Chapter 22
At some point, I must have drifted off to sleep again on the couch—it's way too comfortable. Because I don't ease into panic. I wake up in it. It's there the moment my eyes open, coiled tight in my chest, squeezing before I can even draw a full breath. Amauri.
The name is a pulse, a drumbeat, a scream I keep swallowing down because screaming doesn't get sons back.
Before I even have a plan, I'm up and through the penthouse, swinging the door to the antechamber open and staring into six pairs of eyes.
Six men who are built like linebackers, wearing the expressions of killers.
Normally, I'd be intimidated; today, I'm not. I'm far too furious.
"Where is he?" I demand, voice already sharp, already past polite. My eyes level on Max, the only one I know in the group. He looks up from where he's standing near the elevator door, massive and immovable, like panic is something he's trained to absorb. "Morning to you, too, ma'am."
"Don't," I snap. "Don't do that. Where is Massimo?"
He exhales slowly, like he expected this. "He's not available."
My hands curl into fists. "That's not an answer."
"You know where he went," Max says carefully.
"No, I don't." I fire back. "I want to talk to him. Now."
"Jenna—"
"No," I cut in, stepping closer. "You don't get to soften it. You don't get to buffer me. He left me here with no information, no timeline, and a whole lot of silence. I want to know where he is, what he's doing, and why no one seems to think I deserve to be told."
Max holds my gaze. I see the calculation there, the judgment of how much truth I can handle without breaking. It only makes me angrier.
"He said you'd do this," Max finally allows. "Pace. Spiral. Try to insert yourself into things that aren't safe."
"That's convenient," I reply coldly. "Did he also tell you I'd be right?"
His jaw tightens. That's answer enough. A beat passes, a beat during which we measure each other to see who folds first.
Then Max nods once. "Penthouse. Now."
He doesn't give me a choice; his massive body moves forward, and if I don't want to be overrun, I have to move with him, back into the penthouse.
He closes the door once we're inside, continuing on until we're standing in the middle of Massimo's living room with my heart in my throat and nowhere to put it.
Max holds out a phone. "We'll call him."
I snatch it. It rings once. Twice.
Then Massimo answers. "What," he sounds irritated, "is so urgent it couldn't wait?"
I don't bother with hello. "Where are you?"
Silence follows for a few seconds. Controlled. Dangerous. "Jenna?"
"Where are you? Where is my son?"
He exhales slowly, as if fighting with patience. "You have to trust me. I will get him back. And I will let you know the moment I have him."
Trust him? The words explode inside my skull.
"The last time I trusted you," I snap, "you—"
I stop myself. Bite my tongue so hard I taste blood. Not now. Now is not the time to tell him I know about the thirty thousand. About Northstar. About how close I am to believing he sold me out just like Carter did, maybe not with the same cruelty, but with the same result.
Gone.
Silent.
Paid for.
My chest aches like it's caving in.
"I need more than that," I press out instead, my voice shakes despite everything. "I need to know you're not playing a game with my son."
There's a breath on the other end of the line. Just one.
"I don't play games with blood," Massimo vows quietly. "Especially not mine."
Mine.
The word lands heavy. Complicated. Too late and too real all at once.
"You don't get to disappear again," my voice softens into something more dangerous. "You don't get to shut me out and expect me to just… wait."
"I'm not disappearing," he replies. "I'm working." Another silence follows. Thicker. Taut. Then, clipped, "Stay where you are. You're safest there."
The line goes dead. I stare at the phone, my reflection warped in the dark screen.
Max clears his throat behind me. "He'll bring him back."
I laugh once. Sharp. Broken. "They all say that."
I hand the phone back slowly. My hands are shaking now that the adrenaline has nowhere left to go.
Trust.
The word feels like a weapon someone else keeps handing me, even though every scar I have tells me exactly how dangerous it is. But Amauri doesn't have the luxury of my doubt. So I swallow it. For now. And pray that, this time, trust doesn't cost me everything.
Max clears his throat. "Let's go shopping," he suggests, looking at me like he expects those magic words will make everything better. Will make any woman jump up and down in joy. No matter the circumstances.
