its hook by the door. Enzo had taken him for a walk, but he should’ve been back by now.
“Gio!” My voice cracked like a gunshot.
Heavy footsteps pounded down the stairs, and Giovanni barreled into the kitchen—soaking wet, towel barely clinging to his hips, water dripping onto the hardwood floor. No shoes. No shirt. Just raw, frantic energy rolling off him in waves.
“Where is she?” he demanded, eyes wild as he scanned the room. “D, where the fuck is she?! She’s scared. I can feel it.” His hands were trembling, the same terror I felt reflecting in his hazel eyes.
I was already moving toward the front door, mind racing through possibilities, each worse than the last. I yanked it open to find Niles, one of our enforcers, fist raised and ready to knock.
His eyes widened as he took in my expression. “Boss?”
“Where is she?” I demanded, my voice deadly calm despite the storm raging inside me. “Where’s Kit?”
Niles held his hands up, confusion clear on his face. “She was gonna call you—they had to rush Beretta to the vet. Fuck, man, I’m sorry. I just assumed—”
I stopped listening because something was wrong. Beretta had been fine a half hour ago. And if she was with Enzo, why was she so scared? Fear still pulsed through our bond, sharper now, making my Alpha absolutely lose his shit.
Unless...
No. It couldn’t be…
FUCK!
I turned to Gio, who was already coming to the same goddamn conclusion. “Pull the security and location feeds. Now.”
TOMMAS
I gripped the steering wheel of the Bugatti, trying to focus on the road instead of the argument I was having with Marco. The music blasted through the speakers, some EDM shit he insisted on playing every time we took his car.
“All I’m saying, Tommy, is that if you keep buying her all those books, you’re gonna run out of space to store them all. The new shelves are already full. Maybe we should get her an e-reader of some kind,” Marco said, gesturing with a spring roll he’d stolen from the bag.
This time, we’d bought triple our usual amount, wanting to make sure Kit had as many as she wanted.
“Dude, she loves books as much as I do,” I countered, taking the corner a little too fast. “We can definitely get her a Kindle so she has options, but she loves the feel and smell of a paperback in her hands. And I love seeing her happy. I can always add more shelves in another room.”
Marco was silent while he mulled that over, though that may have had to do with the spring roll he shoved in his mouth. “We could expand the library,” he suggested. “I know we just remodeled it, but we could knock down the wall between the library and the—”
A wave of panic slammed into me so hard I nearly lost control of the car.
Kit .
Pure terror flooded through our bond, stealing my breath and sending ice through my veins.
“Fuck!” I clutched the wheel, knuckles going white as I steadied the vehicle. Next to me, Marco had gone rigid, already reaching for his phone.
He was dialing before I could speak, his movements sharp and urgent. I could feel him vibrating with the same tension coursing through me, and it only got worse when she didn’t answer her cell. He immediately called Dimitri instead.
“Put me on speaker,” D snapped, low and dangerous. I hit the button as Marco held the phone between us.
“Don’t come back to the penthouse,” my brother continued, terrifyingly calm. “Enzo took her. It’s all over the security feed.”
Silence filled the car, broken only by our harsh breathing. The implications hit me like a bullet. Enzo. My best fucking friend.
That. Fucking . Traitor.
“Thank fuck for Gio’s foresight to add a tracker charm to her new bracelet. We’re tracking her location now.”
I could hear Gio cursing in the background.
“She’s in old Westin, Rocco’s territory, pinging in a warehouse near the docks,” Dimitri relayed. “We’re going after our girl.”
Damn right we were. I swung the Bugatti around, tires screeching as I headed toward the coordinates Gio texted to Marco’s phone.
Toward Kit.
Toward the bastards who’d dared to take what was ours.
“We’re on our way, D,” Marco promised as the sound of D racking a slide came through the line.
“Good. Marco, call in every fucking favor we have—I want the sheriff on the phone, I want every goddamn cop in this city locking down every exit off the east grid in case he decides to move her. Tommy—notify our FBI liaison. Now . Rocco is already on their shit list, and we could use all the fucking help we can get to take him and his family down once and for all.”
“We’re on it,” Marco snapped, already scrolling through his contacts. “They’ll know she’s missing in sixty seconds.” He hung up, dialing another contact instantly.
I grabbed my own phone, heart pounding as I scrolled to find Agent Ramirez’s number as fast as I could while keeping the car on the road. The fear in our bond was morphing into something even fucking worse— pain .
Kit was hurt.
The thought made me want to shatter something, preferably Enzo’s face.
