Chapter 33
Damiano
I woke up with my face pressed onto the carpet on the floor of my mother’s room.
The scent of dust and her hauntingly persistent vanilla perfume scents the air.
I get up, and instantly, my head throbs from the hangover, the acidic taste of whiskey in my mouth reminding me of my drunken tirade last night.
Fuck.
I look down at my naked body and realize that sometime during the night, I had managed to strip off my mud-caked shoes and soaked clothes.
A sharp pounding at the door startles me.
“Damiano! Apri la porta!” I hear Andreas’ voice coming through the door, his voice devoid of its usual calm. In fact, he’s shouting, and that could only mean one thing.
Something has gone terribly wrong.
I groan, pushing myself up from the floor. My muscles are stiff, and my shoulder is screaming in pain from sleeping in the same position for hours on the floor. I grab my trousers, put them on, and stumble toward the door.
When I open it, I find Andreas and Lucian standing there. Andreas is looking polished as always, while Lucian looks like he’s had five shots of espresso, pacing the hallway, checking his watch every three seconds.
“Che cazzo vuoi?” I growl, asking them what they want, rubbing the sleep off my eyes. “If you’re here for a lecture, I’m not in the mood.”
“The Castigliones,” Lucian deadpans, stopping his pace to point a finger at me. “They’re throwing a party, and you, my friend, are the main course.”
I frown, not really knowing what the fuck that means.
“Flavio has been moving men since midnight. They think you’ve been keeping their heiress in the dungeons. They know, Damiano,” Andreas says, cutting through my confusion. “They know she’s alive and they’re coming for blood.”
The hangover dissipates. A cold, familiar protective instinct, the kind that only she can trigger, explodes inside my chest. My heartbeat drums in my chest, making it impossible to breathe normally.
If Don Castiglione knows, it’s only a matter of time before Flavio, his nephew, armed to the teeth and ready to bring hell with him, comes barging through the door.
The thought of those men putting their hands on her turns my vision red.
“How did they find out?” I ask.
“Can’t confirm, but I bet that Nicolo sold the information once he realized we already know who she really is,” Lucian answers.
“Cazzo!” I curse.
I push past them into the hallway, my bare feet heavy on the marble. When I reach the suite, I don’t bother knocking. I throw the doors open so hard that they slam against the wall.
“Katarina, get up. We’re—”
The words die in my throat.
The room is empty—the bed unmade, her clothes missing. For a second, I can’t breathe.
I turn back to the doorway where Andreas and Lucian are now standing. Lucian peeks over my shoulder, his eyebrows shooting up.
“Did she go out, or are we officially in a war?”
“è sparita,” I whisper.
I walk to the nightstand and spot the cellphone I gave her. The screen glows with a paused video. I press play. My own face appears, slurred and angry, spewing threats of murder from the night before.
My blood runs cold as I watch myself, every word I mutter, feeling like a physical jab to my own chest.
“Julian,” I growl, the name tasting like poison. “He fucking took her.”
Suddenly, the worry for her safety crashes into a blinding rage. That fucking rat! That bottom-feeding coward took advantage of my and her heartbreak.
He must have been so scared of me that she ran.
Now, he had dragged her out there where Flavio and possibly Nicolo are currently hunting for her.
“Lo ammazzo,” I snarl, my voice shaking with the lethal promise. I will kill him.
“Guards say they saw a Jeep leave through the service gate around midnight,” Gio appears from behind Andreas, his voice emotionless and analytical.
“They’ve had a six-hour head start, Damiano. If they were heading for the coast, they could be anywhere by now,” Andreas says.
“6 hours?” I roar, throwing the vanity chair across the room. The wood splinters. “And no one fucking noticed?! How the hell does a vehicle roll out of our gates unnoticed?!”
“Two guards at the gates were killed silently,” Gio explains, showing me a video of a man, obviously Julian, effortlessly slitting the throat of two guards who were supposed to be stationed at that gate.
“Find them!” I scream, and Gio scrambles downstairs to rally some men.
I go to my closet and get dressed. After, I press a hidden button at the back of one shelf.
The panel slides open, revealing a small armory tucked behind my suits.
I grab two handguns and a few extra magazines, tucking them into my waistband.
The adrenaline finally burns off the last of my hangover as I storm toward the stairs, ready for war.
“I’m pulling the traffic cams and drone sweeps now,” Andreas says, falling a step behind me as I storm downstairs, his fingers flying across the screen of his phone with hectic speed.
“Gio, get a team ready. If the Castigliones find them first, I want enough firepower to kill every single one of them.” I bark, heading for the garage.
“Lucian, you drive.” I throw the keys of the G-wagon to Lucian. When we’re in the car, I pull out my phone and open an app that tracks Katarina’s location.
“560 KM away,” I say, connecting my phone to the car’s screen so Lucian can follow the map. The car’s engine revs to life, and in no time, we’re speeding away from the villa.
My hands are shaking as I grip the gun, my mind flooded with images of her—terrified of me.
She must think I’m a monster. She thinks I’m the one who is going to hurt her.
What have I done?
“Damiano, breathe,” Andreas says from the backseat, calmly checking the slide on a rifle Gio provided him. “We’ll find her. Julian is smart, but he’s not like us. He’ll make a mistake soon enough.”
“He already made one,” I say, “He thought he could take her from me.”
Lucian floors it, the tires screaming, and yet the speed doesn’t feel fast enough. Gio and a few guys follow closely behind in another SUV.
The morning sun is just beginning to bleed over the horizon, casting shadows across the Sicilian hills.
The hunt has started, and God help anyone, Julian, Flavio, or the devil himself, who stands between Katarina and me.