I turn on him, ready with something sharp and ugly—something about retail therapy not resurrecting sons or soothing panic—but the look in his eyes stops me cold.
He doesn't look impatient or mollifying; he looks like a man offering the only move he has left.
And beneath it, something else: concern.
Real. Unshowy. The kind that doesn't ask permission.
And then there is the small fact that I'm standing here, in front of him, barefoot and only wearing Massimo's shirt.
So I swallow whatever was about to come out of my mouth.
I do need clothes and shoes. I nod once.
Max doesn't say anything else. He shrugs out of his jacket and settles it around my shoulders with careful hands, like I might shatter if he moves too fast. The weight of it grounds me more than I expect.
"Come on," he invites softly.
He walks me back into the antechamber, one hand lightly at my elbow, not guiding, not pushing, just present. He nods to one of the men, who immediately calls the elevator. Two more fall in behind us. Security.
The doors slide open, and we step inside.
It's… crowded. Four of us in close quarters.
All of them tall. All of them solid. All of them the kind of men magazines build fantasies around.
This should be a girl's wet dream, alone in an elevator with three dangerous, beautiful men.
Instead, my chest tightens. Because all I can think about is Massimo. Massimo and the kiss.
God—the kiss.
The way it blindsided me. The way it reopened places in me I'd sealed away and labeled survival.
The way my body remembered him before my mind could argue.
The way it wasn't gentle or careful, but desperate, and angry, and real.
Like everything we never said collided at once.
I grip Max's jacket tighter around myself.
I thought I'd buried that part of me. Locked it away with the rest of the things I couldn't afford to want.
But one kiss—one reckless, unforgivable moment—and suddenly I'm aware of my pulse again.
Of hunger. Of longing. Of how much it still hurts.
The elevator hums as it descends. No one speaks.
The men are statues around me, eyes forward, bodies angled subtly outward like a shield.
And all I can do is stand there, surrounded by protection, feeling more exposed than ever.
Because the one man I want—the man who woke everything I thought I'd lost—is somewhere far away, walking into danger with my heart clenched in his fist.
The doors open. The noise hits me like a wall.
Sound, light, movement, all of it crashing together at once.
Laughter, too loud, too sharp. Slot machines screaming in metallic joy.
Waitresses weaving through the crowd, voices shrill as they call out drink orders—cocktails, cocktails—like a chant, like an incantation meant to keep the city alive.
For a moment, I just… stop. My body hesitates at the threshold like it doesn't know how to exist in this version of reality.
The air smells like perfume, alcohol, and electricity.
Heat and sugar and desperation wrapped in glitter.
Max is at my side instantly. Not touching, but close enough that I feel him, an anchor in the chaos.
"You okay?" he murmurs.
I nod, though I'm not sure it's true. This feels like an out-of-body experience.
I haven't been alone in Massimo's penthouse that long.
Not really. But it's been long enough to forget this, the pulse of Vegas, the way it never stops moving, never stops demanding attention.
The way it swallows people whole and spits them back out smiling.
Someone brushes past me. A shoulder bumps mine.
Before I can even react, one of the bodyguards steps in, firm hand to the man's chest, moving him aside with a warning look that needs no words.
Not gentle. Not subtle. The man is drunk; he raises his hands in apology, nods at me, mouths, sorry, and stumbles away.
The guards tighten their formation around me.
I feel curious glances directed at me. Three guards, I must be someone special.
Someone important. It hits me so hard, I almost laugh.
Not because it's funny, but because it's absurd.
I don't know what time it is. I don't even know what day it is.
Which makes me no different from every other tourist wandering this casino, untethered and disoriented, chasing something shiny without knowing why. The thought lands oddly comforting and deeply unsettling all at once.
The lights reflect off polished floors, off sequined dresses and gold watches, off faces flushed with luck or loss. People cheer at tables. Others stare blankly at screens, feeding machines that promise everything and deliver nothing. Life goes on. Here.
Even when mine feels like it's paused mid-breath.
I feel Max's presence next to me. Warm, safe. Reminding me that I'm not alone, even if the man I want to hear from is thousands of miles away, somewhere between danger and silence.