Chapter 23
CHAPTER 23
Giovanni
A fter dropping Aurora off, I go back to my house and end up on my balcony with a cigar. I can’t remember the last time I smoked a cigar, but tonight calls for it. There’s a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I’m known to have very good instincts, and right now, they’re telling me that something is about to go wrong.
I press the butt of my cigar against the iron railing and toss it away jerkily, then head in to grab my phone to call Carlos.
Just as I pick up my phone, he calls me, and my heart skips a beat.
“Is she okay?” I growl into the phone.
“She just took a cab out of the house. I have no idea where she’s going. I’m following her right now.”
“Where are the others?”
“They aren’t on protection detail shift tonight.”
I hang up with a curse and call Aurora. The call immediately goes to voicemail, so I try again, and the same thing happens.
“Pick up your damn call,” I grit into my phone.
I call Carlos back, and he picks up on the first ring. “Where the hell are you? Send your coordinates.”
“Okay, boss, I—” All of a sudden, crackling static fills the phone, and I can’t hear him anymore.
“Carlos, Carlos! Fuck!” I shout, and I hear the plastic of the phone crack under my tight grip.
I grab my jacket and gun and rush out of the house, dialing Fiore at the same time.
“Boss,” Fiore greets.
“Find out Carlos’s location. I want him located before I drive out of my driveway,” I bark into the phone and hang up. I have a tracker on most of my men in case they are ever taken by the enemy.
My mistake was not putting one on Aurora as soon as I could. In my defense, I didn’t know she would not stay put at home, where she was safe and protected, but I should have known better. This is Aurora we are speaking of.
Where the hell was she going anyway? Who was she going to meet?
When I find her, I am going to wring her freaking neck.
As soon as I slip behind the wheels of my car, my phone lights up with a call.
“I hope you have good news for me,” I begin.
“Carlos’s last location was on a private road leading to an unoccupied estate. I’m sending you coordinates right now,” Fiore replies. “I’m heading there right now with backup too.”
“Good,” I tell him. “Also, call our contacts in Bologna about Il Sguardo Nero.”
“You think this has something to do with him?”
“Aurora’s been taken. I can feel it. And every second we waste is more seconds she could be getting hurt.”
“On it, boss,” he says, then hangs up.
The drive to Carlos’s location is full of mind-numbing fear. I don’t think I’ve ever been this afraid in my life. My hands are unsteady on the wheel, and I drive like a madman, almost killing my own damn self.
Carlos is only half conscious when we find him a few feet away from his car.
“Boss, I’m sorry—” he croaks.
“He’s been shot,” Fiore states the obvious. “It doesn’t look like they hit anything serious, but he’s bleeding out. And fast.”
Fiore and another guy lay him out on the back seat of the car and begin to cut away the shirt sticking to his bloodied body.
“They came out of nowhere as if they knew to expect me,” Carlos groaned weakly. “I don’t know how they lured Miss Vitale out here, but they’re long gone now.”
I suspected as much.
While they work on keeping Carlos’s condition stable, I call Giordano.
“Hello?” a strange voice says.
My eyebrows twitch in confusion. “Put Giordano on the phone.”
“Giordano can’t come to the phone now,” the man replies in a mild tone. “He’s had a sudden health complication that’s put him on bed rest for now and for a while.”
Concern for him replaces some of my fears about Aurora. “Is he alright? What happened?”
“Giordano is an old man, and he’s lived a hard life,” the man says. “That’s all I can say for now. Would you like to leave a message though?”
“It’s fine. He should have his rest.”
I hang up, wondering how I’m going to find a man who seems to be a ghost. I hate the helplessness I feel right now. I promised to protect Aurora, and I’m doing a dismal job at it.
Right as I’m about to throw in the towel and call Leo to admit to having lost his sister, Fiore rushes to me, holding his phone out.
“Boss, for you.”
I take the phone and press it to my ear. “Speak.”
“I have information about Il Sguardo Nero and his crawlers. Meet me at Estes in an hour. Sit at the bar, and I’ll find you.” Then, the line goes dead.
In all my search so far, nobody has admitted to even knowing the name Il Sguardo Nero or those that have suddenly disappeared into thin air, so this is by far the biggest lead we have ever gotten.
“Take care of Carlos, and then find the cab driver who brought Aurora here. He may have seen something,” I order Fiore. “I’m going to go meet this guy.”
“Is it safe, boss? It could be a trap,” Fiore says with a frown.
“It’s a public bar. The worst he’s going to do is not show up,” I assure him before going back to my car.
Estes is a local sports bar that serves watered-down beers to the locals. There’s a bar fight every other day, and it smells like cheap cigarettes and whiskey.
As I make my way to the bar in the overcrowded room, several bodies bump into me, increasing my annoyance greatly.
“Sorry, signor,” somebody apologizes as they bump into me.
I look to the side and see Estefan Guerra staring at me in surprise.
“Giovanni, I must say it’s a surprise to see you around these parts,” he says curiously.
“And I didn’t know you were a fan of rowdy sports bars,” I point out.
He laughs and holds out his hand. “Let’s agree we never saw each other here then.”
“Good plan.” I hold out my hand to shake his, and his eyes land on my mother’s chaplet.
“I’ve not been able to stop thinking of this chaplet,” he informs me. “I had them specially made for Ysabel, and this one’s far too identical.”
My gaze sharpens, and I gasp. “Ysabel?”
He nods. “That was her name. The woman I loved. Ysabel King.”
