67. -66-
Dorian
Talking kept me functional. It didn’t calm me down. It didn’t silence the demon clawing at the inside of my skull. But every answer Zyon gave, and every question Lucas asked, kept my mind occupied long enough to stop imagining Nina bleeding somewhere I couldn’t reach.
I’d spent weeks pretending she wasn’t my weakness.
That if someone pointed a gun at her head, I’d remain the rational man my brothers expected.
Tonight proved how spectacularly wrong I’d been.
I was ready to tear the city apart until I found her.
Whoever had taken my wife needed to put their affairs in order and pray for a quick death. Because when I found them…
“Everything still points at Lorenzo and Sonny,” Lucas said at least the tenth time in the last five minutes, cutting the thread of the murderous scenarios popping up in my head. “That arranged marriage nonsense is real. They desperately tried to find her.”
“Lucas,” Zyon sighed, his patience running thin. “Lorenzo left yesterday for Colombia to cut a drug deal. Without it, he’s out of money.”
“And Sonny is playing a poker tournament in Jersey,” I added. “It’s on TV.”
Lucas’s unusually green eyes darted between us with uncertainty, but whatever he was about to say, a sharp notification echoing through the room interrupted him.
“Someone sent something,” he muttered, fingers flying across the keyboard. “Traffic camera… no, private security feed.”
Every muscle in my body locked.
“Open it,” Zyon ordered.
Lucas didn’t waste another second, and grainy footage filled the largest monitor. Rain distorted the image, streaking across the lens in shimmering lines, and my Jaguar entered the frame.
“That’s her,” I whispered before I could stop myself. The car drove normally for another few seconds before three black SUVs appeared as if they’d been waiting for exactly that moment.
One accelerated from behind. One slid out from a side road. The third crossed both lanes in front of her. My jaw clenched so hard that pain shot into my temples.
“She never had a chance,” I breathed, my palms clenching into fists.
The Jaguar braked violently. Even through the poor quality, I recognized Nina’s driving. She tried to reverse the instant the road ahead closed.
The third SUV blocked her escape before she’d moved more than a few feet, and six men climbed out.
“She’ll fight,” I claimed with unshakable confidence.
“What?” Lucas glanced over his shoulder.
“Look.” I pointed at the screen. “She’ll fight.”
The footage played in silence as we watched Nina fight exactly the way I knew she would. She made them bleed. She made them earn every inch. But numbers always won.
They pulled a hood over her head and dragged her into the SUV. The taillights vanished into the storm. And just like that, she was gone.
I stared at the empty stretch of asphalt where she’d disappeared.
“They knew exactly where she’d be,” Zyon said, frowning at the screen.
“As if they—” Lucas’s eyes widened with realization as he glanced at my brother.
“Were watching her the whole time,” Zyon finished, moving behind Lucas. “Can you put together her entire drive from Greenwich to you, and then until they caught her?” He frowned. “What about trying to find where they took her?”
“I can try that,” Lucas agreed hesitantly, tapping ferociously on his purple keyboard. “But there aren’t enough cameras. I need to hack private—”
“Do it!” I snapped, tired of explanations. I needed fucking results. “Here’s the phone to Malin’s security team.” I slid the unlocked phone to him. “They’ll help. I need to go out.”
“Where?” Zyon asked, following me outside. We’d spent almost two hours going through options. I had to do something.
“Not sure.” I threw my arms up helplessly. “Everywhere. Her friends. Her apartment. Her father’s house!”
“Lorenzo’s men won’t be happy to see you,” Zyon preached, but didn’t stop me.
I checked the magazine of my gun.
“That’s unfortunate for them.”
The list of people who could know something useful was surprisingly short.
Lucas said Nina didn’t have many friends because her grandfather was paranoid and didn’t want her to maintain relationships with people outside her world.
The problem was that the people around her never truly accepted her.
She was Lorenzo’s out-of-wedlock child who ended the unhappy marriage by simply existing.
“Who’s next?” Zyon asked, stretching his arms. The rain stopped pouring, but the quiet rage blossomed into massive proportions inside me with every pointless visit.
“No one,” I answered, glaring at the text Lucas sent me.