I floored it, jaw clenched, putting the Bugatti through its paces while every cell in my body screamed one truth louder than anything else—
I was going to kill him .
GIOVANNI
Chaos reigned. I yanked on my tactical pants with one hand, strapped a shoulder holster with the other. Dimitri ripped through our weapons cache, shoving guns into every holster he wore, loading up on extra ammo, prepared to go to war.
His face was a stone mask, but I could feel the rage coming off him in waves, matching the fury boiling in my own blood.
Our new, expanded security feed had shown it all—Enzo’s casual suggestion about taking Beretta for a walk, leaving the building, rounding the corner and feeding our dog something that obviously made him sick, and then putting on the performance of a lifetime as he convinced Kit that it was a life or death situation. He’d gotten her out of the penthouse while we had our backs turned for one fucking second. Something only someone in our closest inner circle could’ve done.
I couldn’t wrap my head around it, but now wasn’t the time for processing shit. It was time for action .
I finished dressing in record time, moving on autopilot as I loaded a magazine into my Glock. My hands were steady despite the storm of rage inside me. We’d trained for this. Prepared for this.
But nothing could prepare me for the feeling of Kit’s terror pulsing through our bond.
The strength of our connection was fading by the minute, growing fainter and harder to track. I kept my eyes glued to the tracking app on my phone, staring at the pulsing little red dot that indicated Kit’s location.
We took the elevator down to the garage where our detail was assembling—loyal men, all of them, ready to follow orders without question. In record time, weapons were distributed. Bulletproof vests strapped on. Comms checked.
Dimitri threw the rest of the loaded weapons into his bag, zipped it shut, and turned toward the team.
“W'e’re making a move against Rocco—” he began, fury sharpening each word as he quickly gave them a rundown of what the fuck was happening.
A buzz interrupted him. My phone vibrated against my hip at the exact moment D’s went off. We locked eyes for a split second before checking the screens.
It was a picture.
Kit .
Her delicate face was bloody, one eye swollen, lip split. She was conscious, eyes wide with fear, tears tracking down her bruised cheeks. A gloved hand gripped her hair, yanking her head back to make sure her face caught the light, just enough to highlight the damage he’d done.
Time froze.
And then Dimitri roared.
Not a shout. Not a scream. A roar . Primal. Violent. A sound that shook the goddamn walls and reverberated in my chest.
It matched the white-hot fury ripping through me, the need to tear apart everyone who dared touch our mate.
I moved, running for our armoured SUV. “Get in the fucking car,” I barked, my voice barely controlled. D was already there, tearing the door open and sliding into the passenger seat. He barely got the door closed before I was tearing out of the garage, heading for my Omega.
The picture had been a ballsy move. A challenge. A warning. Rocco wanted us to know he had the upper hand. That he had our mate.
But using Kit to get to us? That was his last mistake. He’d just woken the devil in each of us, and we were about to rain hell down on our enemies.
I’d tear the world apart piece by piece, burn it all to the fucking ground, to save her.
I’m coming, Sweetness. Just hold on…
MARCO
The phone buzzed in my hand at the same moment that Tommy’s went off. One glance at the screen, and I slammed my fist against the dashboard hard enough to break shit.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Tommy choked out, and pushed the speedometer faster.
The car listed violently as he took a severe turn that nearly flipped us. The tires screamed against the pavement, but I couldn’t care less about the car—just that we kept ourselves on the fucking road so we could get to Kit.
My Angel.
The image on the screen had burned itself into my retinas. My Omega’s face, bloodied and bruised, eyes wide with terror. The implicit threat was clear as day.
We’d felt it through the bond before that damn picture had come through—her sharp spike of pain, her overwhelming fear.
God fuckin ’ dammit. Someone was going to pay for every drop of blood, every bruise, every tear.
“She’s so damn scared,” Tommy choked out, accelerating through a red light, narrowly missing an oncoming truck. “Fuck, I can feel it. I can’t take it, Marco.”
I gripped the door handle, knuckles bloodless, staring at the goddamn arrival time on my phone. It was still too far. Would take too long. “Four minutes out at this speed,” I reported.
Tommy nodded grimly, pushing the Bugatti faster.
I’d never been one for torture or excessive cruelty—that was more D’s specialty—but for Rocco and Enzo? For the men who had dared to take our mate, to hurt her, to terrify her? I would make an exception. I would tear them apart with my bare hands if necessary.
“Tell D we’re going nuclear,” I growled, staring at the road ahead as we raced toward Kit. “This is war.”
And it would end tonight .