“It can’t be,” I say in shock. Blood rushes to my head immediately, and I feel dizzy. I haven’t heard that name in years—my mother’s name.
“You knew my mother?” I question.
His eyes become wide as saucers. “Sh—she’s your mother? It can’t be. She—” he trails off. “I never found you. I thought you died all those years ago.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I snap. I’m already too over my head to take more cryptics.
“She sent me to find you, but you were gone. The house was locked up, and the windows boarded. What happened?”
“What do you mean she sent you to find me? She’s the one who walked away from me. She abandoned me,” I hiss angrily.
“What?” he gasps, looking confounded. “Why the hell will she do that? She loved you.”
I snort. “Don’t give me that bullshit.”
“It’s not bullshit. I have endless detailed letters describing you doing the smallest, silliest things, like that one time you tied your shoelace with your left hand.”
I still remember that day. It had taken me so long, but it was worth it to see Mama whooping and cheering like we’d won the lottery.
“Then what happened?” I demand. Everything I’ve ever known to be true is being redefined, and I don’t know how to feel about it.
“She was threatened into leaving. It was a matter of wrong place, wrong time. She saw something she never should have, and a dangerous man wanted to make sure his secret would stay a secret. She was given a choice between staying and watching as you were dismembered or running and never coming back,” Estefan muttered, sorrow lining his eyes. At that moment, he looks old. Far older than his years.
“She…she should have told me,” I murmur.
“By the time her letter got to me, I couldn’t find you. She wanted me to bring you away from the city, and then we could become the family I’d always wanted.” He shakes his head defeatedly. “But those monsters aren’t ever content,” he says, his voice coming out hard. “They went after her and butchered her.”
If this is true, then it changes everything. I look over to the bar and check my watch. My informant should be here already.
“Can I reach you later?” I ask.
“Anything for Ysabel’s son,” he replies.
I hurry to the bar and take a seat, but after over twenty minutes, I come to the conclusion that, just like the others, my latest informant is another dead end.
I don’t want to think about everything I’ve just learned from Estefan, but it replays in my head like pieces of a puzzle I’ve never had complete parts to.
A lot of things make more sense to me now, but still, I can’t take Estefan’s words as rock-solid facts until I’ve spoken to Giordano. He’s the one who informed me that my mother was spotted in another city with someone else.
For the longest time, I hated my mother, and I don’t know what to think now that I know she was never the villain.
I jump into my car, my head spinning in different directions. The very foundation of my existence has been shaken, and I don’t fucking like it.
I know I should wait until tomorrow to pay Giordano a visit, but my body is buzzing with so much energy, and I need to figure out the real story. I’m tired of being in the dark.
Giordano’s gate is already open with a car pulling out of it when I get there. It’s the only reason I’m able to see him laughing boisterously in the courtyard. I leave my car outside and storm inside, surprised.
His eyes widen in shock for just a second when he sees me, and it’s enough for me to take note of it.
“Hello, son,” he says in the placid voice I’m used to.
The man he was standing with turns around and scurries off.
Something cold tingles in my spine. What the hell is going on here? Just a while ago, I was told Giordano is on bed rest because of health issues. It sounded really serious too.
The man standing before me now doesn’t look like both him and health issues can exist in the same sentence.
“They’ve taken Aurora,” I growl, deciding to leave the matter that Estefan and I discussed for another time. I was getting the feeling that the less Giordano knew I knew, the better for me. “I don’t know how they succeeded in luring her out of the house, but she’s gone.”
His expression twists into anger. “They’ve gone a step too far,” he snaps. “Do you have any leads yet?”
I shake my head in the negative.
“I’ll call someone to look into it at once,” he says, dropping his hand down on my shoulder. “We’ll find her.”
“It’s just one dead end after another,” I mutter brokenly. “I have no idea where to start. She’s disappeared as easily as Il Sguardo Nero.”
“Don’t panic, son,” he says firmly. “There’s no such thing as a ghost. Someone has to know something. Have you located the cab she used tonight? Or the driver?”
At his words, ice coats my blood, and everything inside me goes very still.
“Not yet, but we will,” I say. “I’m not going to stop until I find her.”
“As you should,” he responds and nods.
“If you hear anything, Giordano, inform me. Anything at all,” I tell him.
“Of course. I’ll be searching with my own hand,” Giordano says with a smile.
“Thank you, father,” I say. I’ve not called him father in years, but I see the pleasure that lights up in his eyes when I do.
I turn and walk back to my car, and the whole time, I reevaluate every interaction I’ve ever had with Giordano.
I didn’t tell him Aurora had taken a cab out, and the only way he can know that is if he had a hand in Aurora’s disappearance, which leads me to suspect he’s been in cohorts with Il Sguardo Nero this whole time.
He’s been the one singlehandedly derailing my search for the man. I’ve been giving him valuable information about my search, and he’s been using it to go behind my back and thwart me. It all makes sense now why the enemy always seems to be one step ahead of me.
My phone rings in my pocket, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“Speak,” I bark into my phone.
“We’ve caught the pimp. The one Aurora met the first night. We have him,” Fiore’s voice says over the phone.
My mouth pulls up into a smile at the thought of breaking the rat for information. “Good. I’m on my way.”
When I’m done with him, he’s going to be singing like a canary, and he’s going to give me everything I want and need to take down my enemies once and for all.
Just then, a sudden thought occurs to me. What else has Giordano lied about? He lied about my mother, lied about being ill, and is working for or with a diabolical asshole.
Who even is Giacob Giordano, and have I ever known the real him?