Chapter 25 - Stefano
In my excitement to have Darya back home with me, I can’t help watching the clock.
She should be here any moment now. It’s been just over thirty minutes since we ended our call.
But another ten, then fifteen minutes rolls past. I begin to pace.
Then another thirty minutes disappears, and when it turns into an hour past when she should have arrived, I start to feel seriously worried.
She would have told me if she was going to stop somewhere, surely.
Especially after the phone call we just had.
I grab my phone and dial her number. It rings and rings with no answer.
I try it again. Same result. I am pacing more and more.
With panic building, I rush through to the security room in my house and grab Daniel.
“Locate the car. Now,” I snap.
He doesn’t waste time asking me why or what is happening—he just starts typing, brings up the details of that car and opens the tracking app.
I stare at the screen with the knot in my stomach growing bigger by the second.
“She’s at a park, sir.” He points to her location on the map.
My parents' gravesite. So that is the park she went to—but why is the car still there when she should have left ages ago?
Nothing about this is good.
“Get the car, we are leaving now.”
Daniel jumps into action. “I’ll meet you round front, sir.”
I rush to grab my things, and by the time I am in front of the house, Daniel is already there with another member of our security team in the back.
Daniel has the other car’s location set into the GPS in case it starts moving, and he doesn’t mess around with sticking to the speed limit when he hits the road headed towards the park.
I keep clenching and unclenching my fists. Something feels so wrong about this.
A light sheen of sweat is glittering on my face the more I think about what could be happening.
Daniel pulls off the main road and into the parking lot, right next to my other car.
“Get out, search the area, find her,” I demand as we all climb out of the car and start moving in different directions.
I start walking straight towards my parents' grave, which is where I know she would have been.
One the way there, my eyes dart from tree to tree, from dark corners to open spaces.
The sun is setting soon, and I don’t like this one bit. I feel sick to my stomach with worry.
My heart sinks to the pit of my stomach when I see her handbag lying on the pathway.
I grab it and open it. Her phone is in here. Everything is in here. She dropped this and ran.
Looking at the dirt around where she dropped it, I can see signs of her making a run for it. She was obviously walking back to her car, and then turned to run in the opposite direction.
This is worse than I thought. This is bad.
I pull my phone out of my pocket, because for this, I need all the help I can get.
I don’t even hesitate to make this call. Not this time.
It rings against my ear as I follow her long, running strides on the ground.
“Maxim. I need you to get to the location I just sent you. Now. Bring everyone.”
“What’s going on?”
“Darya is missing.”
“What the fuck?” he screams in horror. “I’ll be there now.”
“Bring the others.”
“I will.”
He hangs up and I continue to follow the path of her footprints up until I find the area where a struggle obviously took place.
My heart is still in the pit of my stomach as I start searching around for more clues—anything at all.
It is growing much darker when her brothers arrive.
Paval is furious, and Kiril practically launches an attack on me as soon as he sees me.
Ivan has his gun drawn and looks just about ready to shoot someone.
“Where the fuck is she?” Kiril screams into my face.
“I don’t know,” I scream back, all of the panic in my body coming out at once.
“What the fuck do you mean, you don’t know?” Kiril shoves me, hard, and I stagger backwards.
Maxim comes running over and stands in between us. “This is not helping anything. Calm the fuck down, Kiril,” he snaps angrily.
I can’t seem to catch my breath as the panic grows wilder by the second. Maxim turns towards me. “Stefano, tell us everything you know.”
“She was here. She called me. She was coming home. I told her I was in love with her. She was happy. I waited. She didn’t answer. I didn’t—" My throat begins to close, and I can’t get air into my lungs.
“Hang on, man. Hang on. Breathe. For fuck's sake, he’s having a panic attack.”
Maxim grabs my shoulders and forces me to look at him. “Stefano. Look at me man. Breathe. I know you love her, okay? We are going to find her.”
I swallow hard. I don’t even care what they think about me at this point. I just want Darya back.
“Please man, please, I need her back with me.”
Kiril paces up and down. “We love her too, Stef. Sorry I got so aggressive. Tell us what you know.” His voice is still thick and tense, but it is no longer aimed at me.
“Someone’s been messing with my warehouse shipments—it might have something to do with that.”
“Marco Colombo?” Maxim asks.
“No, someone else. I don’t think it’s him.”
“There’s tire tracks here, guys,” Ivan calls from some ways off.
Everyone turns to jog towards him.
“These are rare tires. There are only a few cars that can handle these. Let me make a call quick.”
I stare at Maxim in disbelief. “He can see what kind of tires they are just by looking at the dirt?”
“He has a thing for cars.”
“And then what? He can figure out what car it was that took her?” It seems impossibly too good to be true.
“Yeah, chances are pretty high that he can narrow it down to at least two or three cars. That will give us a place to start looking.”
“I want to kill whoever did this,” I snarl with my fists clenched at my sides.
“We all do. There is no chance that they are getting away with this. No one messes with our sister and lives to tell the tale.”
Kiril, Maxim, Paval and I stand impatiently waiting for Ivan to finish on the phone.
Finally, after an eternity, he turns towards us.
“There are two cars in the area that fit the description. One of them belongs to an old man who runs a chicken farm. The other to a guy who works at the docks. I am going to say we try the docks first.”
“Let’s go.”
I start running back to my car, along with her brothers.
In no time at all, our convoy drives towards the docks.
Maxim is sitting in my passenger seat and my security guys are in the back.
Maxim drove here with Paval, but decided to join me in my car, and I am really grateful for this because, honestly, I feel like I might lose my mind right now, and his presence it somehow helping me stay focused.
If they have hurt her, there is no telling what I am going to do. I can’t promise I won’t rip someone to shreds. I am gripping the wheel so tightly my knuckles are glowing white.
Maxim glances towards me.
“We’ll find her, man. We’ll get her back.”
I nod tensely. “Thank you for coming out, Max. Seriously. I really appreciate it.”
“Are you kidding? This is a family matter. You are a brother to us now. Of course, we would all come out to help you—with anything, man. Including that shit with Marco Colombo. You should have called me. I don’t know why you didn’t.”
I shrug. “Because I already owe you guys so much. I just didn’t want to make the debt bigger.”
“What do you mean? What debt? You don’t owe us anything.”
“You know—"
“You don’t owe us anything, Stef. I guess Darya was right. She said you never had family like we had when you were growing up and you don’t know how it works. Well, let me tell you how it works. We are here for you, for anything, any time. The same way that when we call, we know that you will be there for us. You have a support system now, Stef.”
I swallow hard, fighting the emotions that are coursing through me.
“Thank you,” I say through clenched teeth, because I don’t want to let him know how affected I am by his reassurance.
“No need, man. This is what brothers do for each other, okay? Just call us.”
I nod, pressing my foot harder against the accelerator to keep up with Paval, who is leading the convoy.