CHAPTER TEN
Luca
Pieces of the Puzzle
Deangelo walked into my office and dropped a file on my desk.
"What's this?" I asked.
"Everything I could find on Liana Abbatelli."
I opened the file and started reading.
Giuliana Marie Abbatelli. Twenty-three years old. Born in Chicago, moved to the city two years ago. No family—parents died in a car accident when she was nineteen, no siblings.
She'd been working as a waitress at a diner called Rosie's on the east side. Good employee, well-liked, no trouble.
No criminal record. No debts. No obvious enemies.
"So why her?" I said, more to myself than to Deangelo.
"That's the question."
I kept reading. There wasn't much else. She'd lived in a small apartment, kept to herself, didn't have many friends.
A quiet life. An ordinary life.
Until someone had destroyed it.
"I talked to her boss at the diner," Deangelo said. "She said Liana was supposed to work the night she disappeared. She never showed up. They tried calling her, but her phone went straight to voicemail."
"So they grabbed her before she got to work."
"Looks like it."
I closed the file, frustration burning in my chest. "This doesn't tell me who did it. Or why."
"No. But it's a start."
"It's not enough."
Deangelo leaned against the desk. "She's remembering more, right? Maybe she'll remember something that helps."
"Maybe."
But I didn't want to push her. Didn't want to force her to relive her trauma just to get answers.
I wanted to protect her. Not hurt her more.
"There's something else," Deangelo said.
"What?"
"One of our guys heard something. Rumor on the street about a group running a trafficking ring. Young women, mostly. They grab them, break them, sell them."
My blood went cold. "You think that's what happened to Liana?"
"I don't know. But the timing fits. And the MO—grabbing her off the street, the violence—it matches."
"If that's true, then she wasn't the target. She was just... convenient."
"Yeah."
The thought made me sick. That Liana had been hurt, brutalized, left to die, not because of anything she'd done, but because she'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Find them," I said. "I don't care what it takes. Find them."
"I'm on it."
He left, and I sat there, staring at Liana's file.
She deserved better than this. Deserved a life that wasn't defined by what had been done to her.
And I was going to make sure she got it.