Chapter 30
LOCHLAN
Seventeen calls.
Seventeen fucking calls, and every single one goes straight to voicemail.
I pace the penthouse like I’m losing my mind. Maybe I am. The place smells like her vanilla and citrus body wash, and knowing she’s not here, and might never be again, makes everything worse. Reaper follows me, whimpering as he stops outside the bedroom. The empty bedroom.
I never should have let her leave.
I should have followed her and figured out a way to make her listen. I was wrong to keep that secret. So fucking wrong.
“Pick up the goddamn phone, Adriana,” I mutter after dialing her number again.
But she doesn’t. All I get is her voice on the recording, calm and professional, telling me to leave a message. I’ve left six, each one more desperate than the last.
I scrape a hand down the front of my face and scroll to her assistant’s contact information. I stab the call button, and Jayne picks up on the second ring.
“Mr. Molloy?”
“Have you heard from Adriana? Is she at the office?” I say, white knuckling the phone.
“No. She doesn’t have anything on her calendar until this afternoon. I confirmed her meetings yesterday. Is everything—?”
“If she contacts you, tell her to call me. It’s urgent,” I say, cutting her off.
I hang up before she can ask questions I don’t have answers to.
I keep pacing, fisting the sides of my hair. Think. Where the hell would she go?
Her mother’s. Before she left, she said she was going to her mother’s or Luna’s. Back to the people who’ve always been there for her, unlike the husband who’s been lying to her face for weeks.
I grab my keys, stab the elevator button, and dart inside once the door opens. My temples throb as it slowly creeps down to the ground floor, images of her stricken face looping through my mind.
I jump into my car and tear out of the private lot, tires squealing on the concrete.
Gritting my teeth, I stare straight ahead, but instead of the cars in front of me, I can only see the look on her face when she realized what I’d done.
The way she flinched when I reached for her, like my touch was poison.
All because I kept my mouth shut about the night of the gala. I let the attack happen and never owned up to knowing about it afterward.
And now she’s out there somewhere, alone, believing I’m the enemy and that everything between us was a lie.
It wasn’t. It isn’t. I’m crazy about her. But she’ll never believe that now. I deceived her, and it was the one thing she asked me to never do. I violated her trust, broke her heart, and lost the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
When I finally pull into the driveway of her parents’ house, I run up the front steps and lean on the doorbell.
Luna answers the door, and the look on her face could strip paint.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” she asks.
“I’m trying to find Adriana. Is she here?”
“She doesn’t want to see you.” Luna starts to shut the door. I shove my hand against it, holding it open.
“Just tell me she’s here. Tell me she’s okay.”
“Okay?” Luna lets out a sharp, humorless laugh. “You want to talk about okay? After what you did to her?”
“Luna, I know I fucked up—”
“Fucked up?” she says, her voice rising. “You knew about the gala attack before it happened and you kept that secret from my sister after you saw my dad get shot. You kept it from all of us, knowing we might all be at risk. That’s not fucking up. That’s a complete betrayal of trust.”
Luna’s eyes harden. “You said nothing to her afterward, never even admitted you heard something was coming that night. Your scumbag father told you things that you never spoke about. And all Adriana asked you for was honesty.”
My shoulders slump, a deep sigh heaving my chest. “You’re right. And it was so fucking wrong. But I need to find her so I can make her understand how sorry I am. I never wanted to hurt her. I’d give my life for her.”
Luna just stares at me like I’m a cockroach crawling toward her. “Those are just words. They don’t mean anything. Come on, Lochlan. You’re pretty, but not dumb enough to believe that words alone will make this better.”
“Who is it?” Another voice calls out behind Luna.
Maria appears in the doorway, her face stony.
“Lochlan.” She says my name like it tastes like shit on her lips.
“Mrs. DiMicheli, please. I need to talk to Adriana—”
“She’s not here.”
My heart stutters. “What do you mean she’s not here?”
“She was here. She left over an hour ago.” She lifts an eyebrow. “Not that you deserve to know anything about her anymore. You’ve given up that right.”
My chest tightens. “Can you please tell me where she is?”
Luna and Maria glance at each other. They’re probably having some debate via mental telepathy right now about whether or not to trust me while my wife is God only knows where.
“Vincenzo called,” Maria finally says with a resigned sigh. “He mentioned something about Riccardo causing problems again and stirring up trouble with the capos. He set up a meeting to deal with it, once and for all. He needed Adriana to meet them so they could address it together.”
More bullshit from that asshat Riccardo. Like she needed to deal with that today after the hell I put her through. “Where was the meeting?”
“She didn’t say. She just said that Vincenzo arranged it, and she had to go.” Luna wrings her hands together. “I didn’t think she should go. I was afraid it wouldn’t be safe for her, but she insisted.”
My gut twists. Riccardo. That volatile piece of shit has been gunning for Adriana since day one. Jealous of her power, resentful that Francesco chose her over him.
“Has she called? Texted? Anything?”
“No.” Luna’s anger falters, worry flickering in her eyes. “We assumed she was still dealing with it.”
“Call her. Right now,” I say. Maybe she’ll answer her sister’s call.
Luna pulls out her phone and dials. Her eyebrows knit together as the seconds tick past.
“Straight to voicemail,” she says, ending the call. “It didn’t even ring.”
Shit. That means her phone is either off or dead.
“Do you have Vincenzo’s number?”
Maria squares her shoulders, moves away from the door, and comes back with her phone. She reads off the number. I punch it into mine and dial.
It rings. And rings. And rings.
But he never answers.
“Something’s wrong,” I say. “Neither of them are picking up.”
Luna twists the end of her hair. “You think they’re both in trouble?”
“I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.” My lips press together. “Somehow.”
Maria grabs my arm before I can turn away. Her grip is stronger than I expected.
“Lochlan. Look at me.”
I turn to look at her, recoiling slightly at the anger glimmering in the depths, the cold disappointment etched into her features. But underneath it all is something else. Fear.
“I don’t trust you,” she says, still holding onto me. “After the way you hurt my daughter, I may never trust you again. But right now, you’re the only one looking for her. So you find her. You bring her back. And then you answer for what you’ve done.”
“I will.”
“If anything happens to her—”
“I know. And I’m going to do everything I can to protect her and keep her safe.”
She nods and lets go. I shake out my arm. That ironclad grip cut off my circulation for a hot minute. I run to my car, my chest tight.
Vincenzo and Adriana are both unreachable. And Riccardo is with them. Cold dread spreads from my stomach to my throat.
None of this sits right. At all.
I shoot off a text to Cillian once I’m in my car.
He lets me know that he and Wolfe are at Gavin’s.
I speed down city streets, winding through traffic on my way to Gavin’s building, a converted warehouse in the North End.
I get there, park, and take the stairs three at a time to get to his floor.
The door is unlocked for me. I shove it open, my heart ready to explode out of my damn chest.
Cillian’s on the couch with his arms crossed.
Gavin’s sprawled out across from him, still banged up from the attack, the bruises on his face still a faint yellow.
Wolfe hunches over three laptops on the coffee table, fingers flying across keyboards like he’s conducting some kind of digital orchestra.
“I need you to find Adriana, Wolfe,” I rasp, still gulping down air from my impromptu sprint. “Now.”
He looks up and adjust his glasses. “Okay. Why? What happened?”
“She went to a meeting with Vincenzo over an hour ago. Someone in her organization is causing problems, her asshole cousin Riccardo. Now neither of them are answering their phones.”
“You think Riccardo did something?” Cillian asks, standing up.
“I don’t know what to think. That jealous bastard has been gunning for her since she took over. He’s been talking shit to anyone who’ll listen, saying she doesn’t deserve to lead. Maybe he finally decided to do something about it.”
“Riccardo’s an asshole, but he’s not stupid enough to move against her directly, right?” Gavin says. “Wouldn’t the capos tear him apart?”
“Maybe.” I sweep a hand through my hair. “Unless he had help.” The thought festered in my mind on the entire way here. I keep going back to the Russian sabotage, how all of it was designed to undermine her and get the capos nervous about her leading.
The room goes quiet.
“Fuck,” Cillian says. “So you think maybe…”
He doesn’t need to finish. He just meets my eyes and knows where my head is at.
Wolfe’s fingers fly over the keyboard. “Give me a minute to track her phone.”
I pace while he works. The not knowing is eating me alive. Every second that passes is another second she could be in danger, and I’m standing here useless. And fucking helpless.
“Her phone went dark forty-seven minutes ago,” Wolfe says. “Last signal was near Pier 7.”
“What about Vincenzo’s?” I read off the number.
More typing. “His phone pinged in the same area around the same time. Then it started moving south.” He pulls up another screen. “I’m tracking his SUV through traffic cams.”
My brows furrow. “How do you know anything about his SUV?”