“We visited all her friends, her aunt, and her father’s mansion.
” I locked the phone and hid it in my jacket.
“It’s been eight hours.” I sat on the hood of Zyon’s car, running a hand over my face.
“No ransom. No threats. Just radio silence.” I looked at my brother, my heart pounding in my ears. “Something is seriously wrong here.”
Zyon’s frown deepened as he sat beside me.
“No one outside the family knows you’re married,” he pointed out, playing with his phone.
“Lorenzo may have received a disturbing call, but we can’t ask because…
” He slammed the car’s hood. “But you’re right.
Something is wrong.” He looked at me worriedly.
“You’re quiet, keeping your composure, but I know you. You’ll snap at any second now.”
Correct. I was barely holding myself together. Every answer that led nowhere compressed the pressure inside me. One moment, I wanted to tear Manhattan apart with my bare hands. The next, I could barely breathe.
“I’m good,” I said through gritted teeth, unable to stay still any longer. “Let’s visit the Carliles. They might know something about the disappearance of their future daughter-in-law.”
“Okay,” Zyon sighed, and slipped behind the steering wheel.
He was with me only to keep me in check.
Usually, he sat behind the desk in his office until his men did the job.
Only then did he go out to restore order.
But today, he acted differently. He was Malin.
Quiet, composed, perfectly in control, crossing the streets like a ghost. It wasn’t his default setting.
It wasn’t the environment where the ruthless businessman shone. Yet he stayed. With me.
“Thank you,” I mumbled, blinking rapidly to chase away the pressure building behind my eyes. My mood swings were terrible. One second, my demon screamed to murder everyone, and the next, we wept like babies.
Fucking hell, I was a mess without her.
“For what?” Zyon raised a surprised brow and started the car.
“For this.” I pointed around us.
“You’d do the same for me.” He squeezed my shoulder. “And we’re—”
His speech was cut off by a loud ringing from his phone through the Bluetooth speaker.
“Yes, Ivan?” he answered, scowling at the huge screen in the middle.
“Hey, boss,” Ivan said in his usual bored voice, thick with a Russian accent. “You home?”
My teeth clenched. The guy didn’t work for us regularly, but he was loyal as fuck. The only problem was that he only called when he had bad or worse news.
“No,” Zyon replied. “I’m in the middle of an emergency.”
“Thought so.” The sound of a blowing came through the speaker, and we exchanged looks.
“Can you elaborate?” I asked impatiently. He probably didn’t notice that someone else spoke because he casually continued.
“Dino Monteverde,” Ivan said, and Zyon hit the brakes so hard I almost crashed my skull against the dashboard.
“What did you fucking say?” he snarled, his dark eyes glowing with anger.
“You heard, boss.” The coughing on the other side gave me a moment to digest his words. “Dino was at my coffee shop this morning. Paid for a double espresso and a bagel. Then got into a fancy car that was waiting for him.”
“Tell me you followed him,” I begged the heavens for good news in this horror story.
“Yes, boss,” Ivan said proudly. “But he disappeared as always.” He coughed again. “On the same spot, I mean.”
“We’re watching that house, Ivan. The satellite footage shows nothing,” Zyon objected. “No one has entered the Valentino estate in months.”
“I know what I saw, boss.” His resoluteness was palpable. “I followed that guy for you for years. He’s back.”
Zyon ended the call with an unreadable expression, but he was unusually pale.
Dino Monteverde was the guy who planted a bomb in the ballroom in Vortex a year ago, attempting to kill Zyon.
He was the man who shot him outside the police station.
The fucker was the best hitman in the States, and he worked exclusively for the Valentino family.
After Giovanni’s fall, he disappeared, but if he was back…
“Let’s not jump to conclusions.” Zyon tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, his chest heaving.
“No?” I raised a mocking brow. “The arranged marriage, the debt, my missing wife, and our mortal enemy. Coincidence?”
Zyon didn’t have a chance to answer because his phone rang again.
“Speak, Lucas,” he said, rubbing his tired eyes.
“I found her,” he yelled. “You won’t believe it.”
He rambled about his finding, something about the cameras, blind spots, timelines, and routes, but I only heard two isolated sentences:
He had found her.
The Valentino estate.