47. Liana
FORTY-SEVEN
LIANA
Two Months Later
A lazy, warm breeze pushed the curtain through the open hotel window while the sound of soft waves washing off the shoreline filled the room.
I looked at the man sleeping next to me, soft snores coming out of my husband’s mouth while soft morning light reflected against his dark hair.
I’d never dreamt of finding love or any semblance of happiness. The trauma of years under my first husband and then Perez would always be there, manifesting itself in different ways throughout our lives, but Giovanni accepted it. He accepted me as I was.
He’d given me a home, purpose, and became my anchor. But most importantly, he loved me and the two little human beings I birthed even if we hadn’t met them yet, along with my Mara, who were all extensions of me. Unlike his mother, he wasn’t starved for power. He’d gladly give it all up, only to remain with me, and that… that spoke volumes in my love language. And then there was the fact that he was doing everything in his power to get my babies back to me.
Twins. Gosh, it was still hard to wrap my head around that fact. I was a mother to a boy and a girl somewhere out there. Were they scared? Did someone take pity on them and protect them from this cruel world?
I hoped so.
At that moment, our phones sounded with a soft ping . It was time.
The Albanian coast was breathtaking, the crystal blue waters some of the most beautiful I’d seen in my lifetime. But my worried mind couldn’t appreciate the beauty. The only thing I wanted and needed was to get to my children and get them to the safety of our home.
The past two months had been a journey of ups and downs, dead-end leads and clues that had ultimately led us here.
Vlora, Albania.
An old city founded in the sixth century and situated in a bay where the Ionian Sea merged with the Adriatic. A city that was on nobody’s radar, yet when we looked deeper into it, there were so many organizations working in the shadows. But above them all, there was a single powerhouse that hid the most powerful men—or women—of the criminal world.
And somehow, my son and daughter were connected to it.
Dropping a kiss on his tattooed hand, I hummed, “Wake up, sleepyhead.”
“Hmmm.” His voice was roughened from sleep as he blinked his green eyes, alert entering them. “Any news?”
“Something just came in,” I said, sliding out of bed and rushing to our phones that laid on the hotel table.
Giovanni leaned back on his elbows, watching me as I slid the message open. I grabbed his phone and padded back to him, sliding into bed as I handed his cell to him.
He read his text, then mine.
“You’re not going alone.”
It didn’t surprise me. Giovanni was nothing if not predictable, but it was what I loved about him.
“We have forty-eight hours. We should stake out the meeting place and surrounding area. I’ll call Lou. She and Kingston could?—”
He pushed me onto my back, swallowing my next words with a deep kiss. It wasn’t until I was panting underneath him that he murmured against my lips, “They’re already here.”
“God, I love you,” I rasped.
“I love you more.”
And then he showed me exactly